02/20/2026
At yesterday's Cabs trip we learned about RTA Next, toured a few of the KE&G construction sites, and finished off the tour at Trident II on Swan for lunch.
Here's an overiew of the presentation: We heard about the next 20 years of road and transportation improvements for Southern AZ - including Pima, Tucson, Marana, Oro Valley, Pascua Yaqui, Tohono, Sahuarita. This is a special and great privilege we have to manage our own regional transportation funds, go directly to citizens in our area for funds, and manage them here locally without having to funnel things through the state.
If we don’t pass this, we also loose out on hundreds of millions of matching state and federal funds. We do not get those funds without this plan passing. The new plan covers a variety of major roadway improvements like big interchanges and critical arterial roads. All the funds, and disbursement of funds is audited yearly and more deeply every 5 years. The reports are public.
The Plan includes additional funding that the municipalities can request from to help with other smaller, urgent, projects such as potholes or smaller street projects. These funds are disbursed directly from the RTA board to the municipality, there are clear guidelines, and timing is quicker and it’s easier to access these funds than going to state or federal routes.
Without this plan our roadway system will have a shortfall of many hundreds of millions of dollars. Approximately $250M of already planned projects will not go ahead. And we’ll loose out on additional hundreds of millions of matching funds.
This plan took approximately 5 years to develop and get unanimous support from each of the participating municipalities and communities. If we do not pass, there is NO other plan ready to go. We could be without any RTA like plan for an additional 5 years potentially. Transport services that are funded via RTA will stop in Summer 2026 with no backup, such as dial-a ride for seniors. There is no fallback or holding pattern option. There is no mechanism to create one quickly. There is no state-wide ability to step in and cover gaps. We will start over from square one.
