A 14 million short fall is called a "dent". To me a $100 short fall is a dent.

The tax payer will pick up the check. After all, someone has to pay for all of those empty buses.

If this organization can't cut it's weight cut the whole thing. I wish I could make the kind of salary the people who work there do and lose so much money. Only in the government is there this kind of lax oversight about losing money. 3 people on a bus and we say yea good job at least someones on one.

It's amazing! UTA never thinks they can encourage riders by cutting fares which might increase revenue? Half the reason they have such low ridership is becuase there's not that big a difference between riding the bus and a gallon of gas for your car. Cheaper fares might = projected shortfall.

UTA does not plan for the inevitable swings of the economy. Instead they bond for every dollar they can when things are good and then cut services and raise prices when things are bad. With better management their ridership could be at least twice what it is right now. It's just sad that they are paying their head boss so much more than the average transit director when he lacks so much common sense.

Based on the above comments, there must be empty buses out there - just not in my area. I ride from Springville to Provo each day (at varying times, depending on the day) and I'm lucky if I can find a seat. It's rare not to have a number of people standing and during rush hour the aisle is packed from front to back. And UTA has two buses running near identical schedules on this route. Maybe UTA needs re-evaluate and cut back elsewhere.

Alternatively, maybe UTA needs to structure its fares so as to be inversely proportional to how many riders a given route has in a week, charging more for less-popular routes. That would have the added benefit of leading to community-based campaigns to increase ridership.

Cut the salaries and perks of administrators. Cut the number of administrators. Top heavy payments will free up a lot of money.
The bus routes are pretty much set so a high school business class or College urban planning class can manage them for credit in school and a small grant. Much less than the short sighted overpaid folk who have gotten the bus system in this fix.
They still can't get riders from Brigham City to Logan.

I have polled my co-workers. All of them would like to ride the bus if it was fast and would save them money. But more than half have found it would take twice as much time and cost almost double.

Only two co-workers take the bus. In both cases they live in the south end of the salt lake valley and take an express bus to downtown.

I tried to make it work, but it trippled my time getting to work (20 minutes to almost an hour).

I was on trax yesterday and it was FULL! Glad that I got on when I did. I was going to get off at the ballpark but didn't because I knew that when I went to catch the next one it would be standing room only.

I also ride 35M and that is usually pretty full with 35 being almost empty. I hop on 217 at least once a week (the one that becomes 218 at SLCC) and although it might be almost empty when I get on when we get to the college it ends up almost full.

I would love to see where they're loosing money as I have seen a steady growth in ridership over the last 6 months. The only route that I have not seen a steady growth with is Route 9. Most of the time it is either empty or has less than a dozen people on it. Maybe this is the bus that is causing them to loose money.

503 million dollar budget. Ouch!! This can't be good. Other than that how was the play Mrs. Lincoln.

It would be nice to see a breakdown of their budget in plan english. I've always liked reading fiction.

UTA has never worried about making money on its routes. You will notice that UTA doesn't talk about how much money they make on each route, it is always about ridership. They aren't in the business of making money. They are in the business of providing public transit to people. So why would we expect them to know how to fix a budget shortfall? They can't. Their next step will to be ask for more tax dollars to provide public transportation. That is how UTA works. Plus they pay their executives and managers to make sure that they don't worry about making money. Their bonus structure is setup on ridership numbers, not on profitability of routes.

It's incredible that UTA is charging a $16.00 per month fuel charge when fuel prices have been steady over the summer and are declining now. Did all the state and city eco-pass riders have to pony up? My guess is no. Did the U students have to pay the $16.00? I guess not. It's an unfair assessement to only a portion of riders. How about providing a trax only monthly pass to avoid the surcharge--last I noticed the trains run on electricity not diesel. Why are we paying for this?

If their prices were more reasonable, wouldn't they start doing better in times of economic hardship?

More mismanagement by government entities and their cronies. Hey buddy, can you spare a billion?

Why do UTA advertise so much on TV if they have a shortfall?
I ride the bus every day, not because I have to for economic reasons but because I hate driving.
Many of the comments made above are VERY VALID, but I would like to add and/or reiterate the fact that UTA operates to maintain their own little kingdom, not to necessarily serve the public.
There are a lot of things UTA does well, but one thing it DOESN'T do well is manage itself.
When you look at the UTA board, it contains no one that actually rides public transit. I'm sure they're nice folks, but I have gone to board meetings, and read their minutes, and basically all they do is rubber stamp whatever UTA mgmt. comes up with.
UTA board members are appointed by the cities and counties and one way the public could make a difference is to contact their mayors or county officials to voice their concerns.
UTA salaries at the top are ridiculous, its not just Inglish's 270k!
There's a lot of things they could do better, but there's no reason for them to!

the lds church is shifting a large portion of its work force from the Triad Bld to the Intel Building in West Jordan. Alot of those folds ride the UTA Express bus system. UTA decided they didn't want to change their routes to accommodate the church so they will now be left with empty bus's. In tight economic times, it seems to me they would be bending over backwards to get the business. Go figure!

