Feature Story

UF Examines Utah’s Transportation Needs

In a new research brief, the Utah Foundation provides an excellent overview of challenges and issues related to transportation in Utah. For the full report, click here. Following are some excerpts:

Utah's Current Transportation Situation

One of the state’s main transportation challenges is how to deal with the growing demand for Utah’s roads and highways. While this still remains an important challenge for the state, increasing gas prices have caused demand for Utah’s roadways to slow over the past year and actually decline in recent months. Decreased demand for Utah’s roads presents temporary benefits and challenges for the state in terms of congestion and funding. (Read full article below.)

While the number of vehicle miles traveled (VMT) had a positive compound average growth rate of 3.8% between 1988 and 2007, much of this rate was influenced by growth in the late 1980s and the early 1990s, when VMT increased between 5% and 6% per year. Average yearly growth in Utah’s VMT during the last 10 years is only about half of what it was between 1988 and 1998. VMT growth fell from 4.1% in 2006 to 2.5% in 2007. During the same period, Utah’s population grew 3.2%, which is the fastest annual population growth the state has experienced in over 20 years, indicating that people in Utah are driving much less today than a year ago.

Since 1988, there have only been three years when yearly growth in VMT was less than yearly growth in Utah’s population (2003, 2005, and 2007). Due to rising gas prices, it is expected that this downward trend in VMT will continue. The Federal Highway Administration estimates that, between first quarter 2007 and first quarter 2008, the number of vehicle miles traveled in Utah decreased by more than 3.2%, which is significant decrease when compared to other years. This decrease is consistent with the national trend; every state experienced a decrease in VMT between these two periods.

Commute and Travel Time. Although VMT has decreased in recent months, Utah voters are still concerned with congested roads and long travel times. Much of this congestion is due to the fact that the state’s highway capacity (the number of lane miles, or the measured mileage along a road multiplied by the number of lanes) increased by only about 2% between 1990 and 2006, even though Utah’s population increased by 51% and VMT increased by 79%. The slow growth in road and highway capacity has led to long hours of delay, especially along the Wasatch Front. The Texas Transportation Institute estimated that each motorist experienced an average annual delay of 27 hours driving in Salt Lake City in 2005, compared to 8 hours in 1990. While congestion has significantly risen since 1990, overall congestion in Salt Lake City is moderate when compared with the rest of the nation. In 2005, Salt Lake City had the 45th worst congestion out of the 85 urban areas analyzed.

A 2006 report by TRIP (a national transportation research group) found that traffic congestion on Utah’s main streets and highways cost commuters as much as $1,275 annually in wasted time and fuel. It is important to note that these numbers are based on 2006 retail gasoline prices, meaning the total cost of congestion per motorist is probably much higher today. Any increased road and freeway capacity in the last two years could have offset these increased costs because it would have reduced the number of hours and gallons of fuel wasted due to congestion. However, it is likely that the increased cost from gas prices is much greater than the offset from any increase in road or freeway capacity.

While congestion causes frustration, it appears that, on average, most Utah workers have fairly short commutes to work compared to the national average. Data from the Census show that more than 75% of Utah’s total workforce has a commute of less than 30 minutes, and when broken down into five-minute intervals, the majority of workers have a commute of less than 10 minutes. The majority of workers at the national level have a commute of 15-20 minutes.

Funding. The primary source of Utah’s transportation funding is the motor fuel tax. In 2007, more than 36% of the total transportation fund came from the collection of this tax. Utah currently has a 24.5 cent per gallon gasoline tax. This is a moderately sized tax, ranking 24th highest in the nation. The current federal gasoline tax is 18.4 cents per gallon. The motor fuel tax helps fund the day-to-day operations of transportation-related programs, as well as helps maintain and build new roads and transportation infrastructure.

Unlike sales tax revenue, fuel tax revenue does not keep pace with the growth in the economy because revenue depends on the number of gallons of fuel consumed and not on a percentage of the sale price. This can result in stagnant real tax revenues unless there is an increase in the tax amount or an increase in the number of gallons of gasoline purchased. Real tax revenues can also actually decline during periods when gasoline consumption falls due to rising gas prices or increased fuel efficiency. In fact, the Utah Department of Transportation could see a $10 to $20 million shortfall in 2009 because of a decline in gas tax receipts.

Declining fuel tax revenue can have a negative effect on Utah’s ability to improve its roads, highways, and bridges. While the state was able to offset the decline in real fuel tax revenue by dedicating the state’s 2006 and 2007 budget surpluses to transportation capital spending, the majority of these surpluses were dedicated to state-controlled highways. City and county roads have not benefited from these surpluses and, from 2000 to 2008, the B & C road account, which provides funding for city and county roads, was the only transportation spending account that experienced a negative compound annual growth rate (-0.5%). The account did receive increased state funding in 2007 and 2008, but the percent increase was much smaller than the percent increase in the other transportation funds. These funds include Road Construction, Centennial Highway Needs Program, and the Critical Highway Needs.

On the Move

Links to the Week's Key Transportation News Stories

-- Work begins on FrontRunner South line to Provo (Deseret News and Daily Herald).
-- After 10 years of work on 14-mile stretch, Legacy opening early (Standard-Examiner).

-- Downtowns Across the U.S. See Streetcars in Their Future (New York Times).
-- Utahns cut back on driving (Deseret News).
-- UTA eyes route cuts if sales taxes remain flat (Tribune).
-- Herriman opposes freeway tolls (Tribune).
-- Editorial: Safe crossings for school kids (Daily Herald).
-- UVU may sell land for $3.6 million (Daily Herald).
-- Utah Foundation Transportation Study (KUER).
-- $15M bond for county roads OK’d (Logan Herald Journal).
-- Editorial: Keep good news coming, UTA (Daily Herald).
-- Editorial: More elbow room on I-15 (Standard-Examiner).
-- Declining Sales Tax Revenues Hit UTA Where it Hurts (KCPW).
-- UVU trustees agree to sell land to UTA (Daily Herald).
-- UTA considers money-saving options (Deseret News).
-- Traffic deaths up in Utah, bucking national trend (Tribune).
-- Transportation secretary calls for more local control of freeways (Tribune).
-- UDOT's storage plan praised (Tribune).
-- Editorial: Taxes worth it to ease Main traffic (Logan Herald Journal).
-- UDOT to gauge tolls electronically (Deseret News).