'We move this city': UTA trustees get earful from transit employees over outsourcing plans 

click to enlarge

• Benjamin Wood
• Utah Transit Authority employees demonstrate against the outsourcing of transit services during a meeting of the UTA Board of Trustees on Wednesday, May 8, 2024.

DEPOT DISTRICT—Dozens of Utah Transit Authority employees gathered on the street outside UTA headquarters on Wednesday, before crowding into a Board of Trustees meeting to speak against the outsourcing of transit services to a third-party contractor.

The demonstrators—a mix of bus and train operators as well as maintenance staff and union representatives—held signs criticizing UTA management and, after several speakers offered comment to the trustees, exited the meeting under chants of "Who moves this city? We move this city."

"You will be hearing from us," Imelda Piep warned board members, "and I can tell you, they’re not going to be happy emails."

At issue is a memo distributed by UTA last week, stating that the agency is pursuing contract proposals for supplemental services. While no plans have been finalized, a UTA spokesman told City Weekly that the intention is to explore new arrangements that could relieve the strain on standard transit services caused by things like winter ski bus demand, special events like the Utah Air Show and the bus bridges and other alternate routing necessitated by transit maintenance.

"We’re doing ski bus service next year, and in fact we’re trying to improve it," UTA spokesman Carl Arky said. "We’re putting out [requests for proposals] to vendors and contractors just to see what we could do to supplement what we’re doing."

But UTA's explanations appeared to fall flat with the transit employees gathered at Wednesday's meeting. Speakers questioned the efficacy of relying on untrained drivers, the costs of diverting funds to a for-profit contractor, the decreased ability for UTA operators to access overtime opportunities and whether the agency might be intentionally sabotaging ski bus service in order to prop up Utah's plans for a gondola up Little Cottonwood Canyon.

"It is work that we want to do. We are here, we are showing you we want to work, we want to do it," said Andy Hyer. "We’re up there working miracles year in and year out on that ski bus. That’s ours, let’s keep it to us please."

The issue of employee retention was frequently raised, as UTA has struggled to maintain staffing levels in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. One speaker, Kimball High, suggested that UTA's efforts would be better utilized by investing in and supporting their existing operators.

"Hiring contractors is not a more efficient solution than reinforcing the infrastructure that you already have on board," High told board members. "It’s very important that you know the opportunity you have to reinforce and to improve upon a great service."

UTA executive director Jay Fox said the request for third-party proposals is one piece of a much larger puzzle that the agency is working on as it seeks to improve transit services while taking care of UTA employees. He emphasized that it is only supplemental services being considered for outsourcing, not the transit agency's day-to-day operations.

"It’s a bigger picture and it’s an operating model that we’re learning more about," Fox said. "Our goal again is to create a model that works for our entire agency and, more importantly, works for our community."

But employees described feeling "blindsided" by the memo, while offering criticisms of how top management makes its decisions and suggesting that communication with the collective bargaining organization had broken down.

"We could sit down and figure this out, we’ve always done that," said Rob Dunn, president of the local 382 chapter of the Amalgamated Transit Union. "There are things that could be improved at UTA but right now, everything seems to be behind closed doors."

Other critics pointed to the rollout of on-demand transit through Via, a third-party contractor that offers rideshare services similar to Uber or Lyft on the west side and other areas of poor UTA connectivity. While the service sees regular ridership, it has also been dogged by complaints over delays, missed pickups and poor accessibility.

Lewis Carter described a mother of 5 who related having to walk four miles on Redwood Road—the deadliest street for pedestrians in Salt Lake City—because Via vehicles don't provide car seats for children. He also described conflicts with Via drivers who make illegal road maneuvers, demonstrate poor customer service and park in bus-loading zones, disrupting standard UTA vehicles while poorly representing the UTA brand.

"Outsourcing our work to Via on demand hasn’t been as successful as it would seem," Carter said. "I think we [UTA employees] deserve much more credit than what we are receiving."

Josh Memea, a popular ski bus driver known as "Uncle Maui" on social media, also spoke against the outsourcing, describing how he always wanted to be a bus driver, ever since he was a child.

"When this memo came out—not gonna lie, it was kind of a prick to the heart," Memea said. "I have so much passion for what I do."

And Steven Oscroft described how in his 19 years as a bus operator, he and his fellow drivers have dealt with myriad challenges and obstacles, including a surge in Ski Bus demand during years of high snowfall, like the 2022-23 and 2023-24 winter seasons.

"We stepped up, we solved problems. We had issues that we’ve had to overcome, we overcame them," Oscroft said. "The idea of outsourcing is an easy fix, but we don’t get by doing the easy things. We have to do the hard things, and that is figuring out how to retain people."

Discussion of potential third-party outsourcing was largely limited to the public comment portion of Wednesday's meeting, with no specific agenda item on the topic. Trustee Jeff Acerson made a point to thank the employees for providing their feedback and perspectives.

"Thank you for showing up," Acerson said. "We love to hear your voice."