Back in 2006, George W. Bush was in the White House, “The DaVinci Code” was one of the top films in theaters, and a Harvard student named Mark Zuckerberg opened the quaint social media site Facebook to any user with an email address. Pima County voters also approved the Regional Transportation Authority plan and sales tax.
Now entering its 20th and final year, the sales tax-funded, $2.1 billion RTA plan has delivered transportation improvements across the Tucson metro region, including transit expansions, safety enhancements, wildlife protections, and roadway corridor improvements.
After two decades and more than 1,000 projects delivered, it’s worth looking back at why the plan was needed and what it has delivered to enhance the region’s economic vitality.
What led to the establishment of the RTA?
Previous efforts to fund regional roadway expansion projects were not always successful.
In the early 1970s, plans to construct a series of cross-town freeways and parkways were rejected. In 1986, a proposal to study and plan a freeway from the east side to the northeast side also was defeated.
Voters rejected a half-cent sales tax plan in 1990 to fund transportation improvements. Another sales-tax funded transportation improvement and congestion reduction plan fell at city polls in 2002.
A county bond package in 2015 that included transportation funding also was rejected.
Other efforts at regional transportation and roadway improvement plans had some successes. Pima County voters passed the 1997 Highway User Revenue Fund (HURF) bond plan, which allowed the County to borrow against the HURF gas tax distribution it receives from the state to fund 57 roadway expansion and improvement projects.
The debt incurred from this program was paid off through a secondary property tax, which was fully retired in 2024. A full list of County bonds and an interactive map can be found here.
City of Tucson voters approved a $70 million roadway improvement bond package in 1994 and another HURF-funded plan in 2000. More recently, Tucson voters approved two sales-tax funded plans to repair neighborhood and collector streets within the city.
The recent city programs provided funding for needed maintenance and repairs, but do not fund new roadway construction, modernizations or roadway expansions.
Despite some transportation plans with limited scope passing prior to the RTA plan, the region continued to have enormous unmet needs in transportation infrastructure and few options to pay for them.
“There are limited tools available,” said Jim DeGrood, who since the 1980s has worked in transportation for all of the region’s governments and was deputy director of Pima Association of Governments, which manages the RTA, for a number of years. DeGrood currently is the deputy director of the Tucson Department of Transportation and Mobility.
In search of new funding tools to address the pressing transportation needs of the region, leaders looked to the state Legislature in the early 2000s.
In 2004, legislators passed the laws allowing Pima County to reauthorize a Regional Transportation Authority as a special taxing district for the purpose of funding transportation improvements. Top elected officials from the county, cities, towns, tribal governments, and a member from the Arizona State Transportation Board comprise the governing board for the RTA.
In 2006, after two years of planning and public engagement, Pima County voters approved the $2.1 billion RTA plan.
Lasting benefits
Some RTA projects have large, visible improvements that have made immediate impacts on the mobility of surrounding areas.
Projects such as the Twin Peaks interchange on Interstate 10 created new access for motorists on the northwest side and facilitated massive investments in retail, business, and residential development adjacent to the project.
A project such as the Sun Link streetcar also dramatically changed streetscapes in the heart of downtown Tucson and the University of Arizona. The streetcar not only provides residents an additional transit option in the urban core area but helped jumpstart significant private-sector investments along its route from the university, through Fourth Avenue, downtown, and west of I-10 to the Mercado.
The roadway corridor component of the RTA plan has not only improved traffic flows for commuters and increased transit access across the region but has had enormous economic impacts.
“There are literally tens of thousands of jobs that are permanent full-time jobs that are here because of the transportation investment we’ve made in our community,” said Steve Huffman, community relations administrator with PAG.
An analysis done on the impacts of the plan show that RTA spending has helped support the creation of more than 40,000 permanent jobs in the region in addition to temporary construction jobs. The plan also initiated more than $2 billion in additional public and private sector investment near RTA projects such as the streetcar route and the Twin Peaks interchange on Interstate 10.
“We’re competing against not just the Southwest region but the entire world for economic development, job creation opportunities and you cannot compete without a viable infrastructure,” Huffman said.
