Getting serious about roads
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No comments [ Add Comment ]It's time to concede the state's transportation infrastructure is in a fix when members of the state's GOP vanguard are touting extreme tax hikes and fees in an attempt to capture dollars that can be spent building new roads and improving existing highways.
That's precisely what happened last week at a Utah Taxpayers Association conference. The state Senate's Assistant Majority Whip Sheldon Killpack, R-Syracuse, and Stuart Adams, former respected lawmaker from Layton and current Utah Transportation chairman, were doing the shock-and-awe tag-team routine for dyed-in-the-wool tax haters.
Their message was sobering: The state is $16 billion short on transportation needs -- no secret there; it's a number that's been tossed around for a few years now.
But the fact that Utah has no funding mechanisms in place to pay the tab for such improvements and new construction is irrefutable.
Killpack summed it up by explaining that Utahns want better roads, but they don't want to pay for them.
No kidding. The state's 24.5-cent per gallon gasoline tax hasn't been raised since 1997. Ever since then, lots of Utahns -- including this editorial page -- have urged the Legislature to either index the tax to the inflation rate or institute a modest annual hike to pay for increasing costs associated with Utah's exploding population and transportation needs. The Legislature's never had the courage to do either.
As Adams told the audience, Utah's population is up 47 percent since 1990. The number of miles traveled by Utah drivers is up even more: 71 percent. New roads and reconstruction on existing roads, over that same time period, are up only 4 percent. It's a recipe for continuing to fall behind, and now we're in a mess.
The situation is so dire that Killpack and Adams let it all hang out. Among the ideas they floated (but don't necessarily support):
* A 40-cent per gallon gasoline tax increase. Neither Killpack nor Adams supports it, but they say that would be the number necessary to bring in the revenue needed.
* Barring that, a more modest hike of 5 cents per gallon by 2016 and another nickel by 2030.
* Increase the amount of sales tax revenue from automobile-related items devoted to transportation from 8.3 percent to 17 percent.
* Raising the local-option sales tax another half-cent, and devoting it to transportation funding.
* Adopt the practice of "congestion pricing," which would tax drivers who commute during peak drive time a little extra for helping to clog up the roads.
* Adopting a toll-collection system for automobiles using the two-people-or-more-per-vehicle express lanes which kicks in if the number of vehicles using the lanes reaches a certain level.
These are all drastic measures, sure to rub voters the wrong way. We applaud Killpack and Adams for actually speaking such words in public, and especially in front of such a potentially hostile audience.
What we cannot forgive, however, is a Legislature that's been largely asleep at the wheel while this tsunami of need has been building. The ruling party has turned a blind eye to the need for transportation -- and mass transit -- funding for so many years that now we'll likely have to pay sudden and onerous taxes and fees in order to play catch-up. The state's annual plaudits from national organizations for being such a financially well-managed government fail to take into account these kinds of pressing needs.
Killpack is right: We Utahns have always wanted better roads and transit, but grumble about paying for them. Now the bill is coming due.
