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Is there a particular reason why Tucson never initiated a plan to build more freeways as Phoenix has done over the pat 10-20 years?
While Tucson hasn't grown as much as Phoenix has over the past 20 years, would it have not been possible to build an interstate criss-crossing the city from west to east, which would then curve to the south & join I-10 southeast of the city, perhaps running parallel to Houghton Rd. or Kolb Rd. or somewhere in between them?
I was just complaining about this problem to my wife. I went to my dentist over on Speedway and Craycroft, and coming from Sierra Vista, it's a real pain in the butt to have to drive all over that city using surface streets to get there.
I've heard a million rumors over the last decade that a freeway (or highway...semantics) is coming, but something tells me that it'll never happen. Tucson can't really grow too much larger than what it is, and without that growth, i don't think the clamor for it will be loud enough.
Besides, they'd need to use a lot of eminent domain to get it done. Wonder how that would go over?
like Tucson is now, Phoenix was also very much anti-freeway until the 1986 public vote that upped the sales tax and set in motion the freeway-building effort that is now nearing of its original goals....
important!: it had to become a crisis before the general public finally perceived the need to build freeways up there....so it ends up being more expensive than if done earlier with some foresight....
Phoenix metro has about 4.5M people and Tucson metro has 1M.....additional limited access freeways in Tucson are decades away, if ever.....the locals, as we all hear, don't want to see Tucson become a Phoenix or LA and this has been debated for many, many years....can't say I disagree with the NIMBYs on this one....the traffic here is not at all unbearable....certain intersections are very bad at rush hour in Tucson, but compared to other cities, it's a breeze to move around here.....
Phoenix metro has about 4.5M people and Tucson metro has 1M.....additional limited access freeways in Tucson are decades away, if ever.....the locals, as we all hear, don't want to see Tucson become a Phoenix or LA and this has been debated for many, many years....can't say I disagree with the NIMBYs on this one....the traffic here is not at all unbearable....certain intersections are very bad at rush hour in Tucson, but compared to other cities, it's a breeze to move around here.....
I think it depends on where you're at on where you're going. Some streets are less crowded than others, and some have fewer signals and higher speed limits. After a while you learn which routes work best and which ones don't. Even so, it often seemed like it took much longer than necessary to get across town. And it became fraustrating if I had to cross town often.
But if that's what folks there want, good for them. People who don't like freeways will like it there, and folks who do like them will eventually move on.
As much as Tucson doesn't want to grow, I think that is a strong force that they can't beat--Tucson will grow. Arizona is a state people want to move to, and Tucson, being the second largest city in that state, will be high on people's list. Traffic congestion will only get worse with time.
I think it would be wise to plan for that now--years ago really, "now" is almost too late in some respects.
But I don't live there anymore so it's not my problem.
I love that Tucson has no freeways. And I'm a guy that loves freeways. I lived in Houston for many years and had a keen interest in that city's transportation infrastructure. THAT is a freeway city!
But how necessary would another freeway be here, honestly? We're surrounded by mountains and undevelopable land (national parks, national forests, the Tohono O'Odham Nation), so any freeway is going to go, at the most, ten miles in a set direction and then just stop.
Additionally, I don't care what people living here say, the traffic is just not that bad. I've been living in Atlanta (Atlanta sucks) for a little over two months now, and it's just made me appreciate all the more how well Tucson traffic is managed because they do a horrendous job here.
Freeways also encourage sprawl and effective abandonment of neighborhoods as people flee for further, newer regions but never come back. There are areas of Midtown that have remained nice neighborhoods over the years probably almost solely because there is no freeway going east. Ever been out to Tanque Verde and thought, "Wow, what a nice, rural farming community on the edge of the city!"? Tanque Verde is the way it is because there was never a freeway built.
If you like the way Phoenix has developed, then live there. I think it sucks. Look at Maryvale. There's a reason they call it "Scaryvale" but, you know what, it used to be a nice neighborhood and a lot of that has to do with its location right next to a freeway: as soon as it started going downhill, people shot further west and no one ever came back. And it's not just the West Valley. There are sections of Mesa and Gilbert where the same thing happened.
