Salt Lake City School District students and staff get free UTA passes

SALT LAKE CITY — Students and staff in the Salt Lake City School District are getting free UTA passes, just in time for the new school year. The passes come from a partnership between the district, city, UTA and the Salt Lake Education Foundation.

Mayor Erin Mendenhall herself handed out the first several thousand of these transit passes at East High School on Thursday. She said the partnership is one of the city’s biggest transportation partnerships yet.

Mendenhall said the partnership with the UTA took at least a decade of planning.

The hope is that these passes will help families who are struggling, as well as open doors for students.

“It’s about literally creating pathways for you as our future,” Mendenhall said to East High students.

The President of the Salt Lake City Board of Education, Melissa Ford, said the program will help families, especially in the face of record high gas prices.

The passes given to Salt Lake City School District students and staff include almost everything in the UTA network, besides the FrontRunner and ski bus. 

Students can choose to pay a small upgrade fee to tack those on.

The first few thousand passes have already been distributed and the rest will be passed out to each student and staff member in the district through the next few weeks.

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