My impressions of riding mass transit are very positive, and I'd like to tell you why I am so in favor of it.

First, it's cheaper. A daily pass costs $4.25 for unlimited use of either bus or TRAX service. A monthly pass is $58.50, less than $3 a day! That's less than the price of a gallon of gas. I estimate it would take me four gallons of gas, which, if you do the math is $12. Add at least $10 for parking and I can travel on UTA for an eighth of what it would cost me to drive. That doesn't even count the wear and tear on my car.

We've cut back to one family car because my regular job is close enough that I can walk or ride a bike. I can carpool, too, if I need to. This means I'm not making a car payment (at least $400 a month), buying gas for a second car (at least $200 a month), paying insurance (at least $50 a month), or making repairs (at least $50 a month).

Add that up and we're saving $700 a month, for a savings of $8,400 a year.

Consider the benfits to the environment of mass transit. This bus holds about 60 people. That's 60 cars that are not cranking out carbon dioxide for two hours a day!

I'm no tree hugger, but I do believe we have a responsibility to take care of the Earth on which we live. We all need clean air and if we make it unbreathable, the Earth will adjust and survive. We won't.

Perhaps most important is the strategic importance of conserving oil. Oil reserves are limited. When we use them up, they're gone. Fortunately, we are developing alternatives and should accelerate that development and make it widely available.

In addition, every barrel of oil that we do not import from dangerous regimes is money that our enemies do not have to fight against us and the rest of the free world. Don't you think that a substantial amount of the profits from Arab oil finds its way back into the hands of terrorists?

Now, I'll grant you that my commute on the bus is not nearly as convenient as driving my car. It adds about an hour a day to what it would take me to drive. But wait - I actually gain two hours. I'm not driving, so I can work on my computer or read or use the time in other productive ways because the bus driver is the one watching the road. I am freed from the hassle of fighting traffic an hour each way.

I also have to walk a little farther than if I drove. I walk a couple blocks when I get off the bus to transfer to the University TRAX line, and then I walk a few more blocks to get to the building that is my final destination. But is that a bad thing?

Many of my peers pay to walk a treadmill or ride an exercycle to try and stay healthy. I'm walking for free, probably for about 40 minutes a day. I've always thought it ironic that we pay lots of money for labor-saving devices and then pay lots of money to labor on gym equipment because we have sedentary lifestyles. If I'm going to walk or lift heavy things, I'd rather accomplish something useful when I'm doing it.

Anyone who commutes to work should use UTA. The buses are new, clean and comfortable. Plus, the more people who ride, the more UTA will expand the routes, making it even more convenient to use mass transit on the Wasatch Front. And the more riders we get from Utah County, the sooner UTA will find it advantageous to expand TRAX into our area.

I'm sold. Now that I know how easy it is to let UTA do the driving, I'll never drive alone to Salt Lake City. There are too many good reasons not to drive. The more of us who cut back on driving, the greater the benefits to our finances, our health, the environment and our national security.

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* DAVE OP'T HOF is an educator in the Provo area.