There is some question whether Utah legislators may be biting off more than they can chew with a far-ranging transportation bill that would affect virtually every taxpayer and commuter along the Wasatch Front.

But good for them for having a healthy appetite.

The proposal is the fruit of the Legislative Transportation and Funding Task Force, which was charged with finding 21st century funding solutions for roads and transit while also finding a way to make the Utah Transit Authority credible again in the public’s eyes.

On UTA, the yet-to-be-introduced bill proposes a streamlined oversight structure that goes a long way to address the lack of accountability with UTA’s current 16-member board. Instead, it would be a three-member commission. The nominations would come from various counties and cities, but the ultimate say – and the ultimate responsibility – would reside with the governor.

And the three commissioners would make it their full-time job. That makes it less likely that management will just go along with staff recommendations, as so often happens with the current UTA board.

But the bill stumbles when it proposes those three commissioners be allowed to meet privately outside the Utah Open and Public Meetings Act. The argument is that they’re carrying out administrative work, and the comparison was made to the Utah State Tax Commission, which has a specific exemption from the open meetings law.

That is a weak comparison. The Tax Commission deals with all kinds of private and proprietary information on taxpayers — individuals and businesses. UTA has no such constraints, and is already in a deep hole with the public because of its lack of transparency.

Another downside in the bill: electric and hybrid vehicle owners take a big hit. The motivation is legitimate. They pay less gas tax while wearing down the same roads as internal combusters. But at a time when air quality is often cited as the top negative factor in our quality of life, it still makes sense to incentivize clean vehicles. There just aren’t that many of them at this point. Whatever our challenges are with transportation funding, it’s not going to be solved by squeezing Prius drivers. Let alternative vehicles succeed more in the market before we burden them with more taxes.

Perhaps the edgiest thing in the bill is a mechanism that could automatically trigger a tax increase by 2022. It would be, in essence, the tax increase that voters in Utah’s most populous counties rejected in 2016 over concerns about UTA’s accountability. By adding the tax back in, legislators would be saying they’ve solved that accountability problem. Should the public buy that?

Beyond that, transportation money appears to be wrapped up in a bigger discussion on the Hill. With the Our Schools Now petition pressuring legislators to increase education funding, there’s a lot of alternatives being floated for changing how we pay for transit, roads and schools. This bill may not be the last word.

Keep chewing, legislators. There is much worth digesting here.

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