To closely examine both the Utah Transit Authority and the Utah Department of Transportation, seeing if they are responsive and accountable, would be a good thing. All public agencies should be held to high standards of performance.

But a bill that resurfaced last week, calling for UTA to dissolve and be absorbed by UDOT, is a horrible idea that makes no sense at all.

Utah's largest metropolitan area has an enviable mass-transit system, one that efficiently carries thousands of customers daily and that has proven its worth time and again. Last fall, voters in Salt Lake County overwhelmingly agreed to raise their own taxes just so UTA could expand TRAX into more suburban areas. This was undeniably a referendum on the light-rail system, which has carried well over 50 million passengers since it began operating in 1999. It also was a strong vote of confidence in the transit authority, which has had to operate on limited budgets for years.

Any suggestion to dismantle the authority deserves an awful lot of detailed explanation. Simply saying that it will begin some sort of dialogue doesn't cut it.

Earlier this year, lawmakers reacted to such a bill by Rep. Wayne Harper, R-West Jordan, by sending it away for further study between legislative sessions. Should it ever become law, mass transit likely would be relegated to second-class status within the larger, statewide Department of Transportation. Mass transit is a service required almost exclusively in large urban areas. Many people who live off the Wasatch Front, and others who live there but are wedded to their cars, may not fully appreciate its virtues.

Evidence abounds that UTA and UDOT have worked well together to weather steep challenges, including the rebuilding of Interstate 15. Utah's transportation dilemma requires solutions that involve rails, buses and highways.

Some lawmakers would prefer highways only, continuing a model they have experienced most of their lives. No sooner had the last voter cast a ballot for transit last fall than those lawmakers were trying to put much of the tax increase toward roads instead of transit.

But the narrow Wasatch Front corridor can't pave its way out of gridlock.

The UTA, with its board of trustees appointed by local governments, its fare-based user fees and its voter-approved tax increases, is set up to be accountable. Scrutinizing that accountability is a worthy pursuit. Trying to dismantle the agency, however, simply defies logic.