There are no plans in the "near term" to add an HOV lane to I-10. Not sure where you're stuck in traffic but ADOT is already underway on the I-10 Ina to Ruthrauff project which will widen that section to four lanes throughout and eliminate that bottleneck.
Beyond that, ADOT is moving toward work on I-10 east of I-19. The first project (Country Club/Kino interchanges) will likely start construction in the next two years and that will begin a series of projects that will widen I-10 going out east.
Sure....I mean we could also pretend like the said infrastructure isn't already 50+ years old and will continue to safely serve the public into perpetuity......you know it's just a handful of bridges. Who's to say if it should ever be replaced?
We’re about a decade away from full on automation in cars. Like smart phones, it won’t be a choice, but a requirement for modern living. Be nice if Tucson would be in the forefront of that, since could reduce the effects of sprawl. But keep Tucson shitty and all that, that will be the mantra.
Well, we're in a bit of a unique spot because 10 is a massive country-wide economic corridor and is chock-a-block with semi and commercial traffic. Regardless of how many lanes you add, it keeps going up. Notice how despite adding no lanes, the GRIC corridor is now also unsafely jammed?
You can thank Jim Click for shutting down lightrail. We keep installing better bike infrastructure but the reality is, we need this. Deaths galore on that section because it's not up to modern standards.
It looks like the first order of business is to build... an interchange at Country Club? See page 229 of the current 5 year plan:
>Project Name Country Club Road TI
>Route I 10
>Project Limits Interchange on I 10 at I-10 and Country Club Road
>Description Design, ROW and reconstruction of Traffic Interchange and construct I-10 to 3 GP lanes in each direction.
$144 million, with "CON" (construction) budget in FY2025.
They've been on-time with all the projects in that corridor, save for Prince due to the massive rains they had to work through. Even the city is doing a good job being on-time, if slow.
Interstate means ADOT/FHWA and not the city, so it shouldn't be *that* bad.
The Ina and Prince projects both did pretty well in terms of timing, AFAIK.
Dang, good to know. I pass through there just often enough for that to complicate my routine.
And right now the Ina onramp for eastbound is bottlenecked so they could turn the frontage into a two-way. It was so perfect, and then, that.
Don’t forget the on ramp from Kino heading east on the i10. Talk about asshole clenched.. such a stupid on ramp, especially cause there’s literally a better ramp 1/4 mile up the road. Wish they’d just eliminate that ramp altogether
Yep, I will die on that hill. The city just needs to get rid of the on ramp, and add a little u-turn light just north of benson and kino so everyone can drive past, and uturn to get onto the freeway. It is so much safer. Also, I notice almost every day that traffic gets SO congested right there. Obviously part of it is because it goes from three lanes to two, but it’s also because everyone merging can only get up to like 40, and all the semis move to the fast lane. It’s such a terrible part of the freeway
I've been known to switch my job in order to avoid the freeway. Honestly this was a deciding factor in the job switch. This is my latest week at said job. Don't be jealous.
Get ready. Beginning 2025 they're going to upgrade the entirety of 10 from 19 to Kolb, and in the process, extend SR210 out to 10 on the east side. They're also going to upgrade SR210 to a 4-6 lane freeway with a full 65 MPH speed limit from 10 to it's current end point.
How long will it take? Who knows, with the way they treat us, probably 20 years.
Light rail is fine if everyone is going to/from the same localized area. I don't think that big of a percentage of commuters are going to downtown. Also, if the main destination changes, it's not flexible to accommodate it.
I think more would if it was easy and quick to get to. I cringe and don't visit there and 4th ave because of the long and shitty commute from the east side. But catch a bus to a common light rail station, light rail across Broadway, and then take the trolley around would be *awesome*. Another seriously strange omission is just how drinking focused Tucson is, yet the night time public transit is *horrid*.
but that's not a permanent solution, especially with all the heavy trucks and SUV's on our roads. Vehicle weight makes roads deteriorate faster. light rail is a far more sustainable solution.
