Preliminary budget plans for the Utah Transit Authority call for $1.8 million in net cuts to bus service in Salt Lake County next year.

If the budget is approved, some routes will be eliminated, but UTA officials say they will cover the reduced service with other bus routes. The route changes will be done in April; public hearings will precede the changes.

The purpose behind rearranging the routes is two-fold, according to Dave Huber, Salt Lake regional general manager for UTA. First, because of rising fuel prices, UTA is facing a budget shortfall for 2006. Second, bus routes in the Salt Lake area haven't received a face lift for decades.

"We haven't really even surgically looked at the Salt Lake bus service for almost 30 years," he said. "There are many routes today that have been running that long — and they should be running. But, in many areas, the demographic and geographic service area has changed."

Huber is hopeful the consolidation of routes will not affect ridership. The Salt Lake bus area has a goal to increase annual ridership by 203,000.

In addition to route adjustments, part of a long-time plan to redesign Salt Lake-area bus service will be implemented. In April, several large express-type buses will begin service within Salt Lake County. The intra-county buses will likely travel from areas like River- ton, Herriman and Draper into downtown Salt Lake City.

Plans to do a complete redesign of the Salt Lake-area bus system are still not ready to be implemented, according to Huber. Reasons to postpone the redesign include lack of funding and fluctuating development plans in downtown Salt Lake City.

Next Wednesday, the UTA Board of Trustees will approve or reject preliminary budget plans for the transit agency. UTA General Manager John Inglish is proposing to implement a temporary 25-cent surcharge on all bus and light rail trips to help pay for rising fuel prices.

The surcharge could go into effect as early as December this year. UTA is still debating the proposal, in addition to the logistics of collecting the surcharge.

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E-mail: nwarburton@desnews.com