Current print subscribers can create a free account by clicking here
Otherwise, follow the link below to join.
To Our Valued Readers –
Visitors to our website will be limited to five stories per month unless they opt to subscribe. The five stories do not include our exclusive content written by our journalists.
For $6.99, less than 20 cents a day, digital subscribers will receive unlimited access to YourValley.net, including exclusive content from our newsroom and access to our Daily Independent e-edition.
Our commitment to balanced, fair reporting and local coverage provides insight and perspective not found anywhere else.
Your financial commitment will help to preserve the kind of honest journalism produced by our reporters and editors. We trust you agree that independent journalism is an essential component of our democracy. Please click here to subscribe.
Surprise’s fast growth over the last two decades has sometimes been too fast.
That’s been certainly the case with transportation, where one of the Valley’s most northwestern cities hasn’t gotten its fair share of the pie.
City officials are hoping that changes with the possible extension of a transportation sales tax — but county leaders say more is needed than just a tax to serve the entire county’s transportation needs.
“I think it’s good that the government has to make up some tough trade off decisions,” Maricopa Association of Governments Executive Director Eric Anderson said. “It really forces probably the right decisions to be made on what projects need to be funded for the betterment of the citizens.”
Either way, it appear MAG, which has been active in Valley transportation issues since the mid-1980s, is pushing for a vote for an extension of the sales tax in three years.
Transportation Planning Program Manager Audra Thomas joined Mr. Anderson last month to give a powerpoint presentation on the Prop 400 extension to the Surprise City Council.
“Decisions are going to be made over the next seven or eight months, and we wanted everybody to be on the same page,” said Jodi Tas, Surprise’s government relations administrator.
Surprise is playing catchup for a couple of reasons. The city has always been undercounted in funding dispersed on distribution because of population numbers that grow so fast.
And the whole is state is still recovering from the Great Recession a decade ago, which had a major effect on delaying projects.
MAG has been actively involved in transportation since the first Prop. 300 vote in October 1985. That key victory, which was passed by 74% of county voters, helped pave the future way for the Loops 101 and 202.
Voters renewed the tax with Proposition 400 in November 2004. That is set to end Dec. 31, 2025 unless voters decide to extend it again.
While the public transit portion of the tax hasn’t helped Surprise, the city did get a boost with the expansion of Loop 303, connecting I-17 with I-10.
“Much of that money went into the development of completing the 303, which has a lot of development activity on that corridor today,” Mr. Anderson said.
More than half of Prop. 400 money is devoted to highway and freeway improvements. A portion (10%) is even set aside for regional streets, which helped create roads like Northern Parkway that connects with Loop 303.
Prop. 400 included three major modal programs: Freeway Program ($9.043 billion), Transit Program ($5.002 billion) and the Arterial Program ($1.464 billion).
But MAG officials are now warning that the current half-cent sales tax alone will not meet regional needs.
Surprise officials are hoping the federal governement will help step up.
“We have a lot of people moving to Arizona from other states,” District 4 City Councilman Ken Remley said. “We need the federal government to acknowledge we have some needs coming from that growth.”
MAG officials are eying November 2022 for the next extension vote. A backup election two years after is planned just in case.
What the tax rate will be, however, is still up in the air.
“We don’t know,” Ms. Thomas said. “That’s going to be our policymakers’ decision. What are job is to provide technical information that enables our policymakers to feel comfortable with those kind of decisions.”
About $14.4 billion is needed for Maricopa County freeway projects.
In addition to money that’s still needed for I-17 and I-10, about $1.5 billion of work is on the wish list for Loop 303.
Transit planners need the funding for interchanges, construction and right of way work near the points where it intersects I-17 and I-10
The books also have about $1.2 billion wanted for Grand Avenue improvements, which would impact thousands of Surprise commuters who use the road each day.
Former NAU Lumberjack who loves going to concerts (or I did), watching sports (or I did) and hanging out with friends (oh, never mind). I also enjoy backgammon, surfing and men who are not afraid to cry.
By 
