South Jordan to weigh light-rail resolution

As the Salt Lake Chamber of Commerce tries to get legislators to meet during their summer break and talk about transportation funding, they may have the support of at least one city.

The South Jordan City Council on Tuesday will consider a resolution calling on the governor to convene a special session of the state Legislature to consider placing a sales-tax increase on the November ballot that would be used for new roads and light-rail lines.

South Jordan's economic-development director, Doug Meldrum, said the money is important to residents all along the Wasatch Front, but it would especially benefit residents in rapidly growing southwest Salt Lake County.

"We have some real problems with east-west transportation," Meldrum said Friday. Kennecott Land Company's new Daybreak community is being built in the city and is expected to bring commercial elements that would create "more of a city center rather than a rural community like we have in South Jordan." So South Jordan officials are itching to see progress made on the Utah Transit Authority's planned Mid-Jordan light-rail line and the proposed Mountain View Corridor, a west-side highway, Meldrum said.

The chamber has proposed that Utah, Salt Lake, Davis and Weber Counties include ballot items this year asking for a sales-tax increase to a total of 1 percent allocated to transportation. If approved in all four counties, the tax increase would bring in $1.8 billion over the next 10 years. Chamber officials have asked Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. to call a July 19 special legislative session to consider authorizing the vote.

But South Jordan resident Drew Chamberlain, who has unsuccessfully run for City Council in the past and is chairman of the anti-TRAX group Coalition for Accountable Government, said the money would be a waste.

"TRAX has been a proven failure," he said Friday. The north-south line is "barely keeping up with population growth and is ruining the bus routes that feed it. Bus ridership has been going down. It's not a good value."

Instead, he said his group would like to see an east-west freeway running from Interstate 15 at about 8000 South to 4000 West, along the proposed light-rail route. He said only one-half of 1 percent of all trips made in South Jordan and West Jordan are on mass transit. "Anything less than a car solution is not a solution," Chamberlain said. "I don't think the people in South Jordan are going to give up their cars."

UTA spokesman Justin Jones said he agrees a car solution is needed, but mass transit should also be part of the picture.