Every input here is a published figure with a date on it. The driving cost uses the IRS standard mileage rate, which covers fuel, depreciation, maintenance, insurance and registration rather than just what you put in the tank. The train cost is computed from UTA's published fare rule — a base fare to the first station and sixty cents for each one after it — rather than copied from a fare table that would go stale without anyone noticing. Parking and tolls are fields you fill in, because both vary too much for us to print a number and pretend it is yours.
Free with two or more in the car. Solo drivers pay a variable toll.
How the arithmetic works, and where it stops
The mileage rate is doing more work than people expect. The IRS business standard mileage rate is 76 cents a mile as of 2026-07-01, published under notice IR-2026-29. It went up mid-year, from 72.5 cents, which is rare and which the IRS attributed to fuel costs. The reason the resulting number looks high is that the rate is not a gas figure: it is built to cover depreciation, maintenance, insurance and registration as well. That is the honest full cost of a mile, and it is the right basis for a decision about where to live. If your car is paid off and cheap to run, type a lower number in — the field is editable precisely because the average is not you.
The rail fare is computed, not quoted. UTA prices FrontRunner by how many stations you pass: a base fare to the first, then sixty cents for each additional one, halved for reduced fare. Two stations do not count against you — Vineyard and North Temple — and Vineyard is the one that matters locally, because it sits in the path of every Utah County rider heading north. Counting the line that way from Provo to Ogden gives thirteen chargeable stations, and the arithmetic lands on $9.70, which is exactly the ceiling UTA publishes and our fares guide quotes. A method that reproduces the published endpoint is worth more than a table somebody typed once.
Fare capping is why the train is cheaper than the per-ride price suggests. Capping quietly replaced the monthly pass. FrontRunner is premium service, so a heavy commuter stops paying after the daily and weekly premium caps are reached, and the rest of the week rides uncharged. The calculator applies both caps before it multiplies out to a month, which is the step most back-of-envelope comparisons miss and the reason a five-day rail commute costs far less than five times a round trip. One catch worth holding on to: the week runs Sunday to Saturday rather than as a rolling seven days, so a heavy Friday-Saturday followed by a heavy Sunday-Monday will not cap the way you expect.
What the calculator refuses to do is price your evening. Our where-to-live guide makes the point better than a spreadsheet can: the largest cost of a forty-mile commute is not fuel or parking, it is the difference between a household that eats dinner together at six and one that eats at seven-thirty. Nothing on this page captures that, and it is usually the whole decision. The same guide covers the geography that no amount of arithmetic changes — the Point of the Mountain is a single ridge with one good road over it, and the west-side back door through Redwood Road and the Mountain View Corridor is longer in miles and often faster in minutes.
The last mile is where a rail commute is won or lost. Getting to Lehi or Draper by train puts you near an office park that was not built to be walked to; downtown Salt Lake is the one destination where the train genuinely delivers you to the door, via a TRAX transfer that is a local fare and counts against the local cap separately. Our FrontRunner and commuting guide covers the schedules, the last-mile options and the Sunday gap — there is no Sunday service at all, which matters more than any fare.
If you are weighing a whole move rather than a commute, the cost-of-living calculator is the broader tool, and the commute math city by city is the guide behind this one.
Mileage rate verified against the IRS's own published table on 3 September 2026. Fare rule and caps from our UTA fares guide, which states its own vintage. Distances are rounded corridor readings, not navigation. If a published figure has moved, tell us.