Countdown for RTA decision

Herding cats … Floating ideas … And those were wild days.

It turns out, 20 years wasn’t enough time for local officials to get their ducks in a row.

Anyone with even a basic understanding of how the Regional Transportation Authority works knew that the 20-year-old taxing authority would expire and it would have to go before the voters again to get renewed.

Stories about budget shortfalls, delayed projects and the occasional omission of a particular project painted a clear picture that officials would need to cooperate. If they didn’t, they’d lose out on roughly $123 million in annual revenue when the RTA expires in June 2026.

Moreover, the RTA’s Citizens Advisory Committee has been meeting for roughly five years to map out what projects would be included in the next 20 years, often referred to as RTA Next. Another committee, the Technical Management Committee, has been meeting for two years to review the draft proposal.

Now eight¹ elected officials and a representative from the Arizona State Transportation Board have roughly two months to get on the same page to put the renewal of the half-cent sales tax on the November ballot.

Part of the reason that the RTA board is down to the wire is they haven’t had a meeting since September.

Another explanation is far more boring, but also practical: Signing off on the RTA Next plan is the political equivalent of herding cats.

Elected officials from eight different political entities have to come to a consensus on how to complete unfinished projects in the current RTA plan amid a projected $143 million shortfall. They also have to solidify transportation projects for the next 20 years with a $2.4 billion checkbook.

The deadline is tied to the last possible day that the Pima County Board of Supervisors could put a measure on the November ballot.

In political terms, the two-month window is measured in the number of times Pima County supervisors meet. Our back-of-the-napkin math is four Supervisor meetings before the RTA would miss its window.

There is a Hail Mary backup plan. The RTA board could opt to put the measure on the ballot next spring, just before the tax that voters approved in 2006 – often referred to as RTA One – expires in June.

That could be politically risky. If voters reject the measure in the spring, funding would almost immediately dry up, effectively stalling countless transportation projects for the region.

Tough choices

Picking which projects will be part of the RTA Next program still might be the most difficult decision to make, given the competing priorities of Tucson, Pima County, Marana, Oro Valley, South Tucson, Sahuarita, the Pascua Yaqui Tribe and the Tohono O’odham Nation.

With a deadline looming, there are three main issues:

• Higher than projected costs for projects

• Funding gaps for each jurisdiction

• Competing priorities for the RTA Next plan

For example, Tucson officials already said they’re willing to move two projects that were included in the original 2006 RTA plan, but never completed, to the list of projects in RTA Next. (Two other projects have also been moved over to RTA Next from other jurisdictions with their approval.)

The two projects – Houghton Road from Broadway to Tanque Verde and 22nd Street between Kino Parkway to I-10 – are estimated to cost $249 million.

Both projects would widen the streets to better handle traffic and make other improvements.

But there are eight other projects in Tucson that were part of the original RTA plan, but have yet to be delivered:

• Valencia Road - from I-19 to Alvernon Way

• Grant Road widening, Phase 5 and 6

• Harrison Road Bridge

• 22nd Street Bridge - from Tucson Blvd to Kino Parkway

• Silverbell Road - from El Camino del Cerro to Goret Road

• 22nd Street - from Camino Seco to Houghton Road

• 1^st Avenue - from Grant Road to River Road

• Grant Road at the Union Pacific Railroad crossing

City and RTA officials dispute who is primarily responsible for these delays. And to further muddy the waters, political turnover in each of the jurisdictions means that current elected officials have a get-out-of-jail-free card by blaming unpopular decisions on their predecessors.

RTA officials have floated that local governments could dig into their own pockets to fill the gap, but that is unlikely to happen.

If local governments don’t pay for those projects now, delayed projects could be added to the RTA Next proposal, said Pima Association of Governments Executive Director Farhad Moghimi.

“If no other funds are available or cannot be considered, RTA Next revenues are the most likely funding option to be considered by the voters. Currently, all available regional funding is programmed through fiscal year 2029 and no other dollars are available,” Moghimi said.

In practical terms, the RTA board would have to re-examine their draft version of RTA Next and pull out their red pens until they cut their way to a solution.²

A new wrinkle emerged this week. Tucson Mayor Regina Romero was elected as the new chair of the Pima Association of Governments Board, signaling that the city is going to play a larger role in the future of the RTA.

