BUS Stop

UTA to Raise Fares and Cut Routes

By Tracy Medley, 3-26-07

The Utah Transit Authority wants to hike fares and cut routes by a proposed 40 percent in Salt Lake County. UTA proposes to raise one-way fares to a whopping $2.00 over the next three years.

Linda Hilton, a spokeswoman for the Crossroads Urban Center told The Tribune, “I’m not happy about the fares at all. We have a lot of low income people who are going to be affected.”

Cutting services and hiking fares is never a popular idea, especially when it comes to Salt Lake City’s poor, elderly and disabled citizens. One of the major groups who will be affected are military veterans who patronize the VA hospital near the University of Utah. According to The Salt Lake Tribune the new route would drop off and pick up VA patients on Foothill Boulevard, which is a few busy blocks away from the hospital.

“A guy with a cane or a wheelchair or walker, walking two blocks in the weather to try to get to a bus stop, it’s ridiculous,” resident Ray Stephens told The Tribune.

Meetings are being held across the valley – Most notably students and employees from the University of Utah will gather on the 6th floor of Rice-Eccles stadium tower this Wednesday, March 28 between 11 a.m. and 1 p.m.

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