UTA will extend its commuter rail service to Pleasant View today.
The Utah Transit Authority started running the FrontRunner North train to Pleasant View, a city about eight miles north of Ogden, in September. The more recent extension adds two morning trains and three afternoon and evening trains to the Pleasant View route schedule.
For the past four months, only a single direct service morning and evening train has traveled between Pleasant View Station and Salt Lake Central Station.
The added trains are not direct service, however. Passengers riding on the new trains are required to transfer at Ogden Central Station before continuing to Salt Lake City.
UTA was unable to extend service to Pleasant View earlier because of scheduling complications with Union Pacific Railroad, with which UTA shares the five-mile section of rail between Ogden and Pleasant View, said Carrie Bohnsack-Ware, a spokeswoman for UTA.
UTA will maintain bus schedules on routes 680 between Pleasant View and Ogden and route 455 between the U and Ogden.
As UTA continues to expand both its commuter rail and light-rail service, the company has also scheduled to simultaneously drop and raise its fare prices April 1 because of the economic recession and the cost of fuel.
In July and October 2008, UTA instituted two fuel surcharges to fare prices based on the increasing average of diesel fuel costs. Between January and March 2008, the average price calculated by UTA was $3.49. Between April and June of the same year, the average price jumped to $4.39.
The two fuel surcharges followed two previous fare increases in July 2007 and January 2008 that were approved by the UTA Board of Trustees to help sustain basic maintenance and operations. UTA scheduled a third fare increase for Jan. 1, but John Inglish, general manager for UTA, decided to postpone the increase because of the economic downturn.
Because of the rapid decline in the cost of diesel fuel, UTA has scheduled to remove the two fuel surcharges from the fare prices April 1. However, on the same day, UTA will also institute the third fare increase approved by its Board of Trustees that was originally scheduled for Jan. 1, which means that UTA ticket prices will drop by 50 cents and rise by 25 cents. An Adult Single Trip fare will drop from $2.25 to $2.00 on April 1.