Salt Lake City is aggressively expanding its light rail network thanks to a voter approved tax increase. This post wonders whether the city could follow mimic a proposed plan in Los Angeles to speed up the use of those taxes.
"The good news for the UTA is that the 2006 sales tax increase does not sunset (by contrast, the Measure R sales tax increase approved by voters here is scheduled to expire in July 2039). However, a substantial portion of that revenue source will be tied up in paying for FrontLines 2015.
But what if there were a way to borrow cheaply against those future revenues, so that those crucial projects could move forward right away? So that Utahans can immediately begin to reap the benefits of a clean and convenient transit system serving the all reaches of the Salt Lake metro area."
The idea is to replicate the 30/10 plan, an idea being pushed in L.A. that would cram 30 years of transportation projects into 10 by borrowing against tax revenues that would be collected for transportation projects over a long period of time.
FULL STORY: America Fast Forward and FrontLines: Could 30/10 work for Salt Lake City?
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UCLA Lewis Center for Regional Policy Studies
Mpact (formerly Rail~Volution)
Chaddick Institute at DePaul University
City of Piedmont, CA
Great Falls Development Authority, Inc.
HUDs Office of Policy Development and Research