Purpose & Goals
UTA has been engaged with communities and stakeholders throughout the service planning process to develop our updated 2025-2029 Five-Year Service Plan. This plan is a vision for the future to guide potential service planning changes over the next few years and get people where they need to go. The changes identified in this plan are based on systemwide analysis, community requests and feedback, operational and cost concerns, and other factors.
What Is the Five-Year Service Plan?
The 2025-2029 Five-Year Service Plan is a dynamic guide for UTA’s near-term future. Our region is growing rapidly, and where and how we grow affects the transportation network. This vision for the future of UTA works to address these effects through improvements to the transit system.
This plan, like a route map, is a snapshot in time. It reflects UTA’s intended service based on the best information available. This plan is updated every two years and considers both the UTA Long-Range Transit Plan as well as other regional and local transportation plans in its development. To learn more, take a look at the previous Five Year Service Plan for 2023-2027.
Plan Goals
For the 2025-2029 Five-Year Service Plan, UTA is focusing on the following goals:
- Restore service in areas where it was previously reduced
- Improve the region’s quality of life by increasing overall access to transit
- Improve employee working conditions by reducing irregular shifts, which will benefit riders with more service throughout the day
- Implement the Long-Range Transit Plan and prepare for future service and projects
- Be responsive to community feedback
More About the Draft of the 2025-2029 Five-Year Service Plan
The following outlines the updated draft of the phased 2025-2029 Five-Year Service Plan. This is the framework upon which the plan is built, updated, and refined, before it is finally adopted and implemented. These proposed changes are determined based on community feedback and other inputs, including stakeholder feedback, operational feasibility, workforce capacity and planning, budgetary considerations, community needs, compliance with federal Title VI regulations regarding discrimination, and ongoing analysis of our system, following public comment. We carefully consider the operational cost and feasibility of any potential change.
As this plan is updated, any additional service will be subject to available resources. There are also some notable changes between this plan and the 2023-2027 Five-Year Service Plan. This plan includes more routes that increase coverage in the region, projects that were previously vision items, an emphasis on improving hours for employees and riders, and increased connections. Additionally, two new transit centers and the Davis-Salt Lake Community Connector route have been added to the 2025-2029 Five-Year Service Plan.
Public Input
UTA relies on public participation to shape our service. This Five-Year Service Plan includes route changes that have been prioritized by riders and community members. The UTA Planning Department receives public comments daily as they are submitted by riders and community members through the UTA Customer Service Department. These factors have been and will continue to be used to finalize the Five-Year Service Plan, along with public input from earlier this summer, and presented for approval in February to the UTA Board of Trustees. The Five-Year Service Plan will be used to identify and implement changes throughout the coming years, beginning with April Change Day in 2025.
In addition to public comments that speak to riders’ experiences on the transit system, the UTA Planning Department also refers to previous public comments from various efforts including the Long-Range Transit Plan, the previous Five-Year Service Plan, and Change Day public comment periods. This information is combined with technical analysis and consideration of operating and cost constraints to develop the 2025-2029 Five-Year Service Plan.
Constraints
UTA has fixed resources, including workforce considerations in operations. We carefully consider the operational cost and feasibility of any potential change. As this plan is developed, transit service is subject to available resources. Some changes may also show up in future Five-Year Service Plans or the Long-Range Transit Plan.
Community Engagement
A community engagement report is included in the Final FYSP document: check it out here:
Questions?
You can also get in touch with us via email, with questions or comments regarding the Five-Year Service Plan, at community@rideuta.com. If you have general UTA questions, contact rideuta@rideuta.com.
More Community Engagement With UTA!
UTA has several opportunities ongoing that are supporting planning for future transit service and experiences. Let us know if you’re interested in engaging with us more through surveys, interviews, and discussion groups on other related public transit topics:
Innovative Mobility Zones (IMZs) Study - fill out the engagement interest form linked below to get involved
Get Involved with IMZs!
Customer Experience Plan - Let us know your priorities for customer experience improvements.