UTA raises price for student pass
Tiffany Frandsen | News Editor | @tiffany_mf
Illustration by Ashley Fairbourne
Utah Valley University students paid $80 for UTA student transit passes this year, and rates will continue to rise in $10 increments over the next two years to $100 for the 2016-2017 school year. Student passes were $70 last year and from $50 for the 2012-2013 school year.
The passes are subsidized by the university; students pay $80 for a year and UTA sends a monthly bill to the university for the rides that students take (tracked by students “tapping” on and off), with a yearly cap.
Because of the cap and high ridership, the university currently pays a discounted rate of about .80 per boarding – whether the rider takes FrontRunner or a bus – and will pay a projected $1.05 fare per boarding at the end of the 2016-2017 school year. A regular bus fee is $2.50 and FrontRunner fee, which is distance-based, would be $5.50 from Salt Lake to Orem.
The increase is partially to cover the anticipated operating and fuel costs, and partially to align UVU’s rates with those of other universities (the University of Utah will pay a projected $1.12 fare). The rates will still be lower at the completion of the current three-year contract because Val Peterson, UVU Vice President of Finance and Administration and Hugh Johnson, UTA Regional General Manager agreed that the increase should be gradual.
“[In] negotiations with UVU in the past, Val Petersen has been pretty rigid in trying to make sure he defends UVU students and keeps costs low,” said Johnson.
In the past, UVU students rode less, but in the last few years ridership among UVU students has increased. Salt Lake County universities use a lot of UTA service; they have access to Trax as well as buses and FrontRunner.
“UVU is the second largest source of ridership in all of UTA. The largest is the University of Utah. The U of U is larger by far, but UVU is second in line,” said Johnson.
One of UTA’s goals is to offer the transit pass at no apparent price to all students. Since funding needs to come from somewhere, the cost would be redistributed as a student transportation fee to everyone, not just the users.
“UTA wanted us to drop the [$80] fee and raise the student fee across the board so we would provide the passes essentially for free, and so we would be like the U. In order for that to happen, we would have to raise the student fee,” said Petersen.
The administration felt that it was important for the actual user of the transit system to pay a portion of the fee themselves. $6.88 (per student per semester) comes from student fees for the UTA current contract.
“If a student rides the bus, that means there’s not a car in the parking lot. We all benefit by someone riding the bus,” said Peterson.
Student fees also help pay for UTA passes at the University of Utah, Weber State University and Westminster so the passes can be offered without the direct card fee. The transportation fee is $84 a semester for the U of U and $10.44 for Weber. Funding for Weber’s passes also comes from student parking passes (which are $113 a year or $83 a semester) and from the general tax fund of the university.
UTA had also wanted Weber to offer the passes with no card fee attached, and Weber’s vice president of administrative services, Norm Tarbox, used that as leverage in negotiating the contract (previously, a students paid a $20 for the pass).
Brigham Young University and Salt Lake Community College charge $228 and $200 a semester, respectively, for passes.
The remainder of the funding for the UVU-UTA contract comes from the administration budget, since faculty and staff use transit but don’t pay student fees. Faculty and staff also pay $80 for the UTA pass.
As of September 25, UVU Campus Connection had sold 4,805 passes.
UTA now runs the shuttles across campus. The shuttle busses had needed to be replaced, said Petersen, and UTA’s proposal expanded the coverage of campus. The last free shuttle (with UVU ID) runs until 8:30 p.m. There have not been any discussions to extend the hours of the shuttle.
Some buses run by campus until midnight (the 830), but the last northbound FrontRunner leaves the Orem station at 10:30 p.m. The latest express bus from Orem to Salt Lake stops running at 7 p.m. Southbound, the FrontRunner runs until 12:30 a.m.
The shuttle does not currently extend to west campus (across the freeway to the National Guard building, Health building and FrontRunner station). To get there, students take the bus (as long as they either pay the fare or have a bus pass). The extension of the shuttle route to west campus has been part of the contract negotiations, but is not expected to happen this year.
“We want to see how successful it is right now and it’s building slowly. Before we dedicate additional resources to it, we want to ensure that it is working well,” said Johnson. “Right now there’s sort of a shuttle there, because from the west side of campus you can take the 830 every 15 minutes to UVU campus, but in order to do that you have to have the pass, and the shuttle, of course, is free.”
Tiffany is the Deputy Managing Editor for Spring 2015. Follow her on twitter @tiffany_mf