Among all of the initiatives and referenda on this fall’s ballot is one specific to Maricopa County: Prop 479. The measure would continue a half-cent sales tax county-wide for 20 years; that money would pay for transportation projects in the Phoenix metro area. Around 40% of it would go to freeways and state highways; 37% would be allocated to public transportation and around 22% would be set aside for arterial streets, intersection improvements and regional transportation infrastructure.
County voters initially approved the tax in 1985 for 20 years. It was then renewed in 2004 for another two decades. Over those combined 40 years, the tax is estimated to have brought in more than $13 billion for transportation projects.
This year’s continuation vote is supported by mayors and business groups across the Valley, who argue it’s important to continue economic growth and development here. Critics, meanwhile, argue the tax will lead to money wasted on transit projects.
Maricopa County is routinely one of the fastest growing regions of the country, and that is driven, at least in part, by these kinds of transportation projects. So, we wanted to look back and forward to get a sense of the impact of this growth and development across the Valley.
Sandy Bahr, director of the Sierra Club’s Grand Canyon Chapter, joined The Show with Paula Randolph, an advocate for land use and water issues, to discuss the evolution of the Valley as it relates to growth and development over the last couple of decades.
Full conversation
MARK BRODIE: And Sandy, let me start with you as we're setting our baseline here. How would you describe the evolution of the Valley as it relates to growth and development over the last couple of decades?
SANDY BAHR: Well, if we want to go back to 2000, approximately, that was when we were working on a growth management initiative to try to curb urban sprawl. And that is something that we have seen a lot of over the last couple of decades and or even a lot of that has been driven by roads and freeways. And so we were trying to get some growth boundaries to really have more compact development and the developers really opposed that at the time, they were like, oh, we hate density. Density is a bad word and that measure went down in flames.
And you know, over the years, we have had tried to get some additional provisions without a lot of success. And then now bringing us to today, we see that in some of those areas where they still want to do sprawl development, there is no longer physically available water for the 100-year assured water supply that is required. And of course, there's also not adequate affordable housing, and we hear some of the developers now talking about density. And I have been the first to say, hey, I think we told you so.
BRODIE: Well, and it's interesting because there is more density in the Valley now than even the last, you know, 10 or 20 years. A lot of Valley cities have downtowns that are more up than, you know, the city, at least the new building is more up than out in some places.
BAHR: That's correct. Yeah. And you've seen a lot of it, I think in downtown Phoenix, a lot of that was driven by ASU being downtown. But, and then Tempe has always been a little bit more dense. It's, it's more on the periphery. The suburbs that you continue to see sprawling development and, and in the county areas, you see the kind of development that, results in some big infrastructure issues.
BRODIE: Paula, when you look at the growth and development in the Valley over the last couple of decades, I don't think anybody would argue that there hasn't been an awful lot of it. How much of that do you think is tied to the ability to have resources, for example, to build roads, to build highways, to build infrastructure that leads people to, to move here and continue to build here.
PAULA RANDOLPH: It certainly has an impact, I believe, we have grown tremendously in the top 10 for cities and communities in the nation. And I think it's a multitude of factors, but it is a lifestyle that people want. There are economies here or industries here that people are looking to participate in and make their living in. And let's face it. As Sandy talked about developers saw that as an advantage and began to build in places that they felt they could make a decent profit. Some would argue more than decent, which is a fair comment.
So it certainly has grown and its transportation was certainly needed. And you see that in how the roads are built in our ongoing efforts to provide frankly mass transportation throughout the Valley.
BRODIE: Where do you see the balance between growth and development and bringing jobs and bringing more people and the tax base and everything compared to sort of the environmental land use concerns, water concerns as Sandy brought up, you know, we're in kind of a unique ecosystem here in the Sonoran Desert, so where, where for you is the balance of having growth and development, but maybe not too much or the right kind.
RANDOLPH: OK. The $10 million question. If I could answer that …
BRODIE: We could go with that pretty early on …
RANDOLPH: Yeah, we are, we're going to hit it hard. I'm gonna tell you, I don't know if there is an exact answer. I mean, we watch people try and solve these really tough problems that are interconnected and that's really what I've been thinking about is how connected everything is. Jobs, how do we diversify our economy? How long have we talked about in the Valley? We can't live on housing alone. We have to diversify. We're starting to see that.
But with that diversification, we have industries that are coming that are very water intensive. A big issue for me, clearly, for Sandy as well. How do we make sure that we're capturing every drop using it appropriately and not forgetting about the environment. So I don't know if there's a perfect answer. I would tell you that my goal and hope is for our state is that we are thinking holistically on a variety of problems and not picking one issue, but looking at it from a comprehensive aspect both locally from the state and frankly from the federal level too, because they will impact what we do here as well.
BRODIE: So Sandy, let me ask you about that because when you look at the holistic nature of it as, as Paula mentioned, there is obviously the need, if, if there are people living here, there's a need to have an economy and economic development and people to have jobs. But at the same time, there's a lot of concern about what it's doing to the water supply, what it's doing to the environment.
So how do you look at the balance of trying to have growth and economic development while also leaving you know, an ecosystem and environment that people can live in?
BAHR: Well, I think first of all, we don't always have to be one of the fastest growing places in the country. We continue to have that be our image and I think we should have and, and should going forward, think about what is truly sustainable. Yeah, we might have jobs and we might have water for today and tomorrow. But what about the next generation coming up? And is this place even going to be inhabitable? Is there going to be adequate water?
