Still, said foundation director and study author Steve Kroes, "It's been sort of common wisdom that there is less concern about sales tax."

Natalie Gochnour, spokeswoman for the Salt Lake Chamber of Commerce, which commissioned the study and hopes to thwart a Salt Lake County vote on a property tax increase to pay for TRAX improvements, put it another way: "Property tax is more hated."

That attitude could give the sales-tax effort a bipartisan lift onto the agenda of the special session to be held Sept. 19 or 20.

House Republicans meeting in closed-door caucus last week endorsed a special session proposal to allow county residents to vote to raise sales tax. GOP senators, however, stalemated in their closed-door meeting because of too many unanswered questions.

Gochnour has said Chamber lobbyists will continue to lobby senators right up to the deadline for calling a special session.

The Chamber opposes the property tax hike because it believes businesses would be taxed unfairly compared with households. But the Utah Foundation study didn't support that assumption.

Kroes concluded that Salt Lake County businesses would pay 43 percent of a proposed $890 million general obligation bond to pay for early completion of four TRAX lines. The property-tax backed bond issue is on the county's November ballot.

Should the Legislature instead engineer a sales-tax increase to pay for the projects, businesses would contribute about 31 percent of the revenue, the study found.

Despite the disparity, the study concluded people likely would choose a sales tax increase over a property tax hike because the former would be incremental, easier to pay and wouldn't provoke sticker shock the way annual property tax notices do.

That's why Salt Lake City resident Beverly Workman would prefer to vote for a sales-tax increase. "Everybody contributes that way," she said. "Why should just homeowners pay?"

The property tax measure would be limited to paying off a bond to speed construction of four TRAX lines in Salt Lake County. At its peak, debt service would amount to $100 per year on a $200,000 home and $91 for each $100,000 in business property value. As more people and businesses move to the county, individual payments would drop.

On the other hand, a quarter-cent sales tax increase in the county would raise more money, perhaps indefinitely. About 20 percent of the net revenues during the TRAX debt period could be available for other transit or road projects, Kroes said.

The Chamber has estimated that if Salt Lake, Davis, Weber and Utah counties all levied the quarter-cent sales tax, about $2.1 billion would be available for transit and transportation projects.

Rep. Wayne Harper, R-West Jordan, co-chair of the House Revenue and Taxation Committee, said that while the Republican House Caucus endorsed the Chamber's model legislation, "the sentiment was, 'Let's make sure this is not locked in [on TRAX], but that we can use it for light rail, for commuter rail, for local roads of regional importance in Salt Lake County and on the Mountain View Corridor.' "

House Republicans also want to spread the sales-tax increase option to other counties that want it. Other possibilities include letting only Salt Lake County vote on the sales tax, or letting certain counties do it this year with other counties to come later, Harper said.

Sen. Curt Bramble, leader of the Senate Revenue and Taxation Committee, said a statewide sales tax could be expanded beyond transit and used to pay for transportation needs from an improved airport in Washington County to roads in the Uinta basin. "There are a lot of transportation dynamics in play right now," Bramble said.

A key provision of the Chamber bill would outlaw using property tax for transit projects, which Harper said to his knowledge had never been allowed.

The bill essentially would be an opinion poll on the sales-tax increase. Should the results show support, lawmakers would work out details during the 2007 General Session.

The Legislature has the power to impose a sales tax increase without a ballot measure. "However, we need to know from the public if this is a priority of theirs," Harper said.

Some voters would resist any kind of tax increase for transit. Magna resident Lars Smith said UTA squandered its chance to win him over in any way with a ballot proposal in the 1990s he said was worded deceptively. "Even though TRAX is a good thing, because of the way they went about it, I absolutely refuse to ride it and will never support it any way shape or means whatsoever."

House Democrats support the sales-tax increase over the property tax proposal, said Minority Leader Ralph Becker.

"As Democrats, we generally have been very supportive of transit and giving local governments the authority [to allow votes] on increases in sales tax for transit," he said. And though sales taxes are regressive - that is, they disproportionately affect poorer people - putting the question to the vote could be a successful fundraiser for transit with people who abhor property taxes.

For some people, property tax increases are threats to well-being, Becker said. Elderly homeowners on fixed incomes, he said, "cannot or don't feel they can pay for that property tax, that they have to trade off their prescription drugs, or trade off their eating, or give up their homes."

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Tribune reporter Glen Warchol contributed to this report