With a pair of 5-1 votes, the Tucson City Council voted to move forward with a plan to widen Broadway Boulevard to six lanes between downtown and Country Club Road.
The decisions allow the city to move forward with acquiring more property along the corridor to make room for the expansion, as well as to seek funding for the project from Regional Transportation Authority, which—along with Pima County—is footing most of the bill for the $72 million project.
Councilman Steve Kozachik was the sole vote against the project.
Tonight’s vote was the latest step in a decades-long push to expand the central-city corridor and caps years of meetings that have resulted in an eight-lane project reduced to six lanes. But even the six-lane plan had many vocal opponents who complained that the project will knock down too many historic structures and diminish Broadway’s “sense of place.”
But the majority of the council said the project was a compromise and further delay would not result in significant changes to width of the corridor, although they did invite local architect Bob Vint to work with a team from the University of Arizona to tweak the project moving forward.
After the meeting, Vint—who had pushed for a different vision for the corridor—said it “remains to be seen” whether he could still have a significant impact on the future of the corridor.
This article appears in Apr 14-20, 2016.
Our City Council has not made any smart choices for some time especially when it comes to roads in my opinion. Why start now? 5 to 1 is the changes that need to be made come election time. Another main thoroughfare which will be blocked to drive up and down. Grant is ‘still being worked on”. Sensible road and traffic solutions are long past for this city. But we have a trolley that hauls “no one”…
What that means is that we need to elect more people like Council Member Kozachik.
It is really depressing to see how much Tucson has become a city that just doesn’t get it.
What historic buildings are on that part of Broadway? A few west of Campbell? Everything east of Campbell is a hodge podge mess of disjointed buildings.
Welcome to Tucson — Razing the Past to Raise New Tax
72 million bucks based on phony, outdated traffic volume numbers and a rigged election. Yeah, sure, that’s bound to be money well spent and good policy.
While the RTA is making numerous changes around town with new tax dollars, you may notice that there are little to no improvements in traffic flow and road conditions. The Sabino Canyon extension south onto Kolb is another one that leaves many shaking their heads and saying “what is this really going to fix?”
Once again they should have connected Sunrise to Snyder and left the majority of that traffic in the foothills rather than funneling them up and down the mountain.
I did forget the wildlife overpass in Catalina. They spotted an animal crossing the $25M structure yesterday. A hunter then picked him off on the downhill side. Rewind.
With all due respect to Mr. Nintzel, M&C did not simply vote to move forward on a road project. They voted to spend many dollars and much devastation on a road design that WILL. NOT. WORK. (Read the 1987 study and 2012 traffic reports on the City’s Broadway project page; real engineers said this, not me.) Cars will not move more efficiently (widening does not improve level-of-service), transit will lose effectiveness as buses are held hostage in pullouts until there is a gap between cars, bicyclists lose simple left turns and will be forced to do u-turns around medians keeping them in traffic and unsafe longer than necessary, and anyone using a wheelchair or stroller will have to schlepp up to a quarter-mile out of their way just to cross the street. No benefit for anyone, at all, period, and that does not even address lost sales tax revenue as businesses and small business incubator spaces are demolished, ditto property tax revenue, and tourist spend as folks interested in mid-century Modernism decide to visit cities that celebrate their history instead of those that pave it over. (Before anyone plays the “will of the voters” card, plz consider that if RTA had really really been concerned about voters’ opinion they would have put the RTA items on the November 2006 ballot since that election was assured a huge turnout (and in fact got 60% ) instead of spending resources on a special election in May 2006 that only drew 26% of the voters.) Yes, people will drive in Tucson, bikes and buses do not work for everyone, understood. But paving over a vibrant commercial district that has every likelihood of becoming another Campbell Avenue go-to destination with revenue-generating potential when Aviation, Speedway, 22nd, and other high-speed east-west options exist is staggeringly short-sighted. To put it another way, if medianized wide roads were the path to successful development, why are Speedway and East 22nd not on everyone’s “wanna be THERE” list? Yet M&C voted to move this steaming pile of Broadway plan forward anyway.
And speaking of Campbell Avenue, here’s a fun fact: the project manager for the Broadway Boondoggle said that by 2040, traffic volume on Broadway will rise 22% over current loads. In 2014 the Euclid-to-Campbell section of Broadway had average daily volume of ~30K. Add 22% to that, we get ~37K by 2040 (maybe). Guess where we already see ~37K cars a day? Campbell between Grant and Fort Lowell Roads. Actually, PAG says it’s 35,908. And what does this stretch of Campbell look like? Five lanes (two per direction plus center turn) just like Broadway is now. But while Campbell gets sidewalks and amenities to welcome visitors and encourage lingering, Broadway gets bulldozers and asphalt to hurtle visitors out of the area to the east side or to the bottleneck at the Intersection of Death downtown. Between Campbell Avenue, Main Gate, Fourth Avenue, and downtown, has Tucson simply reached its maximum allotment of successful go-to commercial districts?