The Wasatch Front Regional Council and similar pro-highway organizations have come under considerable criticism from pro-mass-transit types — most visibly Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson — but Chappell said he's being realistic.

Consider, he says, the fact that in the four-county region of Weber, Davis, Salt Lake and Utah, residents travel 31 million miles in their cars every day. Even with TRAX in place, mass-transit miles account for only 1.5 percent of that.

Mass transit is an integral part of the overall plan — primarily to "take the edge off the peaks" of highway travel during peak hours — but Utahns, following the lead of most Westerners, do most of their traveling by car. And they always will, Chappell said, no matter how many TRAX stations and commuter-rail lines are built.

"We are very comfortable and confident in the model," Klemm said. "This is what's going to happen."

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