The commission did the right thing when it voted to ask county residents to approve the tax boost. Reversing that action is not a small mistake.

The commission had said the 2 million a year raised by the sales-tax boost could be leveraged to get matching state and federal funds to start widening and building roads that are desperately needed.

Promises made by Utah County legislators last week that they will find road funds for Utah County during the 2005 legislative session appear to be the impetus for abandoning the ballot issue. But those promises are hollow. The state highway funds that were plentiful during the economically robust 1990s have dried up.

The state budget will be strapped for years to come by demands for education and other front-burner items, and highway funds will be minimal, as they were this year. In fact, existing and future state road funds have been committed until 2020.

Utah County now is on the transportation slow track. In 2000 Salt Lake, Davis and Weber counties passed a quarter-cent sales tax increase for mass transit to meet an expected 76 percent increase in travel as the tri-county population jumps 54 percent in the next 25 years.

TRAX light-rail lines are busy carrying passengers from the suburbs of Salt Lake County to downtown Salt Lake City and the University of Utah. Spurs to the west and south valley are planned. The Utah Department of Transportation is moving forward with another plan to bring heavy-rail commuter trains to link Weber, Davis and Salt Lake counties.

Fast-growing Utah County, meanwhile, is stuck in gridlock. Traffic creeps along I-15 during lengthy morning and afternoon rush hours. There are no good alternative routes.

If Utah County legislators miraculously find some funds in the state budget and convince their colleagues that their constituents deserve them, those funds could help meet the immediate need for more freeway lanes and improved connecting highways. In that case a sales-tax boost could bring mass transit, the vital second half of a solid transportation plan, to the county.

If Utah County motorists want to get traffic moving, they are going to have to pay the toll. They can't wait much longer for short-term relief and a long-range solution that includes commuter- and light-rail options.

Putting off a tax increase in the hope that the Legislature will come to the rescue is a long-odds gamble that is likely to leave most county residents sitting in traffic for a long while to come.