The expansion of Valencia Road from Alvernon Way to Houghton Road also provided significant improvements to an already busy corridor in a growing region by expanding capacity, modernizing intersections, and adding pedestrian and bicycle facilities. As southeastern portions of the region such as Vail, Rita Ranch and Corona de Tucson grow, this project will provide greater connectivity to interior areas while accommodating the future growth.
Other RTA-funded projects are less visible but provide equally important enhancements to the region’s connectivity and mobility.
The RTA funds additional evening, weekend and express bus services. RTA funds also go toward special needs transit for the elderly and people with disabilities, neighborhood circulator bus services available for all users, and park-and-ride transit centers. These services allow people across the community to use transit services to meet a wide range of needs.
“If you relied on transit for a swing shift job, you were stuck,” DeGrood said of the expansions RTA funding provides to transit. “You could get to work but not get home.”
The expanded transit services the RTA half-cent sales tax funds allow fixed-route buses to extend service to outside of the Tucson city limits and operate longer weekday hours throughout all service areas. RTA funding also allows more routes to function on weekends.
The ongoing support the RTA provides makes up nearly 30% of the region’s total transit funding.
The RTA plan also has greatly expanded bicycle lanes and other facilities for non-motorized travelers. The plan has funded the construction of 370 miles of new bike lanes throughout the region.
“We’ve got quite a bit more infrastructure available for people to safely ride their bikes across town,” DeGrood said. He also noted the RTA’s role in helping expand the City of Tucson’s bicycle boulevard network, which uses neighborhood and other less congested interior roads to provide safe thoroughfares for cyclists and pedestrians.
The plan also has added to regional efforts to protect the unique Sonoran Desert ecosystem by funding approximately 40 wildlife crossing structures, including bridges and culverts, throughout Pima County that allow animals safe passage. The most notable of these is the wildlife bridge that spans Oracle Road, also known as State Highway 77, in the northern section of Oro Valley.
These structures have not only preserved animal populations and protected motorists from collisions, but through the work of the RTA Wildlife Linkages Working Group and ongoing monitoring at the locations where structures have been built, the science of locating and designing new structures evolved and improved.
PAG Director of Transportation Services Rick Ellis said the knowledge collected has helped transportation and wildlife officials understand the different behaviors of desert dwelling animals and effectively develop new structures.
“This has given us the ability to determine what is the smartest thing for us to do and identify best opportunities to do it,” Ellis said.
The approach has worked and can be measured by the effectiveness of the wildlife crossing structures that have been built in the region.
Arizona Game and Fish Department data from nearly eight years of monitoring at wildlife crossings showed the RTA-funded structures on Oracle Road have received heavy use. This included nearly 10,000 mule deer, 2,900 javelina, 1,165 coyote, and 148 bobcat crossings at the Oracle Road overpass. Monitoring found 36 distinct native vertebrate species using the crossing structures.
Small business assistance was another innovation of the 2006 RTA plan.
Transportation construction is disruptive, affecting business access, and creating other challenges for those who operate businesses in proximity to a project. The RTA’s complimentary MainStreet Business Assistance Program was established to reduce impacts of construction on businesses before and during the construction of transportation improvement projects.
“This program has been a lifeline for countless businesses,” said Steve Taylor, manager of the MainStreet program. “In addition to helping develop survival strategies, we act as a sort of concierge for businesses by helping them stay up-to-date on construction schedules, making contacts with the agencies and contractors involved in the projects, and helping address any issues that arise during construction.”
The Small Business Assistance Program has been a model for other communities as they embark on major construction projects that inevitably cause disruption. To date, the program has assisted more than 10,000 businesses.
What the future holds
The 2006 RTA plan has been the most collaborative and comprehensive transportation plan ever approved in the region. From enhancing roadways to greatly expanding transit services to improving access for non-motorized travel and to developing ways to protect wildlife, the RTA has been truly transformative.
Now, a new RTA plan is ready for public review and approval. The RTA Board has approved the $2.67 billion RTA Next plan that voters will have the chance to vote on in March 2026.
The RTA Next plan will provide another 20 years of transportation improvements to address the needs of people in communities across the Tucson metro region. The proposed plan, if approved by voters, will continue the types of transportation improvements that benefit the entire region.