Subsidizing Urban Sprawl

Local officials seem to be stuck in a highway rut

By Dan S.

There are two articles this morning on a very important topic: Both the Standard-Examiner and the Tribune report that the Weber County Commissioners have voted to put a sales tax measure on this November's ballot. The measure would raise local sales tax by 0.25% (a quarter penny on each dollar), and spend the money on transportation projects. Although the details of how the money would be spent haven't yet been determined, it appears that most would go for roads and much less for transit.

It's important to realize that roads have never been funded this way before in Weber or Davis County. Roads are traditionally funded by the gasoline tax, none of which goes toward other government services. Lately, the legislature has diverted a significant amount of general fund money into roads as well. Roads in new subdivisions are traditionally put in by developers at their own expense.

Meanwhile, the only local tax money that goes to transit is the local option sales tax. If we want to make major new investments in transit within a reasonable time period, this is the only way the Legislature has allowed us to do it. Transit gets no gas tax money (even though drivers benefit from reduced congestion when others ride transit), and transit gets no general fund money from the legislature.

Another important point is that we're already spending vastly more on new highway projects than on new transit (except in Salt Lake County). The WFRC long range plan calls for over $6 billion in new-capacity highway projects in Weber and Davis Counties over the next 24 years. As Commissioner Zogmaister says in the Trib article, this proposed sales tax will "barely make a dent" in highway spending. But if you spend the same money on transit it can make a huge difference. For instance, the tax would raise much more than what's needed to build Ogden's proposed streetcar system (assuming a reasonable federal match to the local funds).

But instead of investing in central Ogden, our elected officials would apparently prefer that we subsidize sprawl in west Weber County and encourage our residents to commute to jobs in Salt Lake.

Well, obviously I could go on and on about this. But I'll shut up for now and just encourage everyone to keep an eye on this issue as the details get ironed out before the election.

Update 6/27/07 1:30 p.m. MT: We find two other Std-Ex items worthy of our readers' attention this afternoon.

First, we encourage our readers to check out this marvellous Sharon Beech letter to the editor. It comes as no surprise that the Godfreyite cult wants to shut her up. She speaks the truth frankly and unabashedly. Godfreyites, of course, can't handle the truth.

Secondly, we suggest our readers take a gander at this most excellent Std-Ex blog article (Mark Shenefelt): Forage, loot and pillage. We swear we couldn't have stated the case better ourselves. In truth, we're filing this blog piece in our file folder, under the heading: "Articles we wish we'd written."

Update 6/28/07 10:30 a.m. MT: Our readers are invited to jump into the conversation in the comments section below, where the discussion has morphed into comments in re this morning's Standard-Examiner article, wherein Boss Godfrey announces his intention to run for the Mayor chair again: Godfrey seeks third term as Ogden’s mayor .