Identify funding sources dedicated to transportation and the costs of constructing, maintaining, and operating the transportation system over the period of the long-range plan.
The Regional Transportation Plan (RTP) includes a financial plan to demonstrate how roadway, transit, and active transportation facilities over the life of the plan will presumably be funded. Long-range plans must also be “fiscally constrained,” meaning that only those new facilities and recommended improvements which could be funded using existing and reasonably anticipated revenue streams are included in the Plan. This practice enables WFRC and its transportation partners to develop plans that are tied to realistic funding mechanisms and also to identify a financial path forward to project implementation.
The roadway, transit, and active transportation costs and revenue projections for the 2023-2050 RTP were analyzed by Wasatch Front Regional Council (WFRC), Utah Department of Transportation (UDOT), Utah Transit Authority (UTA), and the three other Metropolitan Planning Organizations (MPOs) in the state. A financial model was developed to help distribute funding, for planning purposes, between the MPOs and the state for the development of their long-range transportation plans. Consistent growth factors, project costs, and new revenue assumptions were coordinated at this level.
The 2023-2050 RTP outlines the transportation needs and projected revenues and revenue sources within the WFRC planning area. Between now and 2050, there is an anticipated need of $65.8 billion of funding, in current dollars, to construct, operate, maintain, and preserve necessary roadway, transit, and active transportation projects. There is an estimated $59.9 billion assumed new revenues to pay for these needed projects, creating a funding shortfall of approximately $5.9 billion.
Revenue sources and assumptions for the 2023-2050 RTP are based on coordination between the Utah Metropolitan Planning Organizations (MPOs) (WFRC, Cache MPO, Dixie MPO, and Mountainland Association of Governments (MAG)), the Utah Department of Transportation (UDOT), and the Utah Transit Authority (UTA). This coordination led to the joint Utah’s Unified Transportation Plan financial model that includes estimates of potential revenues based on projected sources for transportation improvements through the year 2050. This financial model was used by each agency when fiscally constraining their respective plans. Assumptions of new funding sources for transportation projects include additional local option sales taxes and increased vehicle registration fees, or their equivalent.
All roadway, transit, and active transportation projects in the 2023-2050 RTP have been selected and phased based on need and fiscal constraints. Costs were estimated for roadway, transit, active transportation new construction, operations, and maintenance in order to determine which projects could be included in each of the 2023-2050 RTP’s three funded phases. Similar to revenues, the four MPOs, UDOT, and UTA worked together to determine planning-level unit costs by facility type for each transportation mode.
In comparing necessary transportation costs to revenues, it was determined that there are more needed projects than anticipated revenues can fund. The following figure shows the needs and available revenue by phase for new road, transit, and active transportation projects. To balance costs with revenues, some projects were moved to future phases later than when the project is needed or placed into the “unfunded” time frame of the RTP, meaning it is not anticipated these projects would be built between now and 2050.
Active transportation facilities are ranked, phased based on need, and fiscally constrained. There is no federal requirement for active transportation projects to be fiscally constrained or to identify a funding source. However, the Unified Transportation Financial Model did project potential available revenues based on historic trends sourced from federal, state, and local funds, such as the Transportation Alternatives Program (TAP), the Utah Safe Routes to School program, and the WFRC-administered Surface Transportation Program (STP), Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality (CMAQ) program, and the Carbon Reduction Program (CRP)and also projections based on new state funding sources such as the Transportation Improvement Fund – Active (TIF Active), Transit Transportation Improvement Fund – First-/Last-Mile (TTIF FLM), and Active Transportation Investment Fund (ATIF).
Please note that the following graph includes only new transit projects and new transit revenues; the expenses and revenues anticipated to maintain and preserve the existing transit system are not included here, but can be viewed above.
For additional information regarding the RTP, please contact Jory Johner.
