Pima transportation board advances 20-year, $2.67B RTA Next plan

The Regional Transportation Authority moved one step closer Friday to asking voters to extend a half-cent per dollar sales tax to continue funding transportation projects through 2046.

The RTA Board voted 6-2 to advance a $2.67 billion RTA Next plan for voters to decide on the March 2026 ballot.

Voting in favor of the 20-year plan were Tucson Mayor Regina Romero, Oro Valley Mayor Joe Winfield, Marana Mayor Jon Post, South Tucson Mayor Roxanna Valenzuela, Sahuarita Mayor Tom Murphy and State Transportation Board representative Ted Maxwell.

Pima County Supervisor Matt Heinz and Tohono O’odham Nation Chairman Verlon Jose voted against taking the plan to voters, while Pascua Yaqui Tribe Chairman Julian Hernandez was not present for the vote.

Earlier in the meeting, both Heinz and Jose had said the RTA should consider delaying the vote to November 2026 in order to get more public input into the proposal.

“I think if we want to avoid a March calamity, we need the public involved in this way more than they are,” Heinz said. “I think the November election will be a time when this frankly will be more likely to pass.”

But Murphy countered that the RTA Board had been working on the plan for years and if they delayed the vote until November, they would not be able to start collecting tax revenue until April 2027.

“I’ve been working on it for six years,” Murphy said. “I’ve gone everywhere, from optimistic to scared to highly optimistic because of all the work that’s behind us.”

He said members of the business community, particularly those in the transportation sector, are “excited about what we’ve done and where we are at this point. … It’s up to the voters at the end of day, but I think there is more momentum than we’ve felt in a long time and a lot of work has gone into it.”

Maxwell said the question of extending the Regional Transportation Authority would be caught up in the midterm debates of congressional and legislative races if the election were held next November.

“There’ll be a lot of politics,” Maxwell said.

Romero said that allowing the tax to lapse would cost the city tens of millions of dollars in transit funds.

“That means cutting routes and letting drivers go, and in terms of paratransit, not servicing disabled community members that heavily rely on our paratransit system,” Romero said.

She said the proposal was good for the city of Tucson.

“It finds a path forward in terms of completing our RTA One projects,” Romero said. “It funds arterial reconstruction. It adds additional funds for transit services. It adds new funds for transit safety investments. It accomplishes many of the goals my colleagues on the Council and I have been talking about.”

The latest version of the RTA Next plan includes $1.69 billion in new roadway improvements, $236 million in arterial rehabilitation, $726 million for transit services, $244 million in safety and ADA projects such as pedestrian and bicycle improvements, $50 million for wildlife linkages.

The plan also includes $262 million to complete a number of projects that were originally supposed to be part of the RTA plan. A funding shortfall prevented the completion of those projects.

A complete list of the proposed projects in the “option 3” plan can be found here.

The boardmembers forged ahead with the full two-decade plan, opting for the long-term renewal of the district rather than the suggestion by new RTA Executive Director Mike Ortega to first go to voters to approve the first 10 years of spending, and then return to them for approval of a second round of the sales tax for roadwork.

The board directed RTA staff to work out the final details and prepare legal language so they can take another vote later this month and send the proposal to the Pima County Board of Supervisors, which must vote to put the proposition onto the ballot.

The RTA Board is scheduled to meet again on July 25 to approve a final version of the plan.

To make the deadline to call a March election, the Board of Supervisors has to vote before Sept. 10, according to Ortega.

The Board of Supervisor’s next scheduled meeting is Sept. 2.