The road known on planning maps as the Eastlake Parkway would cut through land owned by Anderson Development, a client of House Speaker Greg Curtis' law firm. One of Curtis' partners, former 3rd District Judge Michael Hutchings, since last year has been pressing the state to decide whether to fund the project, telling officials, "If you want a road, speak now or forever hold your peace."

More recently, Hutchings told The Salt Lake Tribune that Anderson Development doesn't actually need the seven-lane arterial - estimated by a regional planning organization to cost $120 million - because reconstruction of Geneva Road already is planned and the property has easy access to Interstate 15.

Still, if Darrell Cook, executive director of the Mountainland Association of Governments (MAG), has his way, the Eastlake Parkway will top the list the state Transportation Commission is expected to approve because motorists will need alternatives to Interstate 15 when UDOT reconstructs the freeway.

Because Curtis, R-Sandy, and Utah County lawmakers have argued in the parkway's favor - and included a provision in a bill passed during this year's legislative session to ease the road's ascent on the UDOT list - Cook may well see his wish granted.

The state Transportation Commission is scheduled to meet Tuesday and Wednesday in St. George, with its main goal being to decide how to spend the Critical Needs Fund, a $1 billion bucket of money created under HB314. The bill, sponsored by Rep. Rebecca Lockhart, R-Provo, and Sen. Sheldon Killpack, R-Syracuse, was introduced in the last days of this year's legislative session and passed the final night with little public discussion.

As required by the law, UDOT has put together a list of 38 highway projects, with a total estimated cost of nearly $2 billion, that would be eligible as critical-needs highways. Such roadways are defined under HB314 as needed to accommodate high population growth and energy development, to relieve traffic congestion or to provide an alternate route during I-15 reconstruc- tion.

The Eastlake Parkway, called the Vineyard Connector on the UDOT list, is estimated to cost $120 million. But UDOT Executive Director John Njord called the arterial's actual cost "a total crapshoot" because none of the required environmental analyses have been scheduled and no engineering has been done.

The Critical Needs Fund will receive an annual $90 million appropriation from the state's General Fund for bonding. While the law goes into effect July 1, it doesn't mandate when all the spending decisions need to be made.

Newly appointed Transportation Commission Chairman Stuart Adams, however, said any delays in decision-making would only cost the state more money. Over the past few years, "we've had significant cost increases in building materials, concrete and asphalt," Adams said. "As prices go up, we lose buying power from this billion dollars, from this $90 million a year we have."

Adams, a Layton Realtor and former two-term state representative, last month replaced Glen Brown as commission chairman as part of Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr.'s shake-up of boards, commissions and the governor's staff.

While HB314 was still in the hopper, Njord consulted with Brown on the bill, Brown told The Tribune. Brown said he raised objections to some of HB314's provisions, including one that set aside a previous law's requirement that projects would receive funding only if they already appeared on the state's master plan and after the Transportation Commission had ranked them according to a rigorous evalua- tion.

Brown, who is still a commission member, also said the commission was being pressured to move faster on spending decisions than he would like.

But that speed is necessary, according to Cook, Hutchings, Adams and Utah County officials who see multiple problems looming.

The reconstruction of I-15 through Utah County has for years been ranked the top transportation priority for the state. The project, whose soft start date is 2011, would cost more than $3 billion and essentially shut down north-south traffic flow because the county does not have feasible alternatives for motorists or commercial trucking.

Attempting to avert that crisis, MAG drew in a road along the east side of Utah Lake through the former Geneva Property on long-range planning maps in 2003 before Anderson Development purchased the land. Last month, as part of the regular four-year update of the long-range plan, the road emerged as MAG's top priority. The Anderson property's 1,800 acres provides the only open ground for such a large project.

Without alternatives during the I-15 work, "we might as well make a cul-de-sac out of Utah County," Cook said.

Before UDOT reconstructed I-15 through Salt Lake County, it widened I-215, and expanded Redwood Road, State Street and 700 East, Njord said. Cook pointed out that Utah County contributed about 18 percent of the tax revenues that fed the Centennial Highway Fund but received only about 5 percent of the outlay.

The county now holds unparalleled power in the Legislature, with Lockhart, vice chairwoman of the Legislature's main budget committee, Senate Majority Leader Curtis Bramble and Senate President John Valentine "very interested in the arterial network," Cook said. "We're pressing, but we're not apologizing for it."

Hutchings said Anderson will go to the town of Vineyard this summer to lay out plans for its residential, retail and office development. "We don't know whether to plan the development of our property around a new [arterial] or not," he said.

With the Geneva Road project already a certainty, three I-15 offramps feeding the property and the possibility of an intermodal transit hub and commuter rail stop at the center of the property, "we can, frankly, do a development without an Eastlake," Hutchings said. "The question is, "Does the state of Utah need this road?' "