The Utah Transit Authority has received praise and criticism for its handling of more than 20,000 square dancers who converged on downtown Salt Lake last week.
UTA spent $41,000 and months of planning to service the largest convention ever hosted in Salt Lake City, along with local residents attending the Utah Arts Festival and the Gina Bachauer Piano Competition.Local cab drivers weren't impressed by UTA's plan. They thought UTA unfairly took away business by beefing up bus service to the downtown area.
Handbills advertising UTA service were illegally passed out at the Salt Lake International Airport to dancers arriving for the 40th National Square Dance Convention.
UTA General Manager John Pingree said he was unaware of any handbills being passed out and suspected convention sponsors did it. The conventioneers offset UTA's cost of the extra bus service by purchasing a special $10 pass.
The Utah Department of Commerce intervened on behalf of the Utah State Taxi Cab Association and found the handbill distribution amounted to a public transit system unlawfully competing with private enterprise.
"But it was way too late to do us any good," USTCA president Keith Burnham said in an Associated Press report.
Conventioneers, while snubbing cabbies, gave UTA high marks for transit service.
"UTA had things well-organized and with the outstanding cooperation of the Salt Lake City Police Department and the Utah Arts Festival, transportation was an asset to us, not the liability it has been in other cities," said convention chairman Glenn Baldwin.
"Not only was the service unusually good at getting people where they needed to be, but people remarked constantly how friendly and helpful the drivers and information people were.
"They helped create a tremendous image of Utah and Salt Lake City. These people will come back," Baldwin said.
But they may have to take a cab into town because bus service from the airport during the convention was provided under a one-time contract.