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Wednesday, September 19, 2007 | 
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No Comments [ Add Comment ]By Bryon Saxton
Standard-Examiner Davis Bureau
bsaxton@standard.net
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By Bryon Saxton
Standard-Examiner Davis Bureau
bsaxton@standard.net
FARMINGTON -- Standing on an uncompleted on-ramp to the south Legacy Parkway, with a FrontRunner train as a backdrop, the Northern Utah Transportation Alliance kicked off its campaign for a "yes" vote on a sales tax rate increase for transportation.
Opinion question No. 1, part of the Nov. 6 general election ballot, is a proposal to increase the sales tax rate in Davis and Weber counties and parts of Box Elder by a quarter-percent to generate revenues for transportation infrastructure.
The increase would cost the average homeowner roughly $8 to $10 a month, and would generate about $12 million for Davis road projects and $9 million for Weber road projects, according to officials.
The sales tax bump would also generate an additional $800,000 for south Box Elder communities Brigham City, Willard and Perry.
The decision as to which projects would receive the funding would rest with local elected leaders in each of the respective counties.
The north leg of the Legacy Parkway would likely serve as the "poster child" for allocating the dollars generated by the tax in Davis County, Utah Department of Transportation Commission Chairman Stuart Adams said.
"North Legacy has got to be one, and east-west connections," Adams said.Other road projects likely to receive funding include 5600 South in Roy, Antelope Drive in Layton and further improvements to the U.S. 89 corridor, Adams said.
But before the dollars can be counted on, the campaign by the Alliance, an "unprecedented" gathering of elected leaders and business leaders from Davis, Weber and Box Elder counties, must be successful in stemming the anti-tax tide sweeping the Wasatch Front.
"We're concerned about that," Alliance spokesman Stephen G. Handy said of the recent sentiment of property owners regarding taxes.
Handy said the question he is hoping voters will ask themselves is, how much is increased mobility, and the economic development associated with it, worth to them.
While residents may be wary of casting a vote in favor of the opinion question, business leaders say they favor supporting the need for the road revenues.
Adams said the late President Dwight D. Eisenhower stressed the need for highway infrastructure in the U.S. and understood the concept of transportation and the freeway system, and how it relates to the success of the economy.
The state is currently on course to fall short anywhere from $16 billion to $24 billion in funding road projects that have already been identified for improvement, Adams said.
The Brigham City Area Chamber of Commerce supports the sales tax increase, based on a new study that indicates Interstate 15 and U.S. 89 will reach maximum capacity in south Box Elder County by the year 2020, chamber Executive Director Monica Holdaway said.
Holdaway said homes are replacing orchards in the county, as people from out of state move into the Willard and Perry area where there is land available for development.
"There is no Legacy Parkway in our future, or you would have to go through Willard Bay," she said of the need to address the I-15 and U.S 89 corridors.
Voters in 2000 approved an initiative to fund FrontRunner.
As a result, the rail service is to begin operation in spring 2008, said Dave Hardman, Ogden/Weber Chamber of Commerce president.
Counties will always be dependent on state funds for larger transportation projects, Hardman said.
But the new revenues the sales tax increase will provide will be spent at a local level, he said, and can be put toward corridor preservation.
The transportation improvements are needed to get workers, goods and services in and out of the communities along the Wasatch Front, Hardman said.
"The flow of traffic and the flow of business are one and the same," Davis Chamber of Commerce President John Pitt said.
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