"People in Utah County are far, far ahead of [their] elected leaders on this issue," Anderson told Utah Valley State College students this week.

At the Orem school to tout his city's award-winning initiatives to fight global warming, Anderson noted that more than 70 percent of Utah County respondents in a recent Dan Jones survey supported a commuter-rail system.

Commuter rail is coming in 2008 along a 44-mile stretch in Salt Lake, Davis and Weber counties, where voters have agreed to higher taxes to pay for it.

"When voters in three of the most conservative counties on the planet - probably next to Utah County - voted for a [quarter-cent] sales-tax increase to be dedicated solely to transit, that was a great success," Anderson said.

But no one knows when commuter trains will begin rolling in Utah County, where officials have not placed the quarter-cent tax on the ballot and have elected to bolster roads first.

"If we had a commuter-rail system, I wouldn't have had the problems I had getting down here today," added Anderson, who got tied up in traffic and was 15 minutes late for his speaking engagement.

Utah County Commissioner Steve White said he and his commission colleagues would be farsighted about commuter rail if state planners weren't so shortsighted.

"In doing mass transit, what am I to do until Salt Lake County gets [commuter rail] to our county line?" he asked. "Cheeky Rocky can say whatever he wants, but what am I going to connect to?"

Wasatch Front Regional Council planners recently approved an accelerated plan that would bring commuter rail south into Utah County by 2015.

"It's a top priority. Of course, there's no money for it," Utah Transit Authority spokesman Justin Jones said.

Commuter rail may come late to Utah County, but American Fork resident Hilary Robinson does not want to see it derailed.

"I drive to work in Murray at least three and sometimes as many as six days every week," she said. "If I could take a train and reduce the wear on my car, I would. I'll bet if Mayor Anderson was in charge here, we would get [commuter] rail much faster. All we get now is excuses."

Even so, Utah County planners' Interstate 15 construction model calls for running commuter rail through the county on an interim basis while the freeway is being overhauled starting in 2011 or 2012.

Chad Eccles, transit planner for the Mountainland Association of Governments, said that would require permission from Union Pacific to use its line through the county until the highway work is done or until UTA builds a permanent track along UP's right of way.

"If we're not moving forward on a permanent solution on [getting our own track, UP] probably won't let us do that," Eccles said.

Even the highway work is iffy. The tab for the I-15 overhaul through Utah County is an estimated $3.5 billion. White wonders where the money will come from.

He noted the Utah County Commission did vote 18 months ago to put a quarter-cent transportation tax - largely for roads - on the ballot, but yanked it after mayors and planners pressured them to wait to see what the state was willing to do.

"We could have had $28 million in the bank right now" for transportation, White said.

Last month, commissioners voted to hike vehicle-registration fees by $10 a year. But that money will go toward land for more roads.

meddington@sltrib.com