New road ideas needed

Utah lawmakers are making progress in their efforts to fund billions of dollars' worth of needed transportation projects, but more can — and must — be done to ensure those improvements are made quickly and efficiently, a group of tax watchdogs was told Friday.

Sen. Sheldon Killpack, R-Syracuse, said funding measures passed by the 2006 Legislature will pay for approximately $4.5 billion of a projected $16.5 billion shortfall in Utah transportation needs through 2030.

But the state also needs to approach road-building in different ways, he said, such as involving the private sector through the use of toll roads and making sure land for future roadways is preserved many years ahead of time.

The state spent about $50 million alone on acquiring property, and removing homes and business, in preparation for building the Legacy Parkway, Killpack said during the 2006 Utah Taxes Now Conference at the Little America Hotel.

Since government planners already were looking at a west-side Davis County highway as far back as the late 1960s, Killpack said action could have been taken to prevent the construction of homes that eventually would be torn down. A little foresight can save money and prevent having to force residents out of their homes, he said.

"We should have been ahead of the game long ago," he said of the lack of corridor preservation for the Legacy Parkway. "It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out if we can protect the land now, we're going to save a lot (of money) in the future. . . . You end up with a better product, also."

The need for more corridor preservation was echoed by former Layton Mayor Jerry Stevenson. He said the problem local governments have is that they have no way to raise money to pay for land purchases that far in advance.

"The city knows what needs to be protected," he said. "But if there's no money, you cannot buy property."

And condemning the land is not an answer, in part because the high court costs associated with such takings make them prohibitive, he said. Therefore, city officials have little choice but to allow that property to be developed, even though they are fully aware that at some point certain structures may have to be removed, thus "disrupting people's lives," Stevenson said.

He said the 2006 Legislature's passing of SB8 will help. That new law allows individual counties to raise vehicle registration fees by $10 to pay for the preservation of future road corridors. SB8 will generate $1.8 million next year for corridor preservation in Davis County, Stevenson said.