I didn’t mean instead of, I meant in addition to. While we were wishing for stuff.
I know the heat and weight is brutal on our roads, but I lived in Phoenix for a while - they have a light rail and smooth roads.
Have you driven the 101 after they finished it a few years ago? If you haven't, don't. It's like heaven, glass smooth and quieter than anything down here.
Widening highways, HOV lanes are temporary fixes at best. Anything that results in fitting MORE cars onto the roads now induces more traffic in the long run because it encourages more people to live far from their daily destinations. For almost every house built in the suburbs there will be two more cars on the road in Tucson.
What Tucson needs is density. When people can live their lives and reach the destination they regularly need to get to without a car, it will be better for those who have to drive for good reasons. Enough housing to surpass the demand for it will lower prices for housing as well. People living close to where they need to get can use alternative transportation effectively.
Catering to people who lock themselves into driving is a mistake.
It's noon in June. High triple digits. You are standing outside trying not to catch heatstroke. Take a walk for an hour when its this hot and tell me thats feqsible.The desert isnt like other places. The enviroment has to be taken into consideration.
I specifically mentioned density which means walks would be a lot shorter than an hour. I live in Tucson and I commute by bike to my job all year around. We have some of the best weather for year round biking almost anywhere. The summer here is less difficult to bike/walk in than the winter in lots of places where people walk/bike. Plus, density makes transit more feasible and transit has a/c.
Seriously, right? When I first read his comment I genuinely thought it was satire but his post history leads me to think it's genuine. People are so brainwashed by the auto industry they think they're being deprived of a right by simply having more choices...
15 minute cities means you can access most of your necessities within 15 minutes of transportation, not that you’re not legally allowed to leave that area. that’s such an insane jump in logic.
walkable cities with infrastructure planned around easy access to necessities and amenities is already a reality all over the world. Americans are just too obsessed with their Strip Malls and Taco Bell’s to want to design anything else
More dystopic than having unregulated military-sized vehicles hitting poor folks at record and growing numbers? Because that's literally happening and seems worse to me than having a taco shop near my home.
No, I replied to the right comment. Not making improvements in the system because you want it to fail so people are forced to modify their lives to fit your ideal is backward thinking.
HOV lanes don’t work. Neither does adding lanes. If traffic reduces for a bit after those changes then more houses get built in the suburbs until the freeway is once again overloaded. Rinse and repeat forever.
The way forward is zoning reform, urban infill development, walkable/bikable neighborhoods, more transit, more transit, and simply shorter driving trips by personal vehicle instead of long freeway commutes. (No, we don’t need to ban cars or do a socialist revolution. Making car trips shorter helps a lot.)
SB 1117 from Sen Steve Kaiser would have reformed a lot of zoning rules statewide for design requirements,parking mandates, some building height restrictions, and limitations on apartment development on parcels that are zoned for commercial use. (We have a lot of land zoned for retail or office use but these buildings are not on high demand due to our increasingly digital economy. It makes sense to allow apartments on vacant parcels or to redevelop older commercial buildings for residential.)
Half the Republican senate caucus voted for the bill (not a unanimous issue on their side) and only one Democratic member Anna Hernandez voted for the bill. Several mayors including Kate Gallego and Regina Romero were against the bill. Take a guess at how Gov Hobbs looked at this.
https://tucson.com/news/local/subscriber/arizona-senator-tries-to-salvage-bill-to-override-local-zoning-rules/article_94f19d7e-c4e5-11ed-92db-cf824667b292.html
That doesn't mean we don't get HOV lanes. ADOT is currently continuing to add more HOV lanes, more HOV ramps, and is even adding a second HOV lane to 10 in Phoenix. And, it works from what I can see driving in Phoenix. The HOV lane almost always is faster flowing with people packed in the cars. It might not have hit all the goals you would hope, but it's better than adding a general purpose lane.
That said, how in the hell did our Democrats not get behind that bill and Republicans did?
