UTA is initiating a slew of changes in the coming year, including having passengers “tap on, tap off” starting in January and raising fares in the summer.
The Utah Transit Authority will ask U students, faculty and staff to tap their new UTA passes on card readers before entering and exiting the buses and train platforms beginning Jan. 1.
Alma Allred, director of Commuter Services at the U, said the card readers should take two seconds to register the cardholder’s information. The readers will log the time of day, the date, the station and whether the cardholder is a student, faculty member or staff at the U.
Carrie Bohnsack-Ware, a spokeswoman for UTA, said UTA will use this data to plan where and when future bus and TRAX lines should run.
Allred said he is skeptical about the system and suggested that the tap-off element could be dropped in the future for TRAX riders.
“If someone gets on at 6 a.m. in Sandy and gets on at 6 p.m. at Huntsman Cancer Institute, chances are their trip didn’t take twelve hours and you know their route,” he said. “That’s how it goes for 95 percent of commuters and those are the commuters UTA needs to look at.”
UTA also has a fare increase scheduled for Jan. 1, but UTA’s general manager decided to put a hold on the hike in light of the recent economic downturn.
“People are losing their jobs and the economy is slow,” Bohnsack-Ware said. “We don’t want to burden people, especially when they need public transit the most.”
UTA’s Board of Trustees agreed on three scheduled fare increases beginning in July 2007 to raise prices in accordance with the cost of inflation. The first two increases will stay in effect until March 31, but UTA will re-evaluate the fare increase schedule in February. Fare jumps do not fund improvements such as the new card readers or TRAX extensions, Bohnsack-Ware said.
Despite raising fares, UTA’s prices remain consistent with those of comparable public transit systems. Bohnsack-Ware said UTA tries to keep other cities’ prices in mind when adjusting its rates.
Whether or not UTA goes ahead with the fare increase, it will not affect the cost of the U’s Ed-Passes. Allred said the first of the three installments paid to UTA for the U’s Ed-Passes in October was higher than the contracted amount due to fuel surcharges. The U paid $868,833.67, which was the contract amount, plus $21,720 for the fuel surcharge.
UTA instituted the first fuel surcharge in October. UTA will keep the surcharge in place until April 1 and re-evaluate based on the average fuel price from October to December. If the price of diesel averages below $3 per gallon for the last three months of 2008, UTA will lift the surcharge and that lift will decrease the cost to the U for its last installment of the school year.
i.bravo@chronicle.utah.edu
The Daily Utah Chronicle > News
UTA will begin tracking riders next January
Published: Wednesday, November 26, 2008
Updated: Wednesday, November 26, 2008
There is no way, as a student myself, that I will remember or have the time every time I use the new system, especially at the TRAX stations. To punish somebody for not compiling is absurd. The point of a student getting a free pass is because usually they are the “starving college student” and need and extra boost, so to fine people for forgetting to use the Tap On/Tap Off system is very retro productive.
Furthermore, taking away a student’s bus pass privilege for forgetting is even more ridiculous. Are other people getting punished for having incorrect change for fair, or for putting there feet on the seats? No, and students should not have to worry about one more thing as well. It is almost like UTA is treating us students like children. To take away a person’s bus pass just because they didn’t “tap on/off” is completely undermining a student’s right to free transportation for wanting to be educated.
In addition, if UTA will know who isn’t “tapping on and off”, then that would mean they also can tell where somebody is going every day. Is this not an invasion of privacy? Somebody will be able to tell exactly where I go every time I take the bus or ride TRAX, and this doesn’t seem right to me.
Something needs to be rethought about this new system. I personally will hate having to remember to do something so pointless, and will be more than upset when I will be punished for not doing so.