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Have you driven through Davis and Weber counties lately, especially during peak traffic periods? Not always a pleasant experience!
Commuter Rail and Legacy Highway will help once they come on line. Still, with the growth Northern Utah is experiencing - with the homes that are being built, and the people who are moving there - keeping citizens mobile will continue to be a critical issue.
Business and political leaders throughout the region have caught the vision of a partial solution. They're asking voters in November to approve a quarter-cent sales tax increase aimed specifically at transportation.
In KSL's view, voters would be terribly shortsighted to reject it.
A quarter-cent hike in the sales tax would raise up to $12 million dollars in Davis County each year, $8.7 million in Weber County, and $800,000 in the Box Elder communities of Willard, Perry and Brigham City. By state law, a fourth of the money would go toward acquisition of corridors for future roads. As well, it would be used to trigger federal and state funds for highway construction and mass transit.
Voters in Salt Lake and Utah counties last year overwhelmingly approved a similar tax increase for transportation. This year, voters in Davis and Weber counties along with the three Box Elder communities should do the same.
