Hands off UTA
There are no comments for this page [ Add Comment ]Wednesday, June 6, 2007
Lawmakers are tossing a brick-to-the-head message at the Utah Transit Authority: Start behaving the way we tell you to, or you'll disappear and be reborn as a division within the Utah Department of Transportation.
As reported by the Standard-Examiner's Shane Farver on Monday, House Bill 166 -- legislation that would effectively dismantle UTA and fold it into UDOT -- was not really forgotten after if failed to receive serious consideration during the Legislature earlier this year. It was revived in a recent Transportation Interim Committee meeting, and will doubtless be held over UTA's head until the agency does whatever lawmakers want done.
While the transit authority is charging ahead on FrontRunner commuter rail, scheduled to open in a year or less, and connecting Salt Lake City's TRAX line to the commuter rail station in the capital city, the agency is also a little vulnerable right now. Salt Lake County bus riders are up in arms over recent route and fare changes, and it is becoming clear that UTA probably won't be able to bring TRAX extensions to all suburban communities that want it in a timely manner. Furthermore, some cities, including Clearfield, have been arguing about the location and cooperation of UTA when it comes to commuter rail stations and parking lot security.
Tension between the Legislature and UTA is nothing new. A few years ago, lawmakers erupted in a spasm of righteous indignation after finding out that transit-authority executives are very well paid. Before that, in 2003, there was talk eerily similar to this year's power-play: giving UDOT authority over UTA. As we wrote at the time, the lawmakers' inability to direct the operations of UTA seems to be the source of conflict -- the Legislature covets what it cannot directly control.
Lawmakers always say the reason they want consolidation is to better control costs and to streamline coordination between mass transit and roads. But they eventually come to their senses, because the fact of the matter is that the act of folding UTA into the state's transportation department -- the highway builders -- would harm rural Utahns.
As we've noted during previous skirmishes on this subject, UTA is funded with local taxes. It does not operate outside the urban Wasatch Front. In the Top of Utah, for example, people who live in Rich and Morgan counties don't have to pay taxes that fund UTA operations they'll never see within their boundaries.
Sponsoring lawmakers should consult planning committees like the Wasatch Front Regional Council -- it already does an excellent job of transportation and transit coordination; legislators would also find out that the WFRC is unanimously opposed to HB 166.
We second the sentiments of the Wasatch Front Regional Council: UTA should remain an independent entity.
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