LEHI — Failure to expedite two enormous transportation/transit projects currently scheduled to happen decades from now could prove calamitous amid the continued explosive growth along the Wasatch Front.
But pushing up the schedule on the $1.3 billion Mountain View Corridor extension and the $1.2 billion TRAX Blue Line extension means coming up with ways to pay for them now. And, the most viable options for making that happen have one thing in common:
New taxes.
Additionally, thanks to an ongoing stalemate between Congress and the administration of President Donald Trump, a long-anticipated expansion of federal infrastructure funding has been stalled for months, with no clear path to resolution in sight. That impasse reduces prospects for federal help as state leaders work to figure out how to fast-track these critical projects.
The funding option findings were presented Monday to the Point of the Mountain Development Commission, a 2-year-old, Legislature-created effort tasked with assessing the impacts of the state’s current, and projected, nation-leading population growth and attendant issues brought by that influx. The body’s work has included conducting public outreach and retaining consultants and analysts to determine the best paths forward to address, as directed by state lawmakers, myriad growth-related issues — including higher housing costs, longer commutes, worsening air quality, fewer new jobs and lost wage growth.
Presenters from Envision Utah, who also coordinated public outreach and consultation expertise for the Point of the Mountain effort, said former Utah Gov. Mike Leavitt recognized the importance of a west-side freeway some 20 years ago when the Mountain View Corridor was first discussed.
The issue it would help address was a structural disconnect — one that has only been exacerbated since that time — where Wasatch Front jobs are clustered along freeway corridors while housing development has burgeoned where land was available, namely on the west side of the Salt Lake Valley. The functional result has been greatly increased traffic snarls as these new west-side residents commute to jobs mostly located on or near the I-15 corridor.
Extending Mountain View and the Blue Line to points south has been prioritized through work the commission has previously conducted.
Envision President Ari Bruening told commission members that the time was fast approaching where land consumption could reduce, or eliminate, options.
“As we worked with our consultant team, the one project that could be a game changer for attracting more jobs to the west is approving Mountain View Corridor as a freeway,” Bruening said. “And it needs to be built soon enough that land is not consumed for housing before completion.”
A funding analysis performed by Zions Bank identified a variety of options for getting the Mountain View Corridor — designated in past regional transportation plans as a project for the 2030-2040 time frame — moved up in the schedule.
Those options could include a mix of:
- A 1⁄2-cent per gallon gas tax increase, which would bring in about $69 million a year.
- A statewide property tax hike that would generate $15.6 million annually for every $10 increase per $300,000 home value.
- Eliminating the tax exemption on home heating fossil fuels, estimated to create $44.1 million in new annual revenues.
- Eliminating the sales tax exemption on vehicle fuel sales, a change that would lead to $200 million to $275 million in new revenues.
Taking the TRAX Blue Line south has been on the planning horizon since the extension was completed in the late 1990s, and a good portion of the right of way extending south from Draper, on the east side of I-15, has already been secured by the Utah Transit Authority.
However, planners say there are some good reasons to consider a west-side route that would head south from the Draper Town Center, run through the soon-to-be-redeveloped Draper prison site and then hook east to Lehi.
While the west side alignment would cost more — likely around $1.2 billion versus just under $1 billion for the east-side pathway — Utah Transit Authority estimates show better potential ridership numbers for the west and it would help create transit solutions for the upcoming Draper prison redevelopment.
UTA is currently engaged in a yearlong study focused on a more detailed analysis of the relative advantages/disadvantages of the two Blue Line extension options.
The Zions report listed the best potential funding sources for the TRAX extension — identified in earlier regional transportation plans as slated for the 2040-2050 decade — include creating transportation reinvestment zones around newly constructed stations that would capture a portion of future property tax increases and could generate around $14.2 million in 2025 and grow to $35.5 million by 2030; increasing county-level local options sales taxes, with each .25% increase in Salt Lake and Utah counties generating approximately $91 million annually; as also proposed for potential Mountain View Corridor funding, assess a new statewide property tax increase and/or eliminate tax exemption on fossil fuels for heating purposes.
Whether to expedite the Mountain View Corridor and TRAX Blue Line projects, and how best to pay for them, is a decision that will reside with legislators, who will at least be armed with both the long-running analysis provided by the development commission and the newly synthesized funding options prepared by Zions Bank.
The question of getting help for either of the projects from federal government sources, and the gridlock in which the current federal infrastructure legislation is mired, was a point raised by commission member and Salt Lake County Mayor Jenny Wilson, a one-time Washington, D.C.-based congressional staffer.
“It’s great to see the (funding) options outlined here,” Wilson said. “I worked in D.C. in the ’90s for Congress and back then, the funding was a 90-10 split for transportation and other programs, then 80 federal-20 local, then 50-50.
“I think we’ll want to stay on top of of the infrastructure funding bill, at some point, but maybe we’ll never get Congress to work again and maybe it will never happen. But if it is to happen, having us in the driver’s seat will help reduce some impact here.”
David Bauer, CEO of the American Road & Transportation Builders Association, told Governing.com earlier this year that the Highway Trust Fund, the federal government’s main source of surface transportation funding, is operating at an annual deficit rate of $18 billion and that continued shortfalls in the fund are “a 50-pound weight that the highway and public transportation programs have been carrying around for 11 years on their back,” Bauer said.