St. George, Utah – United Today, Stronger Tomorrow
I grew up in small town, Grantsville, in Northern Utah. I’ve had a blessed life being able to live in several places around Utah from Logan to Provo to Cedar City. When I retired, my wife and I with our daughter decided to settle down in St. George. I worked as a clinical social worker and mostly worked in rural areas. Living and working in smaller towns like Cedar City, I’ve witnessed first-hand the struggles that many of our families face not having access to good public transportation.
In St. George, which is a growing city of about 80,000, we have a bus system called SunTran. The unfortunate thing is that it only covers about half of the city. There are no busses serving areas of town south of the Virgin River. This results in a system that does not provide transit services for tens of thousands of residents. Needless to report, the system needs improvement!
Having a limited amount of public transit for our community truly impacts my family. I have a daughter who has Asperger’s Syndrome. She has the skills of active daily living which allow her to live on her own, with support, but she reads on a minimal level and her mathematics too is minimal. She desires to live an independent life and to function independently. We’ve always encouraged her to be independent and experience everything that life has to offer as an adult.
The biggest struggle she faces though is being able to get around town. Her residence is about two and one-half miles away from the nearest bus stop. To qualify for SunTran paratransit, a person needs to live within three quarters of a mile from an active bus stop (per SunTran policy). I submitted to SunTran a request to see if there was any way possible for them to adjust the minimum mileage requirement to the nearest bus stop. She and I were denied. The manager of SunTran said paratransit is complicated and challenging the existing policy is not possible. The understanding is they simply don’t have the funding to be able and to allow my daughter to qualify for paratransit.
This is not only a big issue for my daughter, but the apartment complex where my daughter lives which has about two dozen buildings with eight units each. Because it’s considered public housing and has a significant number of Section 8 tenants, I’m certain there are several families that are either disabled or don’t have enough funds to own a car. That means several people I’m sure are just stuck at home. This is just one example. Certainly, many others south of the Virgin River desperately need bus and paratransit service.
The lack of public transportation has had a huge impact on our family. It’s genuinely tied me and my wife down. If my wife and I need to leave town, it is difficult because we must be available to drive my daughter to work, to appointments, and to the grocery store. When we do leave town, we always attempt to arrange rides for her, but if that plan falls apart, we have no other choice but to come right back to town. The other thing that’s hard for my daughter is that she doesn’t get to visit friends or get to recreate.
A couple of months ago. I saw a notice from United Today, Stronger Tomorrow’s ‘Transit for the 435’ campaign on my Facebook Page. I decided to join their group and attend meetings because I genuinely want to see our community’s transit system improved. Transit for the 435’s goal is to work locally and statewide to increase awareness of transit issues that our communities face and push for more funding to expand transit service. We desperately need more reliable and frequent transit service.
We also truly want to make sure that the city takes transit into account now and when more development occurs. In the next ten years, the south side of St. George, which has no or highly limited transit, is expected to grow by another 8,000 to 10,000 people. Utah Tech University right now is expanding their campus on the south side of town. It’ll be a real hassle for all those students if we don’t figure out how to develop expanded bus service.
It’s crucial that Congress commits more money for transit operations. Expanding public transit can be a hefty sum for small cities, like St. George, to address with limited budgets. That’s why we need federal investment. Now is the time to pass legislation like the Stronger Communities Through Better Transit Act which would genuinely help our communities to develop the public transit systems we need and deserve.