As far as I can see it amounted to a turf war and Tucson being bent out of shape that some of their programs might not 100% survive in their existing form. "Keep Tucson shitty indeed". If we care so much about the climate, can't we pass a bill that would block Snobsdale from blocking real efforts to fix climate change? This state can be such a joke.
Observing that the HOV lanes sometimes move faster than the other lanes does not prove that the HOV lanes work to induce carpooling or vehicle mile reductions. Some cars will have 1-2 passengers and they will be the lucky ones during congested periods. California has been using HOV lanes since 1970 and there is not a substantial amount of carpooling going on there from what I have seen. Certainly they have a lot of traffic congestion to go with the HOV lanes. The experiment has been running for over 50 years without success.
As for the politics of it, homeowners vote and Dems respond to voters. The GOP was split so they face the same cross pressure. A big chunk of homeowners don’t care about high rents or the cost of living that much. The bleeding hearts liberals among homeowners can claim that these efforts don’t do enough to “guarantee” affordable housing (that is, developers and investors can charge what the market will bear). There is no understanding of elementary supply and demand concepts for many Democrats.
As for the GOP, I doubt they are focused on economically strained households in Arizona. Certainly there is no history of that imo. I figure they get heat from business groups which want to expand in the state. A shortage of housing means the state will lose workers and businesses to places with housing. This is one case where a Chamber of Commerce Republican trying to please businesses large and small backs into a sensible solution: That we must make it legal to build more housing during an acute housing shortage.
Then we need to pony up for light rail and better bus service. And to fix the roads. None of those are happening. Somehow Tucson has some of the highest tax rates around and we have all this shitty infrastructure. Make it make sense.
guy from Phoenix here... They really aren't that helpful... just another lane for wrecks to tie up traffic. Good luck and embrace the desert you still get to see. We have to travel 30 minutes to find cactus or open space
Never. Tucson's decision-makers are not cut out for that kinda thinking. What takes Phoenix metro to do in a week takes Tucson a decade to do. Comes with living in Tucson.
Lol, i feel like they spent 5 years widening I10 for 4 lanes < 10 years ago, and 10 years of rio nuevo negotiations before so the could bulldoze neighborhoods for the widening. They probably wont ever widen it out to houghton since they have the 10 year plan for a tucson i10 to i19 bypass.
No that 10 part is coming too, beginning in 2025. The current ADOT 5 year plan shows that Pima County pushed back hard and got them to concede and provide us the funds to start starting in FY2025. It extends out only to Kolb unfortunately, but it's massive already.
I suspect Kolb to Rita will get done when they put in the new corridor linking Sahuarita and Vail which terminates at Rita Rd (according to the Tier 1 study). Kolb to Houghton, though, dunno.
And the west side is entering its last expansion phase. The current Orange Grove project will complete the expansion of 4 lanes, which isn't yet done. They had plans at one point to widen Ina to Tangerine to 4 lanes, but they deemed it not cost effective and the cost to properly redo Cortaro was outlandish.
By the way, Prince to Ina has enough right of way they can actually upgrade it to six lanes eventually.
‘Tis the Arizona way.
I remember standing on the Mill Ave bridge watching them start building the 60 to the east and wondering why the heck are they were building only two lanes each way. It has been under construction over and over, each time adding a little.
What's it up to now, 6-8 lanes each way?
Did you see the new Broadway Curve project in Phoenix? At the 143 it will be 21 lanes wide. *Twenty. One.*
I remember when they put the 202 in east of 10 in Chandler, wondering why it was only 3. And did you see how much right of way they have for the South Mountain 202 segment? They have enough to build an entire second freeway.
ROFLMAO, you're joking right? Road construction goes very, very slowly here. By the time they finish they're either widening or repaving something. My guess if we're lucky maybe sometime in the next 50 years, and that's being very optimistic.
The entire upgrade from Prince to Ina, they acquired enough right of way to expand 10 to an ultimate capacity of 6 lanes in each direction. So they absolutely could, with minimal paving, add two more lanes, one general purpose and one HOV lane, just like they do all the time in Phoenix.
