Editorial: The Salt Lake Tribune: "Looked at holistically, it would be in the overall best interest of a great many people if it were free to ride the buses and TRAX trains that now serve the area, plus many more. It would help working-class people get around, reduce wear and tear on city, county and state roads, reduce and delay the need for major renovations or whole new highways and, most important of all in these parts, ease air pollution.
Adding up all those potential benefits could well produce an equation proving that it would make sense for area taxpayers — even those who never sit in a UTA seat — to fork over enough in tax subsidies to make transit a free service.
It would require a very broadly cast cost-benefit analysis that would include the value of highways not widened, potholes not filled, work and school days not missed, red air days not suffered through and heart attacks not occurring.
Also figured in would be the forgone expenses now associated with collecting fares, enforcing the rules and handling all that cash. But a free transit system has, at least in theory, so many benefits to so many people that we would be foolish in the extreme not to give it a very hard look."
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