Group wants tax hike to fund road building

A local anti-transit group wants a sales-tax hike authorized by Salt Lake County voters on Tuesday to be used to fund road building, rather than new light-rail lines or commuter rail.

Drew Chamberlain, a member of the Coalition for Accountable Government, said Wednesday that he wants roads to receive funding so congestion can be reduced in the Salt Lake Valley. Chamberlain believes that transit is a waste of money and does nothing to help with traffic.

"If we go for another seven years of (funding) transit only, we're going to be in deep doo-doo," Chamberlain said. "We'll be mired in congestion. We already are."

Unofficial election results show that Proposition 3 was approved by 64 percent of voters Tuesday. The proposition calls for a quarter-cent sales-tax hike to fund transportation projects within the county.

The tax increase had a broad-based coalition of supporters, including the Sierra Club, university presidents, business leaders and elected officials such as Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. All of those supporters have said they would like the tax money to primarily fund transit, in addition to some road projects.

The Salt Lake County Council, along with county mayors, will decide which projects receive the tax dollars. The local officials must first, however, get approval from the Legislature of a process for picking those projects, which include a mix of road and transit options.

The Legislature's Executive Appropriations Committee is scheduled to meet next Tuesday to debate the process.

The anti-transit coalition, which has about 50 members, plans to use an automatic phone dialer system to contact residents and ask them to lobby elected officials to have the tax money used solely for road building. The group made no formalized efforts before the election to oppose or support Proposition 3.