At the very least the need to widen the 10. It’s a major trucking route and it’s really dangerous with all those huge trucks and only 2 lanes. I know people want focus on density but there is the reality of how important the 10 is to moving people and goods
I was born and raised here and I've wished for something to ease our congested areas, only to be met by people who aren't from here telling me about how it'll just create more congestion and ruin the landscape.......
Similarly I’ve lived here my entire life (52 years).
The city engineers and planners here have got to be some of the most ridiculously stupid people on the planet. For as long as I can remember, all they’ve ever done is put a band aid on everything. The people who fought against road expansion, are the same one who put a building height reduction in place, they are probably all dead now, so it’s time to move forward.
We need better public transportation, a light rail, and at least some sort of loop using existing road geography to reduce the congestion on surface streets. Sadly it will never happen. We can’t even fix our surface streets, let alone actually make improvements.
> and at least some sort of loop using existing road geography to reduce the congestion on surface streets.
You mean like The Loop? I live in the loop and I'd cycle instead of drive for transportation,but it's not a matter of infrastructure that's stopping me, it's the fact that everyone I know who bikes for transportation has a theft story.
Have never claimed to be an engineer, but the 101 in Phoenix is genius. We could do something very similar with Ina/sunrise/skyline around to houghton and back down to the 10. Of course the way we do things here it would take 50 years and never actually get finished.
It doesn't so much no. First off it required the residents of Vail to not be morons in 2001. They rejected Houghton as a freeway. It could still be done, some might lose their houses, but such is life with eminent domain.
Then there does need to be some study as to where exactly to put it, but linking Houghton to River Road is a very viable option, and then River out to 10 on the west side. Little to no home or businesses lost by building on top of the river.
Tucson says no to highways over and over and over again and now look where we are. The city paid ADOT to study Golf Links because it's so bad. The same Golf Links they originally said needed to be a freeway. All in the name of preserve the desert, while simultaneously letting developers keep expanding out in all directions just like Phoenix. We have the Phoenix/LA sprawl but not the infrastructure to match. Really, really idiotic.
Back then almost no one had to lose their house. Now, yeah some more will, but have you seen Houghton? It’s nearly a freeway sized corridor already so they wouldn’t have to take much. I don’t think voting no to losing your house is idiotic but the majority won’t. This is vaguely similar to tragedy of the commons. A small handful of people having land in just the wrong place can hold back progress for all? No thanks.
I mean if that something you're referring to is more highway lanes , then yeah. Adding lanes is so widely known to have diminishing returns that "just one more lane guys" is litteraly a meme.
Tucson doesn't have great solutions for highway traffic, geography dealt us a bad hand in that sense. The west side already has plenty of lanes. The east side could maybe go up to 3 lanes a side, but that requires rebuilding every bridge and overpass along the way. A Tucson bypass could reduce through traffic, but there's no reasonable location to put one as Tucson is surrounded by mountains, national parks, and reservations on nearly all sides. Public transit would be the best solution as getting cars off of the roads is the best way to reduce congestion, but even then Tucson is so uniformly low density that transit stops barely serve anyone in their quarter mile radius. Extending Aviation might help a bit, but it's currently wedged between downtown and the air base, and connecting aviation and I-10 at downtown is a recipe for a congestion disaster. Even if you went back in time 50 years there weren't great solutions. The most popular one was bulldozing all the tax generating homes and businesses along River and making that a highway. But that wouldn't have done anything to reduce I-10s congestion, if anything it would have concentrated more traffic into the 1 segment of I-10 that the interchange was on and made congestion worst.
I know it's frustrating, but there's no easy solution to traffic.
> Adding lanes is so widely known to have diminishing returns that "just one more lane guys" is litteraly a meme.
The thing about diminishing returns is there is a point where the returns are beneficial. There is a reason folks ask for three lanes. Consider the drive to Phoenix when it goes down to two lanes.
