UDOT, state senator Karen Morgan differ on HOV-lane alternatives

TAYLORSVILLE — "Electronic tolling" will enable drivers not in carpools or on motorcycles to be charged to use the high-occupancy vehicle lane on I-15 with radio-frequency identification.

Antenna boxes 20 feet above the HOV lanes will send electronic signals to credit-card sized transponders mounted to vehicle windshields. Once the vehicles are identified, the drivers will be charged varying amounts, depending on the amount of traffic in the HOV lane.

The electronic tolling system is certainly high-tech and cool. But is it necessary?

One state senator says no, since the system will cost $14 million to install and state coffers are down by hundreds of millions of dollars.

"We cannot afford it, and I do not believe it's necessary," said Sen. Karen Morgan, D-Salt Lake. "We just can't afford it in these hard economic times. There are higher priorities that we should be addressing with that kind of money."

UDOT defends the project as necessary. "It's not a gee-whiz thing," said UDOT spokesman Nile Easton.

Installation of the system begins this spring, but Morgan wishes UDOT would halt the project until a time when state revenues are more flush. And she is not backing down from a bill that she will introduce in the Legislature, which begins this year's session on Jan. 25.

SB38 would allow all vehicles to travel in the HOV lanes, except during morning and afternoon commutes — 6 to 9 a.m. and 4 to 7 p.m. — and would permit drivers to enter and exit HOV lanes wherever they please. Currently, drivers are limited on where they can enter and exit the lanes.

The bill will cost UDOT money in signs and striping, but the cost hasn't been calculated yet, Morgan said.

"It's not going to be as expensive as their other plan" of electronic tolling, Morgan said. "It would be less expensive because (the Department of) Public Safety would only have to enforce it during the peak hours of 6 to 9 a.m. and 4 to 7 p.m."

But UDOT opposes the bill.

"As you can imagine, that will make electronic tolling extremely difficult," UDOT's legislative director, Linda Hull, told the Utah Transportation Commission on Thursday at UDOT headquarters in Taylorsville.

Commissioners agreed with Hull.

"I think it's poor timing," said commission chairman Jeffrey Holt. "Basically, we're coming out with a new high-occupancy tolling."