UTA getting earful over fares structure

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Proposed changes to a complicated system that incorporates 25 individual fares to ride Utah Transit Authority buses and trains already are getting negative reviews more than two weeks in advance of public hearings.

Added to the thousands of responses UTA now is collecting during its ongoing series of hearings on a massive bus route overhaul, the immediate reactions to forking over more money for a ride reveal growing anxiety about the mass transit agency's goals, especially among those most dependent on buses.

"I'm not happy about the fares at all. We have a lot of low income people who are going to be affected," said Linda Hilton, a spokeswoman for the low-income advocacy group Crossroads Urban Center.

Her colleague, Bill Tibbetts, director of the Utah Anti-Hunger Action Committee, is hanging brightly colored notices around downtown Salt Lake City alerting passers-by of the fare changes and urging them to attend Monday's UTA open house at the City Library on the route changes.

"There are going to be some positives but there are going to be some people who have trouble," he said. "I really don't see why they're doing a fare increase at the same time [as the route change]. We're mainly just encouraging people to go and find out how it's going to affect them personally."

Tibbetts said paratransit service in particular deserved a close analysis because the route changes will mean more physically limited people will be farther from the nearest bus stop. That could mean more people will need FlexTrans bus rides, just as the fares are in flux.

UTA's proposed three-year fare increase plan includes changes to current fares and sets the costs of riding FrontRunner commuter rail, scheduled to open in 2008.

The agency's overall goal is to continue to get 30 percent of its revenues from the fare box, improve service for those who use the system the most and increase bus ridership by 12 percent.

Public hearings about the fare increases will be conducted in UTA's six-county service area beginning March 27.

Meanwhile, the agency has held three open houses on its bus route redesign - with seven more to go - and has received thousands of comments, largely from naysayers. Those changes are scheduled to be effective August 27. Justin Jones, spokesman for UTA, acknowledged the alarm surrounding both the redesign and the fare increases.

"We always hear from all our special interest groups re fare increases. There is a true concern regarding their fixed incomes," he said. "In every instance so far, we have listened to the public and made changes."