Provided that county taxpayers pay for the right of way - at the license tag counter. And provided that those who drive on the highway pay for the construction and maintenance of it - at the toll gate.
No, really, don't mention it.
With demand for new roadways and maintenance statewide now pegged at $16 billion, far more than the Legislature stands to see from existing taxes, the wave of the future includes more direct user fees, such as the $10 surcharge on vehicle registrations given preliminary approval Tuesday by the Salt Lake County Council.
The toll-road approach has not yet been embraced by county officials and those of the cities that want the Mountain View Corridor. In fact, many of them actively loathe it. But it, too, seems to be an idea whose time has come.
The land-buying money raised by the fee - $175 million over 25 years - is not legally tied to the Mountain View project, though that's the only thing on the drawing boards that needs the cash. Any effort to blend the project with expanded public transit options, of course, would be greatly welcome.
The added registration fee was permitted by the Legislature last year, in a move that puts the onus for raising money to buy land for highways on the counties involved, especially Salt Lake County.
Rapidly growing Utah County, which has waited years for its portion of I-15 reconstruction, now stands at the head of the line for state and federal highway funding. Federal aid is shrinking. And other parts of the state have needs, too.
The folks on the west side of Salt Lake County may understandably feel that it is not equitable to ask them to pay more directly for their roadway when others were able to get taxpayers statewide to share the load. And, if life were fair, it would have been Legacy Parkway, made necessary by legions of Davis County/Salt Lake County commuters, that would have been the state's first toll road.
But that's the one that got away and, absent a sudden transubstantiation of Utah culture from automobile commuters to work-at-home bicyclists, new ways of highway financing are required. So pay up.
