It is no secret that Utah's road system needs serious improvement.

Interstate 15 in Utah County is beginning the descent into gridlock and other roads in the state cry out for repair.

Up at the Legislature, Sen. Sheldon Killpack thinks the solution lies in toll roads. Killpack, R-Syracuse, is sponsoring legislation that would let the state enter into partnerships with private entities to build roads. The private investors would get their money back through a toll on the road.

To a Legislature facing a mounting bill to repair and construct roads, Senate Bill 80 is seductive. But being seductive does not make it a good idea.

Toll roads tend to breed their own bureaucracy. After all, someone has to hire the people who will collect the tolls and handle the money as it comes in. Even though the bill suggests a partnership with a private entity, the state will still need to dedicate resources to the effort. For example, S.B. 80's fiscal note calls for spending $690,000 for consultants and legal counsel just to develop the rules for the partnership. This is a one-time cost, but it portends more in the future.

New Jersey motorists were promised that once the tolls on the state's two main traffic arteries -- the New Jersey Turnpike and the Garden State Parkway -- paid for construction the toll booths would come down. More than 50 years later the toll booths are still standing, and the revenue is now funding two bureaucracies.

This toll road concept is unfair to the people who will be served by the new road. Those people have already contributed to the reconstruction of I-15 in Salt Lake County through their gasoline tax. Now, they will be asked to pay a toll for using what amounts to a private road.

This brings us to the most troublesome aspect of SB 80: It violates a social contract between the people and their government.

There is something unseemly, for example, in the idea that government will use its power to obtain land for the construction of a road that will become a profit-making venture for a private company. They're not making anymore land, and if a corridor can be obtained upon which to build a road that will improve the lives of all, it ought to be viewed as the domain of the people at large.

If freeway improvements are needed at tiny Cove Fort, the taxpayers of the whole state help pay for them. The improvements provide a benefit to travelers, but travelers alone do not foot the bill. The toll road between Salt Lake and Utah counties would create an unfair tax on certain people -- in fact, a double-tax -- for no reason except that they live in a high-population area that experiences traffic jams.

The cost of a toll road, constructed with government assistance over a prime corridor of land, should be borne by all of us, not just by those who use it. The primary users likely will have no reasonable alternative, which should qualify the road as a general public benefit.

Whether one drives or not, all Utahns benefit from a workable road system. Good roads mean that groceries are delivered to stores. Police, fire and ambulance services can get to where they are needed. Businesses will be able to get supplies and merchandise. Again, these are general public benefits, just as prisons and schools and water systems are general benefits.

Requiring one segment of the population to pay for a major, and badly needed, road improvement is an unfair assignment of the burden.

If the state needs money to build roads, there are ways to do it that ensure everyone contributes to the enterprise. One way is to raise the gasoline tax to cover the cost of new construction or at least build up the transportation fund.

A better approach would be to scrap the gasoline tax altogether and dedicate a portion of the state's sales tax to road construction, as was proposed for the Transportation Investment Fund.

Roads benefit the general public, and the public, as a whole, should pay for them.