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SALT LAKE CITY — The Utah Transit Authority's 27-year tradition of offering free bus rides in parts of downtown Salt Lake City will stay.
UTA spokesman Gerry Carpenter announced Wednesday that after more than a year of discussion, the free-fare zones for bus and TRAX riders will not be changed.
There will be one minor difference, however, in that riders will be required to pay up front.
"We are going to require everyone to pay when they board," he said.
If a person is traveling only within the free fare, they will need to tell the driver up front, Carpenter said. The paying up front program will begin on Dec. 9.
The discussion over the free-fare zones began in March, when UTA announced it was losing hundreds of thousands of dollars a year in revenue because of passengers using and abusing the free service.
UTA administrators approached the Salt Lake City Council about stopping the free rides in June. The unpopular proposal was met with a backlash of negative comments from residents, some saying it was an attack on poor, elderly, handicapped and working people.
"There were concerns about how it would affect businesses downtown, there were concerns about how it would affect low-income citizens of Salt Lake City," Carbenter said. "So we took those concerns seriously. We listened to them, and ultimately we came to this decision."
The free fare-zone extends from 600 West to 200 East and from North Temple to 500 South.
UTA estimated about half of the lost revenue was from citizens using the system properly, taking advantage of the free service. But the other half, about $100,000 every year, came from people abusing the system — getting on a bus in the free-fare zone and riding outside the zone without paying.
Carpenter said the free-fare zones will remain for the foreseeable future, meaning the next couple of years, he said. However, he said UTA officials may explore a distance-based fare system in the future, so residents would pay based on how far they are traveling, even if that's within the current free zone.
