In 2018 due to alleged corruption issues the Utah State Legislature passed a bill organizing UTA with a full-time 3-member board appointed by the Utah State Governor. The President of the Senate, Speaker of the House and Governor of the State of Utah each appointed one seat as well.

Local-elected officials may have also served on the UTA Board, and one seat was reserved for a member of the State Transportation Commission, which is part of the Utah Department of Transportation. These Trustees Trustees were appointed by the city and county governments that fund UTA with a local option sales tax. Until 2018 UTA was governed by a 15-member part-time Board of Trustees. Today, UTA’s service area is over 1,400 square miles (3,600 km 2) and covers seven counties: Box Elder, Davis, Salt Lake, Summit, Tooele, Utah, and Weber. UTA was founded in March 1970 when the cities of Murray, Salt Lake City, and Sandy voted to form a transit district. In 1969, the Utah State Legislature passed the Utah Public Transit District Act, which allows individual communities to address transportation needs by forming local transit districts. New for 2023, Salt Lake has introduced the Cottonwood Connect ski shuttle, with service to all four Salt Lake resorts.The Utah Transit Authority Police Station in Murray, July 2016

Park City and Summit County offer free public transportation. UTA Ski Buses serve all four Salt Lake resorts, Sundance and Park City-area resorts via the PC-SLC Connect and Powder Mountain and Snowbasin near Ogden.

TRAX also serves the University of Utah, Vivint Smart Home Arena (home of the Utah Jazz), Temple Square and Rio Tinto Stadium (home of Real Salt Lake). FrontRunner commuter rail links Salt Lake to both Ogden in the north and Provo in the south, while TRAX light rail serves Salt Lake County including Salt Lake International Airport to downtown Salt Lake City in just 20 minutes.

The Utah Transit Authority (UTA) serves the Wasatch Front with regular bus, light rail and commuter rail schedules. A network of Greyhound serves Utah and Amtrak's California Zephyr cuts across the state serving several Utah stops along the route from Chicago to San Francisco.

Uta transit authority