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Show Maintain Those Highway Funds Utah Director of Transportation, Transpor-tation, Blaine J. Kay, has urged Utah's congressional delegation to maintain federal highway aid at the highest level current taxes will permit and to retain the Highway Trust Fund. IN A letter sent to Senator Frank E. Moss, Senator E.J. Garn, Representative Gunn McKay and Representative Allan T. Howe, Mr. Kay expressed concern over the Ford Administration's proposals now being considered con-sidered for the Federal-aid Highway Act of 1975, which he said "will determine to a large extent the nature of Utah's future fu-ture highway program." Mr. Kay said the bill proposed by the Administration Administra-tion would cause a significant reduction of highway funds for Utah because it would reduce funding for non-interstate highway programs. "THE reduction of 1977 over 1976 would be $11.3 million, and this figure does not include losses which would result through the abolition of the Federal Lands Highway . Fund," he said. Mr. Kay estimated that, based on a cost of $300,000 per mile for primary highways and $200,000 mile for secondary secon-dary roads, it would take over 110 years to reconstruct the state's rural Federal-aid Highway System using the $10.2 million per year in rural funds provided under the Administration's Ad-ministration's proposed 1975 Federal-aid Highway Act. "HAD THIS situation prevailed over the last century, cen-tury, we would only now be reconstructing the roads built by the pioneers in the first few decades after their arrival in 1847," he said. Mr. Kay added that the Administration's Ad-ministration's proposed funding fund-ing level of $4.4 million per year for all urbanized areas of the state would limit construction con-struction to not more than two or three projects a year, equivalent to about two or three miles of construction. IN URGING that the High- way Trust Fund be maintained, main-tained, Mr. Kay pointed out that if some highway user revenue is deposited in the General Fund, and appropriations appropria-tions are made from that fund, as proposed by the Administration, Adminis-tration, there is a possibility that funds would be made available to states on a project-by project discre- 't tionary basis, rather than the . current formula basis. "HIGHWAY projects in Utah would likely have a hard time competing with projects in heavily populated states, and Utah's relative share of the total funds could be decreased even further," he said. |