I get a kick out of UTA (that’s the Utah Transit Authority for you out-of-towners). After observing their actions on a more-or-less daily basis for just over a year — I’ve been riding Salt Lake’s light-rail system to work throughout that time — I can only conclude that some evil genius has used his psychotronic disassociation ray to reverse the polarity of the organization’s institutional brain, so that every decision it makes is exactly the opposite of what it ought to be. Case in point: all summer long, the trains have been running with four cars during the morning rush hour, and they’ve been far below capacity. Plenty of seating for all the downtown cubicle-monkeys like myself. Now, today, classes are back in session at the University of Utah and a whole bunch of new riders are using this nifty light-rail system to get to campus… and for some reason the trains have dropped one car. Which means all the unwashed masses were cozier than flakes of dolphin-free tuna in light oil this morning.
So, let’s review: summertime, fewer riders, lots of cars; schooltime, more riders, fewer cars. Can anyone explain the logic process here? Anyone? Anyone at all? Yeah, that’s what I thought…
I got nothin’.
Its really quite simple and the only reason for most all stupid decisions–money. The U gets the big group discount. To make up for the loss of money per rider, UTA reduces the number of cars–it must take 10 minutes to hook up all four in the morning. They also know that Utah students are cheap but have a low tolerance for inconvenience. They know that thousands will show up the first week. If UTA gives them super crowded, late trains, 98% of the kiddies will not ride it again resulting in a huge net profit per riding student. If you listen close you can hear them now, “Buaahhh, hhhaaa, hhhaaa!”
That’s so evil and cynical that I think you just may be right. Slimebags…
On the positive side, if your theory is correct, everything should be back to normal next week. 😉