The winners and the losers

Winner: This may come as news to those of you who spend your mornings and evenings stuck on freeways, but Forbes magazine has named Salt Lake City as the best place in the nation to commute. The magazine ranked the 60 largest metropolitan areas according to travel times, delays, construction, etc. Salt Lake got high marks for the state's investment in public transit and its alternatives, including 44 miles of carpool lanes. Of course, good news like this will only attract more people here, adding more traffic congestion.

Loser: We've yet to see any form of road rage that didn't leave the participants looking stupid. That was the case once more this week in Roy, where two pickup trucks allegedly tried to duel each other on I-15. One of the trucks rolled. The driver needed emergency surgery on his neck. Oh, and did we mention he had two children on board? A 5-year-old was cut by broken glass. A 2-year-old was uninjured. Did we mention the word "stupid"?

Winner/Loser: The good news is college enrollment is booming in Utah. After years of declines, secondary education is again all the rage, and that will lead to a better-educated populace. The bad news is there is no money to educate all those people. This is the great conundrum of state-funded higher education. When the economy is good, young people find good-paying jobs and decide to forgo college. When the economy tanks, they decide it's time to go back to school — but the lack of good jobs means less tax money to support that decision. Of course, these are the types of challenges that spur politicians to run for election in the first place, right?

Loser: We're glad HB266 was set aside for further study later in the year, but we wish the whole thing had been dropped in the waste can. HB266, sponsored by Rep. Kraig Powell, R-Heber City, would place a cloak of anonymity over state salaries. Unless you're an elected or politically appointed official, your civil service salary would be available to the public only as an anonymous salary range. That's an idea that flies in the face of the notion that the people run their government. A civil service job isn't the same as a private sector job. It is a public trust, paid for by taxpayers who deserve to know who is getting what.