Could cheap UTA passes in Salt Lake City spread elsewhere?
An annual pass good on TRAX, FrontRunner, buses and the Sugar House Streetcar is $360.
http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/politic...fares.html.csp
Quote:
One big question emerges from the new pilot program to allow Salt Lake City residents to buy Utah Transit Authority annual passes for the equivalent of $30 a month instead of the normal $198: Why not just drop the cost of such passes for everyone, everywhere to try to increase ridership?
UTA General Manager Michael Allegra has an honest answer.
"I want to make sure there are no pitfalls," he said. "I’m shy of offering it everywhere when I’m not really sure I know what I’m doing."
Allegra said no other transit agency in the country has ever tried anything quite like this, and UTA is unsure how it will affect its fare-box revenues and overall costs. He says the one-year experiment in just Salt Lake City should help answer those questions without major risk.
"If it works, we certainly would consider making it applicable in other situations," Allegra says. "There’s no reason we shouldn’t do it" in other cities or even throughout the entire multi-county UTA district if the experiment works.
Last week, Salt Lake City and UTA announced they are teaming to allow capital residents to buy an annual pass — good on TRAX, FrontRunner, buses and the Sugar House Streetcar — for $360. Such passes cost others $198 a month, or $2,376 a year.
So Salt Lake City residents could save $2,0126 a year.
City officials tout it as a way to reduce air pollution. UTA hopes it will persuade more people to use mass transit, and that comes as a UTA Board committee this week endorsed a new goal to double ridership by 2020. That goes to the full UTA Board for consideration later this month, and such new pass programs could be a key to meeting that goal.
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I do hope that this experiment goes well and that UTA expands the offer to the UTA service area next.
Each area could have a slightly higher cost. For example, South Salt Lake could be folded in to the current SLC deal. West Valley could be $1.00 more per month, Sandy $1.25 more per month, Draper $1.50 more per month, and Herriman $1.75 more per month. Eagle Mountain should be $2.50 more per month.
The same levels could be priced ranging from the distance between the 3 major city points. SLC, Provo and Ogden should all be the nucleus of the pricing where each city all have the same rates and then expanding outwards with prices going up the same amount based on each zone. The buffer zones (middle areas between the cities) would be the maximum price.
The maximum amount could be priced at between $38.50 or $40.00 per month. Even at these prices, the costs are still lower than driving will be.
Also, going to this format, price increases could be as little as $0.01 per person so as to not me as costly and discourage potential ridership.
With a goal to double ridership in the next 6.25 years, something like this will be sorely needed. I can't wait for this study to finish and seeing it rolled out to more people.
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