After more than a month of waiting in anticipation, the Cache Valley community now has the definitive answer on the future of the current zero fare policy on CVTD buses.
Of the 20 members of the CVTD Board of trustees, 19 were in attendance, and voted unanimously to keep the current free ride system in place, at least for the time being.
While all members agreed that in the current state of affairs it made fiscal sense, there was also an agreement to revisit the discussion of charging a fare in the future.
Board member Jeannie Simmonds spoke on this point:
“I think that the exercise of looking at whether or not we charge a fare is a valuable exercise, and should be done on a regular basis. There is a point at which it is the right thing for us to do, to charge a fare for the bus. Today I will say no, it’s not today. But I also believe that we as a board have a responsibility to continue to look at it on a regular basis. Looking at it and analyzing and making a conscious decision, I think carries a lot more weight for us, as a transit district and for the community that we serve.”
The motion put up for the vote included the stipulation that the board would reconsider a fare in conjunction with the reevaluation of the CVTD’s short range transit plan that occurs every three to five years. The latest short range transit plan began recently, to try to accommodate for two new high schools being built in the valley.