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PHOENIX — Business and community groups took the first steps Tuesday to persuade Arizonans to raise the taxes on virtually everything they buy to build new roads.

The proposed 1-cent hike in the state sales tax would also pay to widen and repair existing roads and fund a series of mass transit projects, including a rail line from Tucson to Phoenix and perhaps beyond.

Papers filed with the Secretary of State's Office will allow the group, organized as the TIME Coalition, to start gathering signatures to put the tax increase, expected to raise $42.6 billion, on the ballot.

Time is running out. They need 153,365 valid signatures by July 3 even to put the question to voters in November. Realistically, that means collecting at least 200,000 signatures, given the number routinely disqualified because of bad addresses and people not registered.

But Marty Shultz, treasurer of TIME, which stands for Transportation and Infrastructure Moving AZ's Economy, said he believes businesses that want all that new construction will provide enough money to hire the paid circulators and to sway voters to back the plan.

Exactly what taxpayers would get for that $42.6 billion, however, is not yet determined. There is nothing in the 15-page initiative that specifies what roads will be built.