Steve Huffman was representing a Southern Arizona district in the Arizona House when, in 2004, he introduced legislation enabling formation of the Regional Transportation Authority taxing district in Pima County.

In fact, “the entire Pima County and Southern Arizona delegation” co-sponsored the bill, Huffman told a small group in Oro Valley last December. Each local legislator “helped pass that bill,” he continued. “Republicans and Democrats.”

Prior to that 2004 legislation, Pima County had been through “four different transportation initiatives, and every single one of them went down in flames,” Huffman said. “It was a huge problem we needed to deal with.”

With enabling legislation in place, in 2006 Pima County voters passed the first RTA initiatives, adopting the 20-year transportation plan and accompanying half-cent sales tax.

Now, that tax is up for renewal, along with a new 20-year plan dubbed RTA Next. Huffman, an Oro Valley resident who serves as the community relations manager for the Pima Association of Governments, argues RTA Next is “incredibly important to our region.”

Voting has begun on RTA Next, consisting of ballot propositions to adopt a $2.67 billion transportation plan and extend the half-cent tax that helps fund improvements. An all-mail election is now under way, with more than 645,000 ballots mailed to voters by the Pima County Recorder’s office beginning Feb. 11. Votes are counted March 10.

“It will be Election Day every single day from now on,” Huffman told a Feb. 10 gathering at the Oro Valley Chamber office.

Voters are being asked two questions; one, to accept the RTA Next plan as presented, and two, to extend the half-cent sales tax.

“Both of them need to pass if you want the plan to be implemented,” Huffman said. If RTA Next and its companion half-cent sales tax are passed, “you’re not going to see your taxes increase,” he emphasized.

In advocating for the project, Huffman points out:

• Arizona has not raised its per-gallon fuel tax since 1991. A dollar 34 years ago has 44 cents of buying power today. Modern vehicles are more fuel-efficient, there are more electric cars on the road and inflation continues.

“All of this results in a decline in transportation revenues,” Huffman said.

• In 2023, the current half-cent sales tax generated $119 million, leveraging $29 million in state funding, and $22 million in federal funding for local transportation improvements and services. If RTA Next does not pass, “you can imagine your own household budget if all of a sudden you lost two-thirds of your funds,” Huffman said.

The half-cent sales tax is now generating about $125 million a year for transportation services and improvements. The $2.67 billion forecast for RTA Next revenues over the next 20 years — averaging to $133.5 million a year — is described as a “pessimistic revenue forecast” prepared by the University of Arizona’s Eller College of Management.

“We did learn a lot of valuable lessons” from RTA, Huffman said. “We did not anticipate we were going to go through a major recession, in 2008, or a huge pandemic,” or higher inflation. “All were significant factors in increasing the costs of RTA projects.”

And, he said in February, in 2006 “we thought we would have substantially higher population growth” than what the region has experienced.

This time around, “our numbers are way more realistic,” in terms of anticipated income, he said. 

• The plan’s $50 million investment in wildlife crossings is intended for both animals and travelers. “I don’t want my child or me to be in a seven-car pileup because a coyote or a javelina crosses the road,” Huffman said.

• RTA funds can only be used for voter-approved projects. “We can’t just spend it on whatever we want,” Huffman told the Chamber audience. “At the end of the day, you guys have the final say.”

PAG, the multijurisdictional governing board consisting of elected leaders from the city of Tucson, Pima County, Oro Valley, Marana, Sahuarita, South Tucson, the Pascua Yaqui and Tohono O’odham nations and an appointee from the Arizona Department of Transportation, has worked for years with citizens’ advisory groups and multiple iterations of the plan before adopting it last fall.

Arriving at this RTA Next package was not easy. Huffman lauded the “amount of work that’s been done by a variety of individuals” to reach consensus on what is being presented.

“Ultimately,” he said, “this will be beneficial to the entire region.”