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Light rail has been a big success in Salt Lake City, transportation consultant Tom Warne told Idaho’s governor’s transportation task force, in response to questioning from panel members including state lawmakers. The system has been largely funded by incremental increases in the sales tax in Salt Lake County, he said; those voter-approved hikes required just simple majority approval. “The ridership numbers are way more than anyone projected. … The public is very, very supportive and likes it.” He added, “Now, transit never makes money - nor do highways, for that matter. … But the fact is that people like it enough that they want to support it and continue subsidizing it.”
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Sisyphus on December 02 at 1:28 p.m.
Well duh. But I reckon if proposing local option taxation to address our transportation woes came from Utah it might have some validity in Idaho now.
slfisher on December 02 at 2:23 p.m.
I dunno. I did a story on how Salt Lake got its public option funding in January, 2008, when Lane Beattie spoke to City Club about it. Basically, they got the strong support of the business community.
A local option has the support of the Boise Metro Chamber, but it doesn’t have the support of, say, IACI.