In the last decade, no one from the city has served as an officer on the PAG Board, according to Romero.

Romero’s new leadership role at PAG is a stark difference from a year ago, when the Tucson City Council was flirting with the idea of breaking away from the RTA entirely, floating the idea of establishing their own sales tax to fund roads.

The RTA’s performance was hobbled in part by lower-than-expected revenues due to the Great Recession of 2008, the COVID pandemic and higher-than-projected project costs, leading to widespread dissatisfaction among the Council.

Former City Manager Mike Ortega wrote in a February 2024 memo that continuing to be part of the RTA beyond 2026 would be “fiscally irresponsible.”

Selling the RTA Next plan to voters is still a huge concern for Romero.

“The RTA Next voters will ask us, ‘you're not delivering what you told us you were going to deliver in 2006. How do you plan to do that?’” Romero said.

Tucson City Councilman Paul Cunningham, briefed about the RTA meeting on Tuesday, continued to be skeptical that the RTA can deliver on its promises.

“So they have finished $375 million so far and they think they have the trust of the voters and they think they can go back out to the voters and get it again? Isn’t insanity one of those things where you keep doing the same thing over again and expect a different result?” Cunningham asked.

A clear view of the RTA Board’s plans should emerge in the coming weeks. Board members agreed on Monday to hold regular meetings until a decision is made on when to put RTA Next on the ballot.

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No matter when the RTA actually goes on the ballot, it will still be a long, complicated road. But don’t worry. We’ll be in the nitty-gritty through it all. Subscribe today and we’ll keep you up to date!

What does the public have to say about RTA Next?

The RTA board conducted a survey of local residents about what they want to see in the next 20 years.

Roughly 2,200 people responded, and about 58 percent of them said they were leaning toward supporting RTA Next.

Pima County residents put wildlife corridors on the top of their list for transportation projects, with nearly 30 percent saying making streets safer to cross for our four-legged furry friends was a priority over everything else. (Survey respondents were allowed to vote for up to five projects.)

Here is the top five list:

• Wildlife linkages (29.2%)

• Bikeway improvements – Tucson (19.2%)

• Cortaro Road/I-10 traffic Interchange (18.5%)

• Pedestrian improvements – Tucson (18.4%)

• Bus frequency/Route expansion (16.7%)

Overall, 22 projects were each mentioned 100 times or more by those taking the survey, and another had 99 mentions.

There did seem to be some regional bias in those who took the survey. While the Colossal Cave Road: I-10 to Camino Loma Alta ranked as the 10th most popular project, it also came in first in the least desired project on the RTA Draft plan.

The Cortaro Road/I-10 Traffic interchange also placed in the top five of both lists.

Here are the top five least popular projects:

• Colossal Cave Road: I-10 to Camino Loma Alta (15.1%)

• Palo Verde Road to Ajo Way (14.8%)

• State Route 210: Ajo Way to I-10 (14.7%)

• Cortaro Road/I-10 Traffic Interchange (13.7%)

• Tangerine Road/I-10 Traffic Interchange (13.1%)

You can read the survey results here. Scroll down to page 547. (That’s not a typo, the report is about 650 pages long)

This gem from the July 17, 2008, edition of the Tucson Weekly is a good reminder of how much of a headache the 2006 RTA election was.

Zbigniew Osmolski, a ne'er-do-well county employee, said a county computer programmer in the elections department told him that he “fixed” the results on orders from Pima County officials.

This alleged confession, while the two were drinking at the Boondocks Lounge, was the bombshell that was going to overturn the election.

The programmer would deny under oath that he fixed the election. The head of the elections department also said he didn’t order the programmer to change results.

The Tucson Weekly article details county employment records that show Osmolski was fired from his county position for drinking on the job.

It also included reprimands for losing his county vehicle at the Desert Diamond Casino (it was eventually towed), verbally counseled not to drink before meetings and once refused to take a blood alcohol test, saying he seemed and smelled drunk because he was on prescription pills and wearing booze-scented cologne.

1. The ninth member of the transportation board is Ted Maxwell, the president and CEO of the Southern Arizona Leadership Council. You can decide whether or not we should revise our count of elected officials for the RTA board. We’re going to be writing a lot about the RTA for the next few months.

2. Cutting doesn’t necessarily mean that a project will be eliminated, it could just be reduced in scope.