It's become annoying and cliche to benchmark Portland, but, the fact is, most people in Tucson, at least those heavily involved in planning, want Tucson to be like Portland. Portland, years ago, just stopped building and expanding freeways and invested in public transit. That, in turn, forced infill and people to move into less desirable neighborhoods, but also to create walkable and more desirable (by today's standards) communities. Gentrification? Maybe, but I'd rather have that than what's happened in Phoenix.
On the gentrification versus Phoenix front, I think Tucson's done a fantastic job. The way things are headed, once we move away from this housing thing, I think Tucson poised to become a really desirable city. This recent media attention has really sort of spoiled the secret.
And this idea that Tucson has no freeways because of a lack of foresight is just stupid. Google "Tucson freeway plan" and read the history and check out the maps from the 50's and 60's. That ridiculous Aviation Parkway we have is all that survived from a massive freeway plan that included several loops and spurs (including one right down Speedway), but was all pushed out by neighborhood opposition. The Barrio Freeway was the big one.
Quote:
Originally Posted by azdr0710
like Tucson is now, Phoenix was also very much anti-freeway until the 1986 public vote that upped the sales tax and set in motion the freeway-building effort that is now nearing of its original goals....
important!: it had to become a crisis before the general public finally perceived the need to build freeways up there....so it ends up being more expensive than if done earlier with some foresight....
Phoenix metro has about 4.5M people and Tucson metro has 1M.....additional limited access freeways in Tucson are decades away, if ever.....the locals, as we all hear, don't want to see Tucson become a Phoenix or LA and this has been debated for many, many years....can't say I disagree with the NIMBYs on this one....the traffic here is not at all unbearable....certain intersections are very bad at rush hour in Tucson, but compared to other cities, it's a breeze to move around here.....
as i reflect one what these posters said, i too realize that tucson really doesnt need a large freeway system like phx, or LA. i have driven in phx, LA, san diego. washington dc, st louis, atlanta, pittsburg, and several other cities with heavy freeway systems, and i find that traffic patterns in tucson are in fact easier to deal with than those cities.
I love to visit Tucson and I like the fact it doesn't have a large freeway system. I don't think your traffic is bad at all. I live in SLC, Utah and our freeway system is not well managed. (in my opinion)
Thanks for the replies and history lessons everybody; I can certainly see now why Tucson didn't and/or hasn't initiated the freeway-building spree which Phoenix started in the mid-eighties,
When I visited Tucson in mid-October, the drive from my hotel (Courtyard Williams Circle) to my friend's condo (Kolb Rd. just north of Sunrise) was a very easy 15-minute drive, and driving through the city was very easy, in spite of the major road construction projects taking place on various stretches of Craycroft, Sunrise & Campbell Rd.
Granted everybody has better traffic than LA does, but as long as Tucson continues to attract retirees and new residents, the possibility and/or feasibility of either building a freeway or possibly converting a major east-west thoroughfare or two into a high-speed limited access thoroughfare would appear to be in the cards, even if it doesn't come to pass for a another decade or longer.
Location: West of the Catalinas East of the Tortolitas
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Colorado Springs is like Tucson. I-25 runs N-S along the very west side of the city, but sprawl is to the east and south, with 4 military bases on the south side of town. The mountains prohibit growth to the west, so use of the Interstate is limited to people driving between Denver and cities south, like Pueblo. There are no main E-W streets to go from one side of town to the other (can be up to 20 miles) so traffic is stop and go on small side streets. Tucson is actually better than CO SPGS in that regard as we have N-S and E-W streets besides I-10. Traffic in CO SPGS is awful. Tucson is a traffic cake walk compared to the Springs.
I'm surprised that there are no RTA conspiracy nuts on here that would point out a lot of the details of the RTA that you guys are sort of pushing on.
1. Street improvements: Broadway, Grant and Campbell, among other streets, will be widened over the next 15-20 years to eliminate "bottlenecks." On Broadway, this includes the section from Downtown to Country Club and, on Grant, from Oracle to Swan. The Grant rebuild had public meetings a little over a year ago and is now in the second stage. It's going to destroy a lot of businesses but, in the end, it'll be better for Tucson. Grant is a nightmare during rush hour, and the only way to make it any better is to widen it. It's not an issue of encouraging sprawl but, rather, sustaining existing growth.
