Distance-based fares are for champions

I just read this article in the Salt Lake Tribune talking about UTA's potential future fare-collection system.  Riders would pay according to how far they traveled, as tracked by GPS using a card with an embedded smart chip.  All monthly passes allowing unlimited rides for a flat fee would likely end, as would special discounted pricing for organizations like the University of Utah who purchase passes for employees/students.

The OV-chipkaart system in the Netherlands requires cards to
 be pre-loaded with funds, which the system debits from based
on distance traveled. 

I'm all for it.  Someone commuting from the suburbs has no business paying the same fare as someone using transit for short inner-city trips.  We accept this with private vehicles, so why not public?  Further supporting such a system is the demographics of those who take shorter vs. longer trips (generally poorer vs. generally wealthier, generally more minorities vs. generally whiteheads) due to residential patterns in cities.  But selling such a Marxist agenda has little luck in places like Utah.  Instead they better emphasize fairness in a more libertarian, less redistributive way.

A couple foreseeable challenges to implementation:

1. High costs in the beginning to "train" the public on how to pay their fare, especially those who are least capable of understanding the system.

2. Good old-fashioned American Brand privacy concerns.

3. The end of the world.

If UTA can address these, they have my highly coveted endorsement to move forward