Senators made a surprise, last-minute change before passing a bill that would open the door to tolling on all Utah highways, not just newly built ones.

Lawmakers made the policy change Tuesday on the Senate floor that will keep them out of the decision to add open-road tolling in places like the Wasatch Canyons, West Davis Corridor and Mountain View Corridor.

As lawmakers prepared for a typically procedural final vote before sending SB71 to the House, Sen. Lincoln Fillmore, R-South Jordan, proposed that they change the final bill and allow UDOT to eventually toll existing highways without approval of the Legislature.

Most senators, including sponsor and Senate President Wayne Niederhauser, R-Sandy, supported the idea.

“This policy has to be statewide and available on any road,” Niederhauser said, “to be fair to everyone.”

The change caught some senators off guard and led at least two to vote against the final bill over procedure.

“Yes, it can be done,” said Sen. Wayne Harper, R-Taylorsville. “The question is should it be done?”

The change came less than 24 hours after Niederhauser said his bill wouldn’t lead to tolling on existing roads.

“They cannot toll existing capacity without the Transportation Commission and the Legislature working on it,” he said Monday.

On Tuesday, lawmakers voted to allow UDOT to add tolling on already-built roads. That, Niederhauser said shortly after the vote, was how it should be.

“It’s better to take it out of that political realm and put it in the hands of UDOT who is going to do this not based on pure politics,” Niederhauser said.

The bill still passed 26-3, with three Republicans voting against, and will be taken up in the House.

Lawmakers who voted in favor of the bill said it wouldn’t be right to make it more difficult to add open-road tolling to highways in parts of Utah that are already developed and leave the growing areas subject to tolls.

SB71 doesn’t discuss creating a process that would be necessary to actually collect open-road tolls. But it removes restrictions in current law that would allow UDOT to work toward tolls on state highways. Niederhauser imagined Utah drivers one day may set up tolling accounts when registering their cars each year.

The bill also would allow UDOT to use surveillance cameras that scan every passing license plate, which would help them keep track of unpaid tolls.

If the House passes the bill, lawmakers will address one of the central themes of the legislative session. Lawmakers say Utah has been subsidizing driving to the tune of $600 million a year from its fund that primarily goes to education and other services.

The Senate already indicated it wasn’t interested in hiking the tax drivers pay for each gallon of gas. Lawmakers are looking at raising the cost of registering electric cars, saying those cars avoid the gas tax. They’re also considering a bill that would raise the price of a driver license.

A bill that would pave the way to more widespread tolling in Utah — including in its congested and popular Wasatch Front canyons — is on its way to the House after senators unanimously voted in favor Monday.

SB71 wouldn’t immediately lead to more tolling on existing roads, but would allow the Department of Transportation to use technology that will be used to collect money from drivers on existing and future tollways.

Senate President Wayne Niederhauser, who’s sponsoring the bill after he’s seen congestion worsen in Little Cottonwood Canyon near his Sandy home, said the type of electronic tracking envisioned by the bill is “the future, by the way.”

Niederhauser and other lawmakers have decried the eroded buying power of the gas tax as cars become more efficient and more drivers buy cars that don’t run on gas. They also say road funding is taking $600 million from Utah’s general fund every year, which lawmakers called a “subsidy” that is encouraging drivers to hop into cars rather than mass transit.

“In this subsidy, people aren’t experiencing the true cost of driving on the road,” Niederhauser said. “People want to demand more roads because of the subsidy. We’re having to build larger roads or deal with the congestion that comes from that.”

License-plate-reading cameras can be linked to software that can map whenever a license plate passes a camera. SB71 would restrict the Department of Transportation to use that information only for collecting money for tolls. Better tracking could also lead to online accounts for tolling.

The cameras could track whether a driver has unpaid tolls, and the state could prevent a driver from renewing a registration if he or she has unpaid tolls or penalties. The bill would allow a penalty for tolls that aren’t paid within a month of the state sending a notice of an unpaid toll.

State law restricts the Department of Transportation from adding new tollways without legislative approval. It can, however, begin tolling “additional capacity lanes.”

“Little Cottonwood Canyon is an existing road, but we appropriated money last year … to build an additional lane up there,” Niederhauser said, which could be opened up to tolling.

The bill is now waiting for a committee assignment in the House.

A proposal designed to bring a toll road to Little Cottonwood Canyon sped past its first obstacle Wednesday — with hints that toll roads may spread statewide and become a major funding replacement for current gasoline taxes.

The Senate Transportation Committee voted 7-0 to endorse SB71 to make it easier for the state to use electronic tolling. Among the provisions: allowing new systems that avoid toll booths by using TV cameras to read license plates of passing cars, deduct tolls from online accounts or send bills to the vehicle’s owner.

Senate President Wayne Niederhauser, R-Sandy, whose district includes Little Cottonwood Canyon, said he is sponsoring the bill in large part to more easily allow a toll road there to reduce congestion.

“On a weekend or on a snow day at Alta or Snowbird … you cannot find a parking place if you get up in the canyon at 10 a.m.,” he said. “It’s unbelievable congestion.”

When the canyon closes temporarily for avalanche control, he said traffic backs up for miles “and I can’t get out of my subdivision.” He said a toll would encourage carpooling or the use of mass transit to help solve problems.

But Niederhauser also sees expansion of toll roads statewide as a way to help ensure that motorists pay more of the cost of the highways they use. He said the general fund now subsidizes highways by $600 million annually, and he would like to see that money go instead to schools.

“I believe in five to 10 years that the gas tax will be obsolete,” or at least irrelevant as more electric and alternative fuel vehicles are purchased that entirely escape that tax. He said the gas tax now already pays only about half the cost of highways.

“How are we going to fund these roads?” he asked. “Tolling has to be one of those options. I don’t like it. I know the public doesn’t like it,” but he said few options remain as the gas tax collects less and less revenue.

Committee members said they also see tolling as a major part of the future — and said similar technology may even someday track the number of miles that vehicles travel as the basis of a new tax to that would replace the gasoline tax.

“Eventually I can see us phasing out gas tax and going strictly toll,” said Sen. Kevin Van Tassell, R-Vernal.

Niederhauser added, “This is just the beginning about how we are going to fund cars in the future. We have electric cars coming. We might have hydrogen cars coming. How are they going to participate” in highway funding?

Using tolls to reduce canyon congestion is more feasible than building trains up the canyons, as some have proposed, Niederhauser said.

“That’s billions of dollars,” he said of a canyon rail system. “If we’re to prioritize transit on where it is needed the most, canyon transportation is going to be down the list a ways.”

Niederhauser noted that existing law already allows toll roads in Utah. “This is a modernization bill to deal with modern technologies and how we will toll in the future.”