Doug Clyde, a member of the High Valley Transit Board, told KPCW on Monday that the district is formally independent from Summit County.
But at the moment, the board is dominated by Summit County Council members, including Chris Robinson, Roger Armstrong, and Clyde himself.
For next year’s budget, the district is proposing to increase its spending by over a third.
Clyde said that’s in part because they only created a half-year budget for 2021, but there are other factors.
“We’re moving a little bit faster. We’re seeing new opportunities which we’re taking advantage of, that comes with expanding services. You saw in that staff report it’s commensurate with a 54 percent increase in service. But also mixed into that budget are capital costs, right, because we have a brand new start-up transit system here. And so there are buildings, temporary buildings, equipment, tools. Those sort of things are all still being purchased.”
Transit District Director Caroline Rodriguez has budgeted $1.6 million to build a permanent transit facility—likely, Clyde said, in the Silver Creek area near Home Depot.
Rodriguez told the transit board she believes it can be paid for with funds in the American Rescue Plan Act, through UDOT. But the funding hasn’t been confirmed yet.
KPCW asked Clyde how a pandemic relief bill can be used for a transit facility.
“There are lots of things about pandemic funding that I have never bothered to delve into. But a lot of that money has been broadly used. I think if you poke around in the community, you’ll find a lot of people who have managed to take advantage of that. To the extent that the pandemic has created problems that could be eliminated by transit or relieved by transit, it’s probably appropriate.”
On a related topic, the district’s micro-transit service is seeing increased ridership. Clyde said this is one of several reasons why the county had to separate from Park City’s transit system.
“At the time, Park City would only consider the larger buses, for which they could get grants, etc, and they’re also a standard 40-passenger bus, it’s also a very durable piece of equipment. It happens to be extremely expensive. Regardless, it makes absolutely no sense for one 40-passenger bus to be traveling to Silver Creek with one person on board, to turn around and perhaps even make the return trip empty. So the micro-transit makes extraordinary sense. And every time we make an improvement in it, we find it is widely, or wildly accepted.”
Finally, High Valley representatives have recently started talks with the Wasatch County Council about regional service. The High Valley board could expand to include Wasatch representatives. But Clyde said that would have to come with funding from Wasatch.
“Your representation comes with a check. You have to write us a check before you get representation. (Leslie) Do they know how much that check needs to be? (Clyde) We haven’t even talked to em about what sort of service it might wanna be.”
Doug Clyde, a member of the High Valley Transit Board, and the Summit County Council.