2. Aviation Parkway connection to I-10: This has been going on for years and is probably the basic source of the rumor of a new "freeway". It still seems to be up in the air whether or not it will actually happen, but it's certainly much closer than before the RTA was passed. But it would not be a freeway. Instead, it's going to be an "urban boulevard" which will follow the tracks north from Aviation's current end until about 7th Avenue, veer west along 6th Street's right of way with a new underpass, then have some sort of direct connector ramps to I-10. A lot of it is very idealistic considering the less-than-cooperative communities you're dealing with (4th Avenue Merchants Association, WAMO, Dunbar Springs, El Presidio, etc.), so there's no telling what will happen to it.
Additionally, the rumor may be the supposed Tucson bypass. ADOT introduced this maybe two years ago and it was immediately met with fervent opposition and hasn't been mentioned since. They can't really figure out a place to put it that wouldn't severely disrupt things. One plan had it going from Benson up the San Pedro Valley, then cutting west to near Florence and into I-8's beginnings. This would just make it another Phoenix freeway though and open up sprawl-friendly Pinal County's east side, which takes a little too long to reach for most Phoenix commuters right now. Additionally, putting it through the San Pedro Valley has its own issues.
You look at a map, and it's really easy to come up with bypass routes but, when you're actually on those routes, you start finding all kinds of barriers to it.
I've driven a lot in LA and I would say that both DC and Atlanta have worse traffic overall. LA freeways are worse than Atlanta but, in Atlanta, the surface streets gridlock during rush hour also while they only do so in LA in certain areas.
As a person who has worked in the development industry and ten years of it within the design teams of CALTRANS in Southern California, I reeeeally don't want to add additional freeways here. Have been here a few years and within that short time have already watched the air quality deteriorate. I have learned the lifestyle here and people don't want to live like Phoenix and vice-versa. Automobile exhaust is one of the top reasons for bad air quality. There are some existing roads I would expand to create a greater ability for traffic volume around the perimeters and a few within the town just to take pressure off of the road system during peak times. The sprawl referenced by the gentleman from Houston is an ugly condition and the old phrase by Lucky Baldwin who built a railroad from LA out to Riverside for his land development speculation at the turn of the last century said, "if you build it they will come." It should have said, "If you build it they will come to the new development, pay our prices, and abandon the old except for those who cannot afford." The opposite to that is, if you have a density area that is getting greater you simply cannot keep people from getting from point A to B with a low capacity road system, especially in this weather. A combination of capacity upgrades to existing roads with some public rail transportation within the higher population centers of the region that can also provide climatic protection to the users during our temperature extremes would be a solution. A combination of transportation types, including company encouraged carpools in electric vehicles for those roundtrips of 40 miles or less.
ADOT is widening Oracle Boulevard in the northern part of the County and the probably 20' high soundwalls associated with that have already ruined a scenic highway that we all share. Pitiful. Was decided by a small group of homeowners whether they needed that wall to protect them from the sound. The rest of us have been denied the incredible panoramic views within the area going through that area. I really don't think there is a concentration of traffic to create the decibel level they are expecting, unless we starting developing to the hilt - can you say Arroyo Grande proposed by the town of Oro Valley.
Also, really don't want to see a freeway coming up from I-10 up Tangerine to 77 Hwy. Nothing like cutting a bunch of pristine residential neighborhoods apart with an airfield so that a bunch of folks who moved out into an open area to enjoy the views and the peace can now live adjacent to a great big open-topped tunnel enclosed by soundwalls in which auto emissions concentrate and then slowly leak out to the surrounding areas. Not to mention again, the destruction of enjoying a "close-up and personal ride through the desert". These are larger parcels and/or planned communities along that strip of Tangerine. So, if everyone is planning on selling those larger parcels, carving them up into higher density developments, then perhaps there will be a volume problem. As far as I know, many of those properties are the "newer" areas of Tucson/Marana/Oro Valley and I don't think that is in anyone'a mindseye or pocketbook at the moment. So why mess up a good thing just so you can go 15-mph faster for just between one to thirteen miles of roadway to get up to development that no one wants out here?
Most of us have settled in with the driving patterns and realize that our tradeoff is a quality of life benefit to our lifestyle to live with nature around us that actually still exists here because we have not promoted large and dense development and to share the views with anyone who wants to see them.
Last edited by Tashinamu8; 01-17-2011 at 11:12 PM..
Reason: typos - oops
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