Tucson Weekly: Highway Robbery (December 4

Pima County Re-Allocates The Money For Barraza-Aviation Parkway.
By Dave Devine
OVER THE LAST 15 years, more than $15 million has been spent on planning, design and property acquisition for the downtown leg of the Barraza-Aviation Parkway. But on election day last month, Pima County voters probably struck a fatal blow to the project. The fancy model now sitting in the lobby of the main library may be as close as Tucson drivers ever get to the roadway.
The Tucson City Council first approved the concept for the Aviation Parkway in 1982. The project, often referred to as "The Road to Nowhere," was intended to connect the southeast part of the city at Golf Links Road with downtown and then continue on to Interstate 10.
The stretch of the proposed road from Broadway to I-10, or the "Last Mile of Aviation," was always controversial. Opponents called it a waste of hundreds of millions of dollars and criticized its depressed design, arguing it would cut downtown off from the commercial and residential districts to the north.
Currents Despite those objections, dozens of downtown properties in the path of the roadway were purchased for eventual demolition. The cost of these buildings: more than $11 million.
But by 1989, financial reality, combined with growing political pressure, prompted the Arizona Department of Transportation to abandon the "Last Mile." They turned responsibility for handling the downtown traffic to be generated by the rest of the road over to the City of Tucson.
Under a process entitled "Downtown Land Use and Circulation Study," citizens and transportation planners devised an alternative that relied mostly on widening existing streets and other less drastic changes than the "Last Mile." The estimated cost of the project in 1990 was still more than $100 million, however.
Most of the money to pay for the project, now believed to cost $108 million, was to come from a specific pot, the so-called 15 percent funds generated from gas taxes. These funds have paid for $122 million of the work done to construct the renamed and soon to be opened Barraza-Aviation Parkway southeast of Broadway. City of Tucson transportation officials have long assumed this source would also pay for the downtown section of the parkway.
But when the Pima County road bond package was approved, most of these funds were allocated elsewhere. The package relies heavily on 15 percent monies to implement some projects.
Ironically, the downtown leg of the parkway was the Tucson City Council's number-one priority for projects to be funded from the road bonds. They requested $50 million for the first three construction phases, but received zero funding under the final bond proposal approved by the Pima County Board of Supervisors.
Since assuming responsibility for planning and building an alternative to the "Last Mile," the city has spent almost $3 million on design work for a project which now has no funding source to implement. Currently, the city is preparing construction drawings for the first phase of the project under an additional $1 million contract. This phase, estimated to cost $10 million to complete, would install a new Fourth Avenue underpass, renovate the existing one, and make other changes in the immediate vicinity.
Given Pima County's preemption of most of the gas-tax funds, where will the money come from to build this and later phases of the project? Jim Glock, deputy director of Tucson's Transportation Department, says the city will pursue the gas-tax funds not claimed by Pima County.
It seems unlikely, however, that the city will get much of that money. The construction of the Barraza-Aviation Parkway southeast of Broadway has consumed 90 percent of these funds over the last several years. But in the next five years, only $600,000, or less than 1 percent of the total monies available, is slated to be spent on the downtown leg of the parkway.
The balance needed to complete the project, Glock says, will have to come from new transportation taxes. Given that Pima County voters have twice overwhelmingly rejected sales tax increases to fund transportation projects, this source of funds appears highly speculative.
One other possible source of cash for the initial Fourth Avenue phase of the project is gas tax funds which have already been allocated but not spent. The city has $8 million of those funds targeted for a grade-separated interchange at Campbell Avenue and Grant Road, a pet project of Mayor George Miller. Since that's far less than would actually be needed to construct it, that money might be shifted to the Barraza-Aviation project in order to build the new Fourth Avenue underpass.
At any rate, after 15 years of planning and property acquisition, the City of Tucson has a roadway project with no secure funding source for construction. Meanwhile, the leg of the parkway into downtown is scheduled to open next month.
With no secure funding, will the downtown leg ever be built? Glock remains optimistic. He points out that the city has five years before the new parkway increases traffic volumes to the point that the downtown roadway system suffers a major breakdown.
Glock hopes to have both the Fourth Avenue phase and the $35 million Sixth Avenue stage of the project completed by then. These two phases would relieve much of the area's eventual traffic burdens. In addition, they would allow the Fourth Avenue trolley to enter the downtown area, and make it possible to extend a proposed light-rail system along Sixth Avenue north to Sixth Street. But with no specific construction funds, even these two phases are probably just dreams.
For more than 50 years the city has made plans to widen and improve streets along the north side of downtown. High-priced consultants have sketched a lot of fancy drawings, but nothing has ever come of any of these proposals. Most, if not all, of the downtown leg of the Barraza-Aviation Parkway may soon be added to that list.

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