SALT LAKE CITY — Utah’s legislature is considering a bill which would move oversight of major transit projects from the local Utah Transit Authority to the state Department of Transportation.
The Salt Lake Tribune reports the bill, sponsored by Rep. Kay Christofferson (R-Lehi), would also give the state the ability to invest more into UTA projects.
A UTA spokesman told the newspaper that “the state is poised to make a large investment in transit a lot of state tax dollars, and it’s reasonable to expect that they want to would want to be in an oversight position.”
House Majority Leader Mike Schultz said the change could save taxpayers “billions of dollars” by “bringing that authority under one roof so we don’t have UTA doing one thing and UDOT doing another.”
It’s easier to cover up the political pay offs and kick backs when money is under state authority.
Bull! The question is where does the expertise and desire to expand transit lie. My guess is with the entity closest to the urban population and the entity with experience managing expansion of transit. Not sure but guessing that is UTA. I suspect this is a power grab to eventually limit explansion. (Kind of like voting rights) Interesting comment from UTA spokesman though