Recent history shows how much Utah County residents rely on I-15 to travel within the county and to and from Salt Lake County. With three lanes, the freeway was gridlocked — often coming to a complete stop — during the morning and evening commutes until a fourth lane was opened in May.

A trip from Lehi to Springville took about 90 minutes before the fourth lane opened, White said. A reduction to two lanes — without any freeway alternatives — would make things even worse.

"It would take 2 1/4 to 2 1/2 hours to go 25 miles in Utah County during rush hour," White said. "Is that what we really want? Or would we rather get the cars off the road by having commuter rail?"

Darrell Cook, MAG executive director, says he expects the public awareness campaign in Utah County to benefit from the state Legislature's decision during last week's special session to allow counties to levy a third quarter of a cent sales tax to pay for transportation projects.

Salt Lake County will put the third quarter-cent on the ballot in November. Utah County voters will be asked to add a second quarter-cent.

"I think you're going to see some synergy as the Salt Lake County campaign takes hold and there's additional visibility and publicity from that," Cook said. "You'll see the two kind of building on each other. There'll be some compound effect and complementary benefit."

The Utah Taxpayers Association hasn't taken a position on the quarter-cent sales tax increase, said Mike Jerman, vice president of the group that advocates low taxes, sound tax policy and economic development.

The state's transportation needs must be addressed, but giving counties the OK to raise sales taxes isn't the solution, Jerman said.

"State-level governments need to spend more money on transportation," he said. "(Commuter rail) should be funded at the state level, not the local level — but obviously that's not going to happen."

The taxpayers association favors congestion pricing, a form of tolling in which the cost to use a road increases by congestion.

"Congestion pricing is about giving people financial incentive to change their driving habits," Jerman said. "Obviously, that's not going to happen between now and November. In the long run, that's what needs to happen."

Although elected leaders unanimously support the tax increase, governmental institutions are prohibited from spending taxpayer money to advocate an issue unless they allocate equal funds to each side.

That puts the public awareness campaign in the hands of citizens, who are raising money from area businesses to publicize the issue through the media and with promotional materials.

Billings says Provo is putting together an information packet on the quarter-cent sales tax increase to provide to anyone who requests the information.

"(Provo city's) legal counsel says, as an elected official, it's not only my right to put out that kind of factual information, but it's my obligation to do that," he said.

Billings said he also plans to support the citizen's committee in his own time and expects that other mayors will get similarly involved.

"The mayors are pretty revved up about this," he said.

---

E-mail: jpage@desnews.com