Audit on UTA presented to Utah Legislature

Audit on UTA presented to Utah Legislature


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Keith McCord reporting An audit of the Utah Transit Authority has just been completed, and the findings were presented to the State Legislature today. Lawmakers asked for the audit because of UTA's tremendous growth and the huge dollars that have been spent, and will be spent, in the future.

One thing that jumps out is amount of money spent in a number of areas of UTA's operations. The audit says that UTA's bus service is more heavily subsidized than other transportation systems in the western U.S.

The TRAX system, however, does get good reviews when compared to other cities. TRAX trains draw more passengers than the buses do, and the light-rail sector has a cheaper cost-per-passenger rate than those in other states.

The auditors also examined the efficiency of the various routes and recommended that UTA re-evaluate some that may be under-performing.

Audit on UTA presented to Utah Legislature

Their audit found that passenger fares are not a large source of revenue for UTA, amounting to only 17 percent.

The audit also pointed out that UTA's executives are highly compensated, and those salaries are out of line with the pay at other transit systems.

UTA says the audit can be a starting point to make improvements. "UTA is all about finding anything that we could be doing more effectively and just getting better at it. There were some positive points in the audit and some negative things in the audit, but everything is just a chance, a way for us to grow from this," explained Carrie Bohnsack-Ware, spokeswoman for UTA.

The auditors' report also said that UTA's buses and trains do help with reducing congestion on the highways but do not improve the air quality along the Wasatch Front.

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