The state's transportation chief is gearing up for two "emotional" battles at the Legislature next year.
Utah Department of Transportation Executive Director Tom Warne told hundreds of UDOT employees, contractors and consultants here Tuesday that securing additional funding for I-15 reconstruction and getting permission to build the West Davis Highway as a toll road are major challenges facing the department.Warne said he is confident the Legislature will find a way to come up with $230 million to cover the difference between original estimates for Salt Lake County I-15 work and the $1.59 billion price tag announced in March.
The increase pushed the cost of the 10-year Centennial Highway road improvement plan to $2.8 billion just weeks after legislators raised the state gasoline tax and vehicle registration fees to harness $2.6 billion.
"They may increase the bonding authority and raise the money that way," Warne said in an opening-day talk at UDOT's annual engineer's conference. Or, he suggested, "if you take (the time frame of the Centennial program) from 10 years to 11 1/2 years, it balances out."
Warne, however, said legislators seem intent on limiting use of the gas tax and vehicle registration revenues for the Centennial Fund to 10 years. The solution could involve a combination of additional bonding and extending the time frame.
"What you have is a commitment from those in (state) government that we'll find a way to do it. We're going to stay the course," Warne told a gathering of nearly 800."But it will be the most emotional issue we'll be dealing with at the Department of Transportation because it affects so many people and all of the people in this room."
Another highly charged issue, Warne told his audience, is the possibility that user fees, or tolls, will be collected on the West Davis Highway - the first segment of Gov. Mike Leavitt's planned Legacy Highway. Warne said between 20 and 40 percent of the estimated $250 million to $300 million cost of the six-lane highway could be covered by tolls.
Warne conceded some Davis County residents don't feel they should have to pay twice - through taxes and tolls - for a new road when other new roads are being built without user fees.
But the bottom line, Warne said, is that the West Davis Highway must be built from I-215 in Salt Lake County to Farmington in Davis County. Otherwise, I-15 through Davis County would have to be expanded to 18 lanes to accommodate traffic volumes expected along the corridor in 2020. And without the new road, motorists would have no high-capacity alternate route when I-15 in Davis County is reconstructed following the 2002 Winter Games.
Only $130 million has been set aside for the West Davis Highway out of the Centennial Highway Fund. Even if $100 million can be raised from tolls, more financing would be needed, Warne said.
UDOT will spend another 45 days studying the West Davis toll road concept. If it decides for certain to pursue tolls as a funding source, it will ask the state Transportation Commission to accept that recommendation, then go to the Legislature in January for approval to pursue toll funding.
Construction of the West Davis Highway is tentatively scheduled to begin next fall, with completion in 2001.