And so I think we have to balance it with, you know, looking 20 to 30 yes, even 100 years out. And some things may just not be appropriate, some things we may have to go well, you know, instead of building another freeway, let's put more money into transit, let's make it, you know, a more walkable bike, friendly area. Unfortunately, that's something else we've seen huge opposition to at the Legislature.
BRODIE: Sandy, when you look ahead a couple of decades, let's say, based on whether or not the initiative passes there will or will not be a pot of money coming in for things like roads and other infrastructures. So let's say you were in charge of allocating that money. How would you say it should be spent?
BAHR: I would invest those dollars in maintenance of existing roads and, and put the bulk of it into transit for a long time. We put almost nothing into transit and then, you know, over the last 20 years have done better, but we're still way behind where we should be. And we don't really have a well integrated system like, like we should have. And, yeah, we don't need to drive development farther and farther out into places where there isn't water.
One thing, you know, we haven't mentioned about all this development and transportation is the quality of the air and our air quality is poor. And we are about to be bumped up to serious for ozone and we've known this is coming and yet, where is the action?
RANDOLPH: I think we also need to think about the ability to take our local tax dollars and have them leveraged by the federal government. So many times federal dollars are contingent upon local dollars being invested in infrastructure and so forth. If we are not willing to do that, we are going to lose out on federal dollars that I think all of us want.
BRODIE: Paula. I'm curious what you would do with this pot of money if you were in charge of it.
RANDOLPH: I'm gonna put my personal hat on and I'm gonna tell you, I want public transportation. I want my own city, Scottsdale, to stop resisting mass transit. I think it's really important to have it. I think it makes us connected in a better community.
We're isolated now. We all live in our own little pods. And I think that that's part of the irritation that people have with others who perhaps have a little bit different interests. And if it's easier to get around, I think mass transit lets us do that and open our eyes to how important it is to be connected.
Not only as our tiny city, but as you move outward, mass transit lets you do that. I don't want to see another eight-lane highway. I'm tired of those. They don't do it for us.
BRODIE: Well, so what kind of transit would each of you advocate for? Because the proposal that we'll be voting on excludes the ability to use this money for light rail. So what kind of transit do you think would be best for the value when you talk about having an integrated system? Yes, we can use federal money or other sources of money to expand light rail or do things with light rail, but we got to do something else if we're using this proposition money.
BAHR: Yeah. Well, I wouldn't have written it the way it's written for sure. And you asked me how I do it. But, yeah, I mean, we can invest in buses, things that we can do relative to our roads is make them more pedestrian friendly and accommodate bikes and people walking. I mean, it's really dangerous out there.
I ride my bike every morning and I'm like, OK, if you don't hear from me, you know check. You know, because it really, I mean, I, I'm a very, defensive rider, but it shouldn't be that way that we, we, we should have our roads designed to accommodate that. And I think those are some things that we can do to have a real integrated system so I can ride my bike to the light rail and take it, you know, across the Valley or, you know, or walk.
RANDOLPH: The last mile. It's a very common phrase. It's the phrase from when you get out of your car can get close enough to mass transit to get there. That's where I'd like to see a lot of our money put toward it, it gets us to so that we can use that mass transit, that bus system. We are not a very walkable city. We have a horrible walk score generally and we need to improve that. So it's not car centric constantly.
The other thing I would tell you too is it would be really nice as we move out of the combustion era. I hope that we are thinking about where people can plug in.
BRODIE: I wanna ask both of you when you look ahead to the next couple of decades, I'm wondering if you see now that there are leaders across the Valley in whatever level of government who are thinking differently about growth and development than maybe leaders have in the past couple of decades.
Like, do you get the sense that people are thinking more about infill now and we'll continue to do that or think about maybe mass transit as opposed to more roads and highways going forward. Will there be a change in thinking in the Valley about how we do growth and development going forward, do you think?
BAHR: Yeah, I think so. I think there have been changes. I mean, look at Mesa, they, they got on board early on, they, they weren't but they got on board with transit and, and light rail and became not just supportive but advocates for it. And so I, I think we do see that.
You know, when I first moved here, I lived in Mesa and then in Chandler and one of the reasons that I moved to Phoenix was to have access to transit because I thought it was ridiculous that it took three buses and four hours to get to where I wanted to be in Phoenix. And so I do, you know, I do see some changes in thinking there are more, you know, they have climate plans.
Phoenix has a climate plan, Mesa has a climate plan. You know, the main thing that we need to look at is getting the dollars into implementing those plans and it's the same with transit.
BRODIE: Paula, what do you think? I mean, do you get the sense that leaders at different levels of government are thinking about growth and development differently now than they have in the past.
RANDOLPH: I'm an eternal optimist, Mark. So I am always looking at the hope that there are folks in the younger generations that are interested in policy and effectuating change and making the world and their community a better place. So I certainly see that.
BRODIE: Paula, do you think the fact that the Valley is still relatively new as opposed to, you know, we think about places like Boston and New York and Philadelphia, which have sort of been laid out and set for a couple 100 years now, is there an opportunity in a place like Phoenix in the Valley that you maybe don't have in some of those older legacy type cities?
RANDOLPH: Absolutely. I mean, we're, we're not baked. I think that's part of the cache of Maricopa County and Arizona is, it gives you the ability to think more freely and to try different things. And I'm hopeful that our newly elected and folks that are actually in the legislature now will continue to listen to those voices and young people in college, coming out of college, have some great ideas about how to solve a lot of these issues.
We see all sorts of competitions at ASU and U of A with students really coming up with very creative ideas on how we attempt to create a vibrant place.
