Pima County residents have until end of January to weigh in on draft RTA Next plan

You have until Jan. 31 to weigh in on the 20-year transportation plan that the Regional Transportation Authority hopes to ask voters to approve in November.

The online survey for the $2.4 billion RTA Next draft plan, which was approved by an RTA board that includes representatives from Tucson, Pima County, Marana, Oro Valley, Sahuarita, South Tucson, the Tohono O’odham and Pascua Yaqui tribes and the Arizona State Transportation Board, is available here.

In general, the proposal includes:

• $1.4 billion for roadway corridors
• $610 million for transit
• $206 million for various safety measures such as bike lanes, pedestrian improvements and traffic signal upgrades
• $25 million for wildlife linkages
• $100 million for administrative costs, small business support and a debt service reserve
• $65 million set aside for contingencies, such as when projects cost more than the estimated price tag.

Among the major road construction programs in the plan:

• $94 million for improvements on Cortaro Road near Interstate 10, including a new bridge over the railroad tracks and I-10.
• $89 million for a widening of Thornydale Road between Cortaro Road and Camino del Norte
• $157 million to widen Colossal Cave Road between I-10 and Camino Loma Alta
• $73 million to widen Drexel Road between South 12th Avenue to Country Club Road
• $70 million to improve Prince Road between Romero Road and County Club Road, including bike lanes and sidewalks
• $39 million to expand Harrison Road between Golf Links and Irvington roads

The $610 million in transit spending includes a bus rapid transit line on Stone Avenue and expansion of the Sun Tran system alongside increased frequency.

If voters approve the plan, they will extend a half-cent sales tax for transportation that was first approved in 2006 by 58 percent of voters countywide.

That tax expires in June 2026.

Overall, the current plan has paid for multiple road improvements across the region, including the widenings of Broadway between Downtown and Country Club Road, Houghton Road on the East Side and La Cholla Boulevard, La Cañada Drive and Magee Road on the Northwest Side.

Projects now underway include the widening of Grant Road between Alvernon Way and Swan Road, Tangerine Road between I-10 and Marana Tech Drive, the Downtown Links project and Valencia Road between Kolb Road and Houghton Road.

On the transit side, the RTA funded the Sun Link streetcar Downtown (matched by a federal TIGER grant) and expanded Sun Tran bus service.

See the RTA’s 2023-24 annual report for more details on completed and ongoing projects.

Available funding for the RTA has fallen short of the cost of several projects in the 2006 plan, including First Avenue between Orange Grove and Ina roads, Houghton Road between Broadway and Tanque Verde Road, Silverbell Road between Camino de Cerro and Ina Road and 22nd Street between Kino Boulevard and I-10.

The RTA Next draft plan sets aside $238 million for those projects, with the intention of completing them in the first five-year phase.

The 2006 plan was developed and supported by a wide range of community members ranging from car dealers to environmentalists. It enjoyed the support of local officials on both sides of the political aisle.

But the new version has been marked by jurisdictional squabbles.

Tucson Mayor Regina Romero and members of the Tucson City Council have complained that the city has been short-changed both in terms of projects and in the governing structure, where Tucson has the same voting power as suburbs such as Marana and Oro Valley despite its far larger population.

Romero, who represents Tucson on the RTA board, said this week that she believed the proposal met the “minimum requests” of the city of Tucson, but her current focus was persuading voters to support Prop. 414, aka the Safe & Vibrant City Initiative, a half-cent sales tax proposal that would support investments in public safety, affordable housing and other community programs.

Tucson voters will decide the fate of Prop. 414 in a March 11 election. The funding for that 10-year tax, roughly $80 million a year, would go toward public safety, affordable housing, homeless services and other community programs.

“I think both 414 and the RTA next are good for our community,” Romero said. “It’s making investments for generational change. And you know, I think we can do both.”

But the adjustments to the RTA Next plan did not sit well with Oro Valley and Marana officials. Both Oro Valley Mayor Joe Winfield and the late Marana Mayor Ed Honea, who died in November, voted against moving forward with
public comment on the current RTA Next draft plan at a September
meeting.

Pima County Supervisor Rex Scott, who has been representing the county on the RTA Board, said he expected elements of the plan would change once the public review was complete.

“I know that when we’re done with the public review period, the RTA board is going to have to take a look at everything that the public told us that they wanted in terms of revisions or additions to the plan,” said Scott, who is passing his position on the RTA board to Supervisor Adelita Grijalva this year.

RTA spokesperson Sheila Storm said the board would likely have to decide by May whether to move forward with a November election.