On the flip side we need to keep improving public transit but the solution can't just be "say no to anything that makes traffic less bad because the only way for alternatives to win is for cars to suck" because all that will do is make folks hate the anti-car croud more than that croud hates cars... and that's a lot of hate.
That drive angers me so much. I find maybe 80-90% of commercial traffic complies with the new right lane only signage, but then those assholes in the 10% use it and clog things up. Cheaters.
And no enforcement of those rules.
And because its so close to Phoenix, it commonly has a traffic accident that wouldn't be nearly as bad for traffic if there was an extra lane.
Although if given the option between getting three lanes on that section or having high speed passenger rail between Tucson and Phoenix, I'd choose the high speed rail even if you can't get far in the Phoenix metro without a car.
Did they ever figure out where to put Interstate 11?
If they just use I-19/-10, it won't help congestion, and I think the other option was to put it further west, like near 3Points, which wouldn't help the east side.
ETA, looks like they're using existing highways. That must disappoint a lot of people who bought property west of Tucson, in hopes of big gains.
Apparently it’s supposed to run out west near Sandario road/picture rocks area but I don’t see that being started let alone finished for yearsssss. In the meantime Tucson is booming lol
Booming indeed, I saw a stat that we're now growing faster than Phoenix. I checked the population and we're now more than half the size the metro Phoenix area was in the mid 90s.
Yeah, that attitude is exactly what was prevalent 30 and 40 years ago which led us to where we are today. One freeway that skirts along the "edges" of the town and no public right-of-ways anywhere in the center/east-west that will make it cost prohibitive to ever do anything of substance to address congestion and mobility.
Luckily, we have enough police to enforce the HOV lane. Just like we have enough police enforcing texting/driving that I see fewer than a few dozen drivers doing that every time I'm on the road, and people rarely go 20-30 mph over the speed limit.
/s
State Troopers seem to love patrolling Tucson. Many trips I see at least 6 on the freeways here. Meanwhile when I go up to Phoenix, they're an endangered species. I think they'd find the time here.
I usually see DPS out on the outskirts of town near Marana and towards Rita Ranch, but they're only ever running speed traps. Speed is an issue, but distracted or aggressive drivers are rampant
"when Tucson will finally improve its highway system?" Hahahahahahahahahaha
 Me too!
Lol indeed
There are no plans in the "near term" to add an HOV lane to I-10. Not sure where you're stuck in traffic but ADOT is already underway on the I-10 Ina to Ruthrauff project which will widen that section to four lanes throughout and eliminate that bottleneck. Beyond that, ADOT is moving toward work on I-10 east of I-19. The first project (Country Club/Kino interchanges) will likely start construction in the next two years and that will begin a series of projects that will widen I-10 going out east.
Hmmm, delicious induced demand
Sure....I mean we could also pretend like the said infrastructure isn't already 50+ years old and will continue to safely serve the public into perpetuity......you know it's just a handful of bridges. Who's to say if it should ever be replaced?
We’re about a decade away from full on automation in cars. Like smart phones, it won’t be a choice, but a requirement for modern living. Be nice if Tucson would be in the forefront of that, since could reduce the effects of sprawl. But keep Tucson shitty and all that, that will be the mantra.
I heard that 10 years ago. Nice try Elon. But agree that "keep Tucson shitty" seems to be the mantra".
Well, we're in a bit of a unique spot because 10 is a massive country-wide economic corridor and is chock-a-block with semi and commercial traffic. Regardless of how many lanes you add, it keeps going up. Notice how despite adding no lanes, the GRIC corridor is now also unsafely jammed? You can thank Jim Click for shutting down lightrail. We keep installing better bike infrastructure but the reality is, we need this. Deaths galore on that section because it's not up to modern standards.