So if revenue is up $3 million because of increased ridership because of high gas prices, then why is there a $16 fuel surcharge? Adding more riders to a bus that's already following its route doesn't cost anything but they get more revenue? Maybe the increase in gas prices is greater than the increase in revenue from more riders, but $16 more per month is enough to keep a lot of people from taking the bus.

Despite people thinking they charge an arm and a leg UTA is making more money because of increased ridership. What you have to realize is that 80% of their budget comes from tax revenue (state & federal) and that is where they are being hurt, not ridership which is up.

Lower John English pay salary by 80% and same for other big guys at the office who don't take busses. May not help at all but why pay them that much or who needs time.

I think CS is onto something, the last public meeting I went to someone asked one of the board members if they rode the bus and someone else on the board declined on her behalf to have her answer saying the question was a personal matter.

I would agree that UTA isn't in in necessarily to serve the general public. A few months ago at the public hearing for the MAX buses replacing route 35 I addressed the fact that the 39-41 busses and 45-47 busses were designed so that one bus would leave one minute before the other bus would get there, forcing those trying to connect to wait an extra 15 minutes to make the connection. Not only did they NOT fix the problem, they actually made it worse as they now are designed to miss the connection by 5 minutes. This is serving the public how? Before the big redesign last year you could get from Valley Fair Mall to Highland Drive in 15 minutes on the bus, now it takes a half hour to make that same commute. I think UTA could definitely benefit by having some new management come in.

To Jenny: Yes, the ECO and ED pass riders (or their companies) have had to pay the fuel surcharge. There's no free lunch for anyone.

To Everyone else: Please improve your reading skills before commenting. If you read carefully, you will notice that ridership is up, with a corresponding increase in farebox revenues. However, much of UTA's budget does not come from passenger fares, but from Federal grants and from the UTA portion of the sales tax (1/4% or 1/2%, depending on where you live, plus another 1/4% in Salt Lake County for 'Transit improvements' that is mostly going to transit construction.

Since sales taxes are tied to economic activity, if the economy slows down, tax revenues go down. The State of Utah has the same problem. So UTA is now faced with two choices: either adjust budgets to account for the lower revenue, or raise revenue some other way.

The abundant comments already posted show how unpopular a fare hike would be (their only recourse to raise revenue), so they are trying the first approach: cut expenses. Seems like a logical approach to me.

It is fine to complaing about UTA, but please do it intelligently.

They went to 60 to 70 managers to make cuts. Lets see they have their buses, Trax, Front Runner, maybe Human Resources, Maintenance, Sanitation, ??? Why to they need 60 to 70 managers. Sounds like UDOT, you have to have 2 or 3 bosses standing around to watch 1 or 2 of the lowly employees work!

Increase in ridership on routes that had 1 or 2 passengers, that now are full, didn't that increase revenue?

The economy is not the cause, it's the high fares. Frontrunner round-trip from Layton to SLC is $9. Gas for my car is $7 and it is 30 minutes faster. Since the last rate increase on Oct 1 the Layton Frontrunner parking lot is now half empty. 1 Month ago I could not get a space. Higher fares with fewer riders = less revenue.

Scott, the article quoted expected and received sales tax revenue. It did not mention revenue from passengers. It is always a good idea to read the article before commenting on it.

Of course ridership is up. $4-a-gallon-gas rescued flat TRAX/bus ridership. UTA is stealing billion$ of transportation dollars with a masterful con-job by giving away millions of rides a year to "build ridership", making TRAX, Bus, and FrontRunner seem successful.

UTA is stabbing the low income rider with the full weight of surcharges while the yuppies and students pay almost none! Priviledged folk don't even pay for their fares before surcharges are added. The legislative audit noted that EdPass users got the highest discount versus cash-paying customers, paying only 8% of their costs. Now, with Frontrunner, the EdPass users pay about 5%.

At the U-of-U, the cost of UTA fare-passes and surcharges are spread across the whole student body, even those who walk/bike, while drivers get struck twice, with higher parking fees. Higher Education budgets pay for staff passes. The July surcharge was paid from higher U-parking fees.

Utah has been gulled by UTA con-artists into giving lots of well-paid people a free ride,(students also get nearly free rides) with NO SIGNIFICANT SURCHARGES, while cash customers and low income and mildly handicapped pay full fares PLUS multiple surcharges.

Freeloaders make trains seem succesful while UTA rakes-in billion$ in New Taxes.

What a bunch of idiotic uninformed comments. I drive for UTA so I have some insight. UTA fares are less than other comparable transit agencies. In fact I consider UTA a bargain. $2.25 is less than a gallon of gas. UTA is an award winning transit agency. Ten years ago Trax and frontrunner were just a pipe dream. Now they are a reality. What a bunch of whiners. Some people just live to gripe and complain.

You drive a bus so you have insight?

Try reading some of uTA's studies and see what UTA claims its rail boondoggles will actually do.

UTA is always rewriting its own rules and history.

Read the legislative audit from last January.

You work WITH a lot of good people. But, UTA's mamagement are masterful conartists. They are wasting billions on stupid, deceptively managed rail lines while the bus system carries just half the per capita ridership it had in 1979.