We often hear assumptions that college professors are elitists who live in (and teach in) ivory towers far removed from the lives and views of the average everyday citizen. I usually dismiss such claims, figuring that too many modern-day conservatives are antagonistic to higher education.

But in some cases, they are right, as demonstrated recently when a Weber State University professor wrote an op-ed in a Salt Lake newspaper questioning the need for road construction and blasting UDOT for building a highway expansion into Davis County.

Let’s get to the heart of what the professor wrote: “Future traffic density modeling seems to omit important trends. The idea that most people need to travel to work, school, shopping, and recreation alone in their personal automobile is outdated.” 

Good grief, the guy must live in a Google cloud, not in a real neighborhood!

Sorry, Mr. Professor, but most people need to travel to work. The vast majority of businesses still require their employees to show up at an office. Remote work has its place, but it is not an option for the biggest chunk of the economy, from miners to retail clerks, from restaurant staff to construction workers, from warehouse employees to public school teachers and nurses, from manufacturers to printers. (As to the effectiveness of remote workers, the results are debatable…a topic for another time.)

Yes, Mr. Professor, it takes billions of dollars (he estimated $3.7 billion) to expand 17 miles of I-15 from Salt Lake to Farmington. But it also takes billions of dollars to construct a mass transit system that people will use – and, so far, our local experience is that mass transit does not conveniently transport Utahns where they need to go. 

I drive every weekday from Davis County to Salt Lake City or Ogden. To arrive at most of the places I need to go requires taking FrontRunner, getting off and boarding TRAX, getting off and boarding a bus, and then walking a half-mile. If it takes people two hours to mass-transit to a location instead of 30 minutes in a car, you can bet which they will choose.

Tell a Bountiful couple they can use the train in the evening to dine at a nice restaurant in downtown Salt Lake, but they might have to wait 50 minutes in a snowstorm for the next train to take them back home. No doubt they will grab the keys to their Toyota.

Read the professor’s comment again. He apparently envisions a work where we hunker down in our homes, seldom venturing out to enjoy a restaurant, try on a pair of pants, or attend a sporting event or concert. We will need to walk to the grocery store, hauling bags of groceries back to our house and rely on Amazon to provide us our clothing, electronics, and books. The professor’s vision would destroy the small business community.

Granted, private automobiles and the resulting freeways and highways contribute to air pollution. The challenge is to continue to make vehicles more efficient and less polluting, and there is a definite trend to hybrid and all-electric vehicles. If Mr. Professor is passionate about keeping us healthier, he can start with diet, exercise, and early intervention medical care – not road construction.

Asphalt isn’t the villain. Neither is UDOT. Most of us live in a place called Reality. I invite Mr. Professor to visit us at his earliest convenience.