In the final hours of the session, Utah County likely lost an opportunity to fund expansion of I-15.

And they may have lost a chance to help build commuter rail into the county.

Under SB183, which didn't make it to a vote, voters in Utah County would have had the option to join as a unified transit district. Currently, individual cities and towns can decide whether they want to be affiliated with the Utah Transit Authority.

The measure would have also allowed those voters to decide whether to raise funds for transit with an additional quarter-cent sales-tax increase. The money would have gone directly toward commuter rail, said UTA general manager John Inglish.

Currently the authority has no funds for commuter rail into Utah County.

"They had a wonderful one-time opportunity here," said Inglish. "Utah County would have been the enormous beneficiary of that."

Instead, Inglish says lawmakers merely slapped a band-aid on growing transportation needs in the state by allocating only $120 million.

Transportation is critical to the economy, he said, and helps bring money to education and other state-funded programs.

"They didn't get very far with that in the scheme of things," he said, referring to the millions that it takes to build road and transit projects. "If they think something big will come of of that, they're wrong."

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E-mail: nwarburton@desnews.com