UTA and new ski buses...

Ski Bus stop downtown SLC
Originally uploaded by wfrankl2

UTA adds new ski buses to fleet

This article mentions the new buses now being utilized on the ski bus service. In years passed I have railed against the ski bus service as it is now set due to its high cost and great waste of capital resources.

This article allows a perfect examination of what a waste of capital resources it is to run the service.

My big problem with the ski bus service is the buses run only 4 months a year then sit for the other 8 except for an occasional trip. This greatly wastes precious capital resources on a very special limited service. While Justin Jones may say UTA is not a social service agency, the ski bus service proves him wrong.

Now lets take the cost of one of these new buses at 3.6 million. That means that the capital cost per revenue day on a ski bus is $2600 while the revenue cost of the same bus being used in regular service is only $1050. Instead of wasting valuable capital resources on the ski bus service they should instead use those resources on regular routes. While some people may not like what they hear, if we are to continue running the ski bus service like it has for the last 31 years then UTA should be using buses on these routes that its about to retire. Since UTA usually has buses sitting around waiting to head to auction, it should use these buses for the ski bus service every year and leave the newer buses to other roles. That way a vital capital resource is not being wasted.

As I have mentioned before in the past, either UTA needs to contract this service out to a company that would provide the buses or it needs to find a use of the buses the rest of the year. While Zions Park already has it's own buses, that is a perfect example of what should be done with the ski buses instead of sitting in the garage. It is travesty to be wasting a 3.6 million dollar piece of equipment when it sits more than 66% of the time.