Tour Buses

This an email is written by our neighbor RonNell. She makes a good point and I think we all need to do our part. Please read what she has to say:

Hi, neighbor --

I'm hoping you'll be willing to join me in an effort to stop the dangerous (and annoying) onslaught of tour buses driving up and down the streets of our neighborhood.

By way of background, I and some other women on my street had some conversations last week in which we shared concerns about the buses that are driving on our residential streets with increasing frequency, so we decided to do some investigating to see what we could do to put a stop to it.  We think that if every family who is bothered by the practice sends just one polite email or makes one polite phone call,  it may well do the trick, and we have gathered the necessary information so that everyone can pitch in to help.

Here is what we know.  Seven Peaks is renting out its parking lot in the off-season to a company that trains people to drive very large, commercial-sized tour buses.  The trainees are almost exclusively college-aged kids who are training to go to Alaska to drive tour buses in the summer months.  Although they have been doing this training in that lot for several years, the traffic through our neighborhood is exponentially greater than it has been in past years.  Presumably this is in part because the roundabout on 300 North is closed for construction and our neighborhood is the only exit available.  However, one trainer that I flagged down and spoke with today said that the trainers also think the neighborhood gives the trainees good experience with roads that have no cars parked at the curbs, which suggests they might make it a more permanent practice in future years if we do not loudly express our disagreement with it now.

Listed below are the contact people who could receive your calls/emails, along with some potential talking points to help make our case as strongly and respectfully as possible:

Jason Guiler of HOLLAND AMERICA is the director of the bus training program. His telephone number is 907-723-2030.  His email address is jguiler@hollandamerica-princess.com.  He is not located in Provo permanently but visits regularly to oversee the training here, and is expected to be here later this week, if some of us wanted to ask to meet with him personally.

Gary R. Brinton is the owner of SEVEN PEAKS who rents the lot to the bus training company.  His cell phone is 801-367-7205, and in correspondence with the neighborhood last year, he specifically asked that neighbors who have issues with practices at Seven Peaks contact him directly about those concerns, rather than going to city officials.

Some talking points that could be mentioned in your calls or emails (in addition to your own observations):

* We have no problem with the use of the parking lot for training, but it is inappropriate for residential streets to be used for this purpose.  The area is not zoned for commercial vehicles, no city buses ever travel through it, and these heavy-duty buses are the equivalent of semitrucks coming through the neighborhood many times daily.

* There is a very serious safety concern here.  Dozens and dozens of children reside in the Foothills Estates neighborhood, and with the arrival of spring, many ride bicycles and play on the sidewalks and in the streets.  Many families have very young children and toddlers and have serious concerns of a child darting into the street and a bus driver being unable to see the child or lacking the wherewithal to stop. 

* This concern is compounded by the fact that the buses are being driven by brand-new drivers, most of whom are very young and some of whom are experiencing their very first outing on the road.  You can tell by watching them that they don't yet know how to operate all of the features of these massive vehicles, and this greatly heightens the danger to our children.

*  The buses are causing other major disruptions to our neighborhood life.  They are noisier than other traffic.  They drive past our homes in the early morning hours and continue well into the late afternoon.  Last week, one of these buses ran over a garbage can of my neighbor's, and on another morning, one of the buses broke down in front of another neighbor's house and the street became the scene of a large-scale mechanical effort.  I have seen them drive over curbs and poorly navigate turns on a number of occasions.  None of this is conducive to the kind of residential neighborhood we are entitled to have. 

*If the practice continues, I and other concerned neighbors will go to Provo City to discuss the matter.

I'm going to send my email tonight and make calls tomorrow, but one email or phone call will almost certainly not be sufficient.  If this is a concern to you, please take the time to contact the individuals listed above to voice your disapproval.  If there are others in the neighborhood who I have not included in this email (I am sending only to people I know personally), please feel free to pass it along. 

Thanks for taking a few minutes send an email or make a call to help us keep the neighborhood safe for our kids.

RonNell