OGDEN -- A new Utah Transit Authority bus route will bring curbside service to one of Ogden's largest employment centers.
The new route is called the F618, or the Ogden/BDO Lift, and serves the Business Depot Ogden, an area that previously had limited bus service.
UTA spokesman Gerry Carpenter said the new route was created specifically to serve BDO and began running Monday.
The route runs from the Ogden Transit Center, connecting to FrontRunner services, east on 23rd Street, along Washington Boulevard until reaching 2nd Street, where it heads west and then circles around the perimeter of BDO.
The route is what UTA calls a "flex route," which means passengers can pay an additional dollar above the standard fee and the bus will pick up or drop off passengers up to 3/4 of a mile off the fixed route.
The scheduled deviation requests are taken on a first-come, first-served basis, Carpenter said, and the bus may deviate up to two times each trip.
Passengers who want a deviation must call at least two hours before their trip.
"We think this is going to help that area a lot," Carpenter said. "It will circulate through the BDO multiple times a day and be able to take people right up to their business because of the deviations."
Carpenter said the route is the latest effort in UTA's attempt to focus on offering viable transit options to large employment centers across the state.
UTA began a flex route in 2010 that serves areas from Syracuse to Hooper. That route connects to other UTA services, including the Roy and Clearfield FrontRunner stations.
UTA also has flex routes in Herriman, American Fork, Brigham City, Draper, Sandy, Riverton, Tooele and Grantsville.
Carpenter said UTA recently received $204,000 from a grant called the Job Access Reverse Commute Grant.
The grant was administered locally by the Utah Department of Transportation and split evenly between the Ogden and Syracuse flex routes.
"This has been a good opportunity for us to offer new service," Carpenter said. "We are giving people a chance to use transit who otherwise might not have been able to."
For more information about the route or to schedule a deviation, call 801-287-5359. Pickup and drop off times can be found at www.rideuta.com.
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