There has been a lot of discussion about the Davis-Salt Lake City Community Connector, a proposed Bus Rapid Transit system (BRT) that connects communities in southern Davis County to northern Salt Lake County. Beth Holbrook, Trustee, Utah Transit Authority (UTA), gave a five-year service plan presentation to the Bountiful City Council at last week’s meeting to provide the council with updates on what to expect.

“We know how valuable it is to have all the community input,” said Holbrook. “It gives us a better understanding of the needs in the community. Some cities like Bountiful don’t have as much growth per se but it’s the connectivity piece that’s really critical.”

The five-year plan on services is going to be enacted starting this year, she said. “We have a new process. We used to have ‘change days.’ Now we’re only doing ‘change days’ one time a year.”

It’s in April, said Holbrook. “So April 2025 is when the first set of changes are going to occur.”

“I’m assuming these changes or discontinuations are based on data?” said Mayor Kendalyn Harris.

“Yes,” Holbrook said. “We have sensors in the vehicles that have data capture from the small paratransit buses all the way to FrontRunner. It does an accounting for us so that we have accurate count totals or ridership totals so we can submit it to the federal government. It’s a really critical component when you’re talking about federal funding. We’ve installed a whole series of more accurate sensors.”

Holbrook went through a series of slides describing bus route changes, including two new routes. “The 455 in Bountiful will not have any significant changes,” she said. “We’re hearing from our Davis County Commissioners saying they have a lot of businesses in the area of the Layton Hills Mall. So we want to make sure we have better connectivity to get workers where they want to go and get people to where they want to go to enjoy things.”

One of the areas for skiing pick up is at the Layton Hills Mall, said Holbrook. “It goes straight up to Snow Basin and there’s one more stop after that so it’s a pretty quick access point.”

Route 470 is still a major North/South corridor piece that runs on Main Street all the way from Ogden through to Salt Lake City, she said. “Route 455 goes all the way from Weber State to the University of Utah Research Park. They are very, very popular routes. They average about 3,500 riders a day. We anticipate with future changes it’s going to be even more enhanced.”

UTA is creating a new route, 417, that will have North/South service between Woods Cross Station and the 1940 West Station in Salt Lake City via Redwood Road with connections to FrontRunner and the TRAX Green Line, she said. “There’s a connectivity piece as Rose Park fills out with a lot of development and growth.”

That particular stretch of road as you go right past 215 is single lane, Holbrook said. “It can get a little challenging sometimes.”

In 2028, UTA will discontinue 455, she said. “It won’t happen until the Davis-Salt Lake Connector is in place. That is the anticipated start date.”

Farmington will become a multimodal hub, said Holbrook. “It’s where 470 will end and the new routes 400/417 will actually start in Farmington. So it will create this connectivity piece for us that we think is really going to enhance service here in Davis County.”

It’s technically not called a BRT, she said. “It’s called a connector because there is no dedicated lane. But structurally it’s a BRT.” λ