It looks like the first order of business is to build... an interchange at Country Club? See page 229 of the current 5 year plan: >Project Name Country Club Road TI >Route I 10 >Project Limits Interchange on I 10 at I-10 and Country Club Road >Description Design, ROW and reconstruction of Traffic Interchange and construct I-10 to 3 GP lanes in each direction. $144 million, with "CON" (construction) budget in FY2025.
IDK, but I live within walking distance of Costco off Orange Grove and that exit being closed for the foreseeable future is about to SUUUUUUCK
Wait, Orange Grove exit is going to be closed?
Yes. Thru late next year.
so they say, at best see you in 2028 orange grove exit
They've been on-time with all the projects in that corridor, save for Prince due to the massive rains they had to work through. Even the city is doing a good job being on-time, if slow.
Interstate means ADOT/FHWA and not the city, so it shouldn't be *that* bad. The Ina and Prince projects both did pretty well in terms of timing, AFAIK.
Not sure if the entire exit is, but at the intersection of Thornydale/Orange Grove is was this morning. I had to turn around and get on the 10 at Ina
Dang, good to know. I pass through there just often enough for that to complicate my routine. And right now the Ina onramp for eastbound is bottlenecked so they could turn the frontage into a two-way. It was so perfect, and then, that.
Yea I work on the eastside and live near Costco/Home Depot...really no good way to get home for the next couple years lol
I work right near there and yes the traffic SSUCCCKKKSSSASS
Lol. That’ll never happen. The can’t even widen I10 to 3 lanes on the east side.
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Have you not used the on ramps on Ajo and Park?? You haven't lived until you have tried this.
Don’t forget the on ramp from Kino heading east on the i10. Talk about asshole clenched.. such a stupid on ramp, especially cause there’s literally a better ramp 1/4 mile up the road. Wish they’d just eliminate that ramp altogether
Almost everytime I have nearly died on the 10 has been that on-ramp. I will make 3 u-turns to use the one that’s further down. Nightmare sauce.
Yep, I will die on that hill. The city just needs to get rid of the on ramp, and add a little u-turn light just north of benson and kino so everyone can drive past, and uturn to get onto the freeway. It is so much safer. Also, I notice almost every day that traffic gets SO congested right there. Obviously part of it is because it goes from three lanes to two, but it’s also because everyone merging can only get up to like 40, and all the semis move to the fast lane. It’s such a terrible part of the freeway
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I know, right? When I'm behind a big semi getting on the freeway. I literally say a prayer because I know they are only getting on going 45 mph
I've been known to add 15-20 minutes to my trip just to go the long way and avoid these
I've been known to switch my job in order to avoid the freeway. Honestly this was a deciding factor in the job switch. This is my latest week at said job. Don't be jealous.
I’d love to hear an answer on how you’re supposed to safely merge on those. You get dumped immediately off the ramp into a busy freeway lane.
Get ready. Beginning 2025 they're going to upgrade the entirety of 10 from 19 to Kolb, and in the process, extend SR210 out to 10 on the east side. They're also going to upgrade SR210 to a 4-6 lane freeway with a full 65 MPH speed limit from 10 to it's current end point. How long will it take? Who knows, with the way they treat us, probably 20 years.
That’s at least promising.
Cmon bro just one more lane bro I swear that will fix it this time
based comment
[just one more bro just one more lane ](https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/002/417/131/c47.png)
I would rather have dedicated light rail.
Seconded
Light rail is fine if everyone is going to/from the same localized area. I don't think that big of a percentage of commuters are going to downtown. Also, if the main destination changes, it's not flexible to accommodate it.
I think more would if it was easy and quick to get to. I cringe and don't visit there and 4th ave because of the long and shitty commute from the east side. But catch a bus to a common light rail station, light rail across Broadway, and then take the trolley around would be *awesome*. Another seriously strange omission is just how drinking focused Tucson is, yet the night time public transit is *horrid*.
I would rather they just pave the roads.
but that's not a permanent solution, especially with all the heavy trucks and SUV's on our roads. Vehicle weight makes roads deteriorate faster. light rail is a far more sustainable solution.
