Agency Meets National Standard of Excellence for Employee Commuter Benefits
The Center for Urban Transportation Research at the University of South Florida has recognized the Utah Transit Authority for practicing what it preaches; providing outstanding commuter benefits for the agency’s 2,800 employees who work together every day providing safe and reliable public transportation along the Wasatch Front.
UTA meets most all of the criteria set forth for this 2023 Best Workplace for Commuters designation by offering free transit passes to employees. In addition, UTA also offers shuttles to and from transit stations, vanpool subsidies, guaranteed ride home options, teleworking alternatives and condensed workweek options.
A lion’s share of the credit for this award goes to UTA’s Rideshare team that hosted a reception at FLHQ on Wednesday, September 20, 2023 to let employees know about the award and promote the various benefits available to them.
Jay Fox, Executive Director of UTA, shared, “Being nationally recognized as a Best Workplace for Commuters signals how committed UTA is about our mission: We Move You. Transit is the answer for Utah’s current and future quality of life. And that answer begins with our own transit professionals - our employees – who love operating and riding the bus, TRAX, FrontRunner, and all our modes, as much as they love serving our customers. They care about our community and own our environmental stewardship. We believe transit can help make Utah a better place for people to live, work, recreate, and access opportunity.”
Best Workplaces for Commuters (BWC) is an organization that demonstrates how options for commuting, such as transit, carpools, vanpools, and teleworking, are economically and environmentally beneficial, yielding value to workers, employers, and communities.
To qualify for this program, an employer such as UTA must offer one primary benefit, such as employer-paid tax-free transit or vanpool passes, teleworking, bicycling or parking cash-out (enabling workers to trade free parking for its cash equivalent).
Employers must also offer three supporting benefits, choosing from options such as shuttles to and from transit stations (provided directly by the employer or contracted through a service), ridesharing or carpool matching, preferred or reduced-cost parking for carpools and vanpools, and compressed work schedules.
Best Workplaces for Commuters designated worksites must also offer access to an Emergency Ride Home (ERH), which provides participants with a ride at little or no cost if they need emergency transport home due to special circumstances.
BWC promotes environmentally friendly commuting by encouraging multi-modal transportation and alternatives to reduce stress and traffic congestion. UTA shares BWC’s ultimate goal of changing the way America commutes. According to BWC projections, five million fewer cars would be on U.S. roads each day if half of all employees were participants in this program.
