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“It kind of depends on how you look at fares,” he said.

#TRAX UTAH FOOTBALLCOLORADO FREE#

UTA doesn’t need the Legislature’s approval to offer free fares, but it does need lawmakers’ approval to find another way to make up for the money it would lose.Ĭhristensen said the issue comes down to philosophy. Christensen said a study predicted a 38% increase in riders should fares become free, and about 20% of those who rode in February had never ridden UTA before.

Opinion: Utah is the fastest-growing state, and public transit needs to catch up.

#TRAX UTAH FOOTBALLCOLORADO DRIVERS#

In fact, a lot of altercations involve disputes between bus drivers and riders over the payment of fares, and those would disappear if no one had to pay. In Utah last February, there were fewer calls to police during the free-fare period than in normal months, he said. The executive director of a group representing small transit agencies told The Washington Post these “non-destination riders,” as they’re called, have led some small transit companies to opt out of free fares.Ĭhristensen is quick to dismiss these concerns. Homeless riders might stay on buses and trains all day long, leading to confrontations with other drivers. Kansas City has had free buses since 2019.Ĭritics say a free-fare plan would increase maintenance costs as more people ride. Denver, Boston and San Francisco are in various stages of doing the same. A lot of them started pilot programs during the pandemic, when many people worked from home and few wanted to risk sitting across from an infected person on a bus or train.īut now, Washington, D.C., is considering making its buses free (Metro trains would still require fares). It could be that much harder to convince all the partners to pay for a whole year of subsidies, when their students and employees could get free rides, anyway.įree transit fares have become the cause du jour in many large American cities.

Could UTA waive its fares forever? Utah lawmakers weigh costs, benefits.

“It took a lot of scrambling on our part and a lot of concessions from some of our large pass holders,” UTA board chairman Carlton Christensen told me last week, referring to how the authority funded last February’s free-fare promotion. The governor’s budget assumes UTA’s “fare subsidy partners,” organizations such as the University of Utah, Brigham Young University and Utah Valley University, which provide free passes to their students, and large private employers who offer transit passes to their employees, would continue paying to cover another $13.1 million. For another, $25 million wouldn’t make up for the estimated $35 million UTA says it collects on fares in a year - which makes up about 10% of its total budget.

Well … don’t cut up those transit passes, yet.įor one thing, state lawmakers, at least the Republican leaders, aren’t impressed with the idea.

“Someday we will have free fare forever.” “That’s a huge development for the state of Utah,” Mendenhall said. It derailed without much debate.īut Salt Lake Mayor Erin Mendenhall, who was a catalyst for “free fare February,” a monthlong pilot program last year, mentioned the governor’s proposal in her annual state of the city address last week. Joel Briscoe, D-Salt Lake City, was filed in the 2022 legislative session. Spencer Cox’s plan to spend $25 million to launch a yearlong free-fare pilot project on the Utah Transit Authority’s trains and buses got people’s attention. It may have been way back on of his annual budget proposal, but Gov.