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PHOENIX — Business leaders are hoping enough Arizonans are stuck in traffic long enough they're willing to hike what they pay in state sales taxes by another penny.

The TIME Coalition will roll out a comprehensive $42.6 billion plan this coming week to build new roads, widen existing ones and pump more than $7 billion for mass transit, including an expanded light-rail system in Maricopa County and a new one in Pima County.

The tax hike would also pay for additional buses and van-pool services through the rest of the state and an ambitious plan for commuter rail service between Tucson and Phoenix.

The 1 cent — or 18 percent — increase would put the state tax at 6.6 percent. That's in addition to the half-cent tax increase Pima County voters approved for transportation in 2006, and which Maricopa County residents have been paying since 1986.

Members of the group, whose name is short for Transportation and Infrastructure Moving AZ's Economy, already are starting their drive a step behind where they'd hoped to be.

The original plan was to get the Legislature to give its tacit approval to the package and put it before voters. But Marty Shultz, a lobbyist for Arizona Public Service, said that fell through when the lawmakers who chair the House and Senate transportation committees refused to go along.

That means an expensive campaign just to gather the 153,365 signatures by July 3 to put the issue on the November ballot, even before trying to sell it to voters.

Sen. Ron Gould, R-Lake Havasu City, who chairs the Senate transportation panel, said he doubts it will fly, especially with rural voters.

"You're going to take money out of my district to use in Maricopa County," he said.

But Roc Arnett, president of the East Valley Partnership, said the package was purposely designed so there is a little something for everyone, including Gould's district, where the plan includes widening Interstate 40 and reconstructing London Bridge Road in Gould's hometown.

And Shultz said Gould and others may have it backward. He said the state's two metropolitan areas are "donors" to the rest of the state. The problem might be persuading urban residents, who already have freeways and some mass transit, paid for with higher local sales taxes, to tax themselves again for rural projects.

The idea of higher taxes already has gotten an endorsement from Gov. Janet Napolitano, who is pushing it as a stimulus package for the state's lackluster economy. She said more road construction means more jobs.

"And those are jobs that cannot be outsourced," the governor said. "If you're building a transportation system, you've got to build it right here in Arizona."

Arnett and Shultz said increasing the now-18-cent-a-gallon gas tax or imposing new housing impact fees, instead of raising sales taxes, has not been totally ruled out, but each presents problems that make them unlikely sources.

Each penny increase in the gas tax only brings in $40 million, which isn't enough to finance such an ambitious plan. And housing impact fees would draw opposition from developers, they said.

Potentially the most controversial part of the package is going to be persuading voters to spend money to build and operate a rail line between Tucson and Phoenix. Arnett, however, said he believes the demand is there.

He said shuttle companies already run dozens of trips a day each way between Tucson and Phoenix, many of those connecting specifically to Sky Harbor International Airport. And that doesn't include all the vehicles with one or two passengers.

Gould, however, scoffs at the whole idea of rail, both inter-city and commuter, as "elitist."

"They want the regular folks to use mass transit so the rich folks can drive their cars," he said.

Napolitano said she believes voters can be persuaded to hike their own taxes if they "focus … on the future that we are building."

"We will grow better and smarter with a statewide transportation system that works for all different kinds of communities," she said.

Arnett said initiative organizers are working with a list of critical needs for the next 30 years prepared by the state Department of Transportation. He said while the final list of projects to be funded is not yet ready, it will be by the time voters go to the polls on Nov. 4.