Pub 3 2020-2021 Issue 1

6 It’s been interesting to see the statistics of the past year, and more importantly, to identify any longer-lasting trends that came from what we did to contain the virus. The reality is that I don’t think we can emerge from the year the same as we were before. What are some of the “wins” for UDOT in the past couple of years, and how do you see those plans benefiting the state in the future? Wins can be hard to measure. We con- tinue to work hard at earning the public’s trust. Trust is our currency. We win it by doing what we say we are going to do. We don’t overpromise and underdeliver. I believe that UDOT has demonstrated that “trust currency” in the recent actions of the legislature. We’re receiving a boat- load of one-time money coming from the bulk of our state surplus. We have a lot of projects —big needful projects — that our transportation com- mittee has spent well over two and a half months reviewing and budgeting for, and now we’re here. We’re ready, and we’re going to be busy. With the pandemic this past year, many people worked from home. When all these people go back to work, what do you see as the effect, and how do you think this should be managed? It’s been interesting to see the statistics of the past year, and more importantly, to identify any longer-lasting trends that came fromwhat we did to contain the virus. The reality is that I don’t think we can emerge from the year the same as we were before. I think the people that couldn’t work from home took on the largest burden. Last April we saw a 40% decline in traffic. That’s a big drop. We’re now in the low 90% of returning traffic, so we’ve recov- ered by traffic statistics. In looking back at 2020 overall, we saw a 20% decline in gas tax revenues. UDOT has always had a goal in place of having 30% of our workforce working from home. We want to reduce office space, commute times and air quality. This past year gave us the opportunity to test that initiative, and overall it went well. Of the 30% that we identified as being able to work from home, 40% now are. We saw some other things. In 2020 there was a significant drop off from transit. Some people worked from home, of course, so that drop off was understand- able. But we also saw some people that didn’t work from home and used to take public transit use their cars to commute. I believe that lessons were learned last year and I believe that those lessons will impact our traffic management in better ways. I believe that more people will work from home than before and that in and of itself will impact the amount of traffic on the roads at any given time, as people will have more flexibility in when they are on the roads. How does Utah’s infrastructure compare to other states? We’re in very good condition. We’re for- tunate in that our government leaders understand the importance of infrastruc- ture. We have capacity projects scheduled. We take care of our roads. We raised the gas tax in 2016 — indexed it to the CPI — and it all went into pavement and some bridges. Pavements are our largest infrastructure asset — $24 billion of replacement value. Our bridges have a replacement value of $8 billion. Pavements are the most important thing we manage. We are fanatical about pavements. With the reduced use of gasoline—especially with the rise of EVs —what do you think the effect will be on Utah’s roads? Since gas taxes pay for road maintenance, how will that be managed? I think we need a usage-based tax, sowe all pay for what we use. I think that is the fairest way to run a program. In 2020, Utah started a road usage charge program for EVs. We currently have 3,000 people enrolled in our beta program, if you will. Currently, there are two such programs that are operational in the U.S. Oregon has one, and Utah has the other. We have a ways to go. It’s complicated with hybrids and EVs. The program itself is more for EVs, where owners of EVs have agreed to have a monitor in their car, and they pay for the miles they drive. There are several other states doing pilots. Utah and Oregon are up and running. The idea has been discussed for 20 years. Oregon was the leader. The first gas tax was passed in 1918, and a lot has hap- pened since then. We need to think about how we fund road usage. Gas tax revenue isn’t growing, and it’s not keeping up with funding transportation. We’ve beenworking on this for a long time. Thewestern states—Utah included— have been funding research projects for 10 years.We hired some private sector partners. It’s working—lots of learning opportunities. continued from page 4 continued on page 8