The Committee on Accessible Transportation (CAT) is excited to announce the recipients of the “I Ride UTA” award and the “I Am UTA” award. This quarter, the award recipients include Taylor Leiter, Sean Curtis, Susana Taulauniu, and Beverley Belka.
The “I Ride UTA” award is a quarterly award presented to individuals with disabilities who choose to use UTA’s accessible fixed route bus and rail services, Paratransit, and Flex Routes as their opportunity to achieve independence through integrated public transit.
The “I Am UTA” award recognizes UTA employees who provide service above and beyond what is expected of them to people with disabilities.
Taylor Leiter is this quarter’s winner of the “I Ride UTA” award. Taylor has been using UTA for 5 years to get to work. He is known to his friends, family and coworkers as a caring individual with a loud, funny, and outgoing personality that never lets any moment get dull. UTA is his only transportation to work, and he rides Monday – Friday and always arrives early! At work, he knows most customers’ names and orders and is ready to serve them as soon as they come in. When he gets to work every morning, he greets everyone by name. According to a coworker, he is an amazing person to get to know. He is a good friend and an amazing example of how to live your best life and how to treat others. Without UTA, his coworkers have said that they would lose one of their best employees and their guests wouldn’t be greeted and served by their favorite employee and friend.
Sean Curtis is one of this quarter’s winners of the “I Am UTA” award. Sean’s nomination came from a customer that called into UTA’s customer service. This customer detailed a significant experience that he had with Sean. One afternoon, the ADA announcement was not working. Knowing the importance of this announcement, Sean took the time to ask every passenger where their stop was and then made sure to stop at those stops. The customer was impressed that he would do that for each one of the customers on his vehicle. The CAT committee is honored to join with the nominating customer to recognize Sean for his hard work and dedication to serving all customers that ride UTA.
Susana Taulauniu is another winner of the “I Am UTA” award. A customer wrote in and said the following about Susana: “Every time I ride Susana’s bus, I feel like I am riding with the safest driver out there. When I step on the bus, she greets me and everyone else entering the bus with a smile and a warm attitude. When people with disabilities ride the bus, she takes her time to make sure they are secure and feel safe, especially people in wheelchairs, before continuing her route. Susana even does the service of reminding myself and others where our stop is if we happen to forget. Not only does she keep the atmosphere welcoming with all these factors accounted for in her driving, but she also constantly reminds people who forget the rules of the bus what they are. I have ridden countless number of buses but not one has been as memorable as those with her as the driver. This nomination is a genuine account to the character of Susana and how she handles herself as a bus driver, a person, and how much she deserves this award.”
Beverley Belka is this quarter’s final recipient of the “I Am UTA” award. A UTA customer called into customer service in order to recognize the amazing service that Beverly has provided. The customer is an individual with blindness that arrived at Salt Lake Central station on a Saturday evening. He was about 45 minutes early for the train, however, he missed the train announcements and ultimately his train. While waiting, Beverly approached him to check in and make sure everything was ok. She then listened to his concerns, and went above and beyond in her efforts to assist the customer. She had a great attitude and was very helpful to the customer, as well as the customer’s guide dog. Through her kind actions, she completely turned this customer’s experience into a positive one.
UTA and the CAT Committee would like to congratulate each of the award winners and thank them for their patronage on our services and dedication to our valuable customers. The public is invited to continue to recognize our outstanding customers and operators each day.