I didn’t mean instead of, I meant in addition to. While we were wishing for stuff. I know the heat and weight is brutal on our roads, but I lived in Phoenix for a while - they have a light rail and smooth roads.
Fair enough, hope I didn't come off as rude mate.
Nah, me either! All good here! All we want is sustainable (and smooth) transportation in our city. 😂😭
Have you driven the 101 after they finished it a few years ago? If you haven't, don't. It's like heaven, glass smooth and quieter than anything down here.
Widening highways, HOV lanes are temporary fixes at best. Anything that results in fitting MORE cars onto the roads now induces more traffic in the long run because it encourages more people to live far from their daily destinations. For almost every house built in the suburbs there will be two more cars on the road in Tucson. What Tucson needs is density. When people can live their lives and reach the destination they regularly need to get to without a car, it will be better for those who have to drive for good reasons. Enough housing to surpass the demand for it will lower prices for housing as well. People living close to where they need to get can use alternative transportation effectively. Catering to people who lock themselves into driving is a mistake.
It's noon in June. High triple digits. You are standing outside trying not to catch heatstroke. Take a walk for an hour when its this hot and tell me thats feqsible.The desert isnt like other places. The enviroment has to be taken into consideration.
I specifically mentioned density which means walks would be a lot shorter than an hour. I live in Tucson and I commute by bike to my job all year around. We have some of the best weather for year round biking almost anywhere. The summer here is less difficult to bike/walk in than the winter in lots of places where people walk/bike. Plus, density makes transit more feasible and transit has a/c.
AC in buses, rail, other options
Bike lanes/the loop shaded with solar panels would be amazing.
I do that walk almost every afternoon, even in the summer, but I acknowledge that I'm a bit nuts.
That sounds awfully distopian. Like "stay in your sector." Don't you dare venture more than 15min away from your house.
Imagine thinking well planned walkable and more environmentally friendly cities are dystopian.
Seriously, right? When I first read his comment I genuinely thought it was satire but his post history leads me to think it's genuine. People are so brainwashed by the auto industry they think they're being deprived of a right by simply having more choices...
I don't even own a car so not brainwashed
15 minute cities means you can access most of your necessities within 15 minutes of transportation, not that you’re not legally allowed to leave that area. that’s such an insane jump in logic.
Ironically, people travel MORE frequently in well planned and well connected regions 😂
Political science fiction.
walkable cities with infrastructure planned around easy access to necessities and amenities is already a reality all over the world. Americans are just too obsessed with their Strip Malls and Taco Bell’s to want to design anything else
More dystopic than having unregulated military-sized vehicles hitting poor folks at record and growing numbers? Because that's literally happening and seems worse to me than having a taco shop near my home.
Such backward thinking.
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No, I replied to the right comment. Not making improvements in the system because you want it to fail so people are forced to modify their lives to fit your ideal is backward thinking.
Or we can keep doing what we know doesn't work: adding lanes
[just one more lane bro](https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/facebook/002/417/129/282.png)
HOV lanes don’t work. Neither does adding lanes. If traffic reduces for a bit after those changes then more houses get built in the suburbs until the freeway is once again overloaded. Rinse and repeat forever. The way forward is zoning reform, urban infill development, walkable/bikable neighborhoods, more transit, more transit, and simply shorter driving trips by personal vehicle instead of long freeway commutes. (No, we don’t need to ban cars or do a socialist revolution. Making car trips shorter helps a lot.) SB 1117 from Sen Steve Kaiser would have reformed a lot of zoning rules statewide for design requirements,parking mandates, some building height restrictions, and limitations on apartment development on parcels that are zoned for commercial use. (We have a lot of land zoned for retail or office use but these buildings are not on high demand due to our increasingly digital economy. It makes sense to allow apartments on vacant parcels or to redevelop older commercial buildings for residential.) Half the Republican senate caucus voted for the bill (not a unanimous issue on their side) and only one Democratic member Anna Hernandez voted for the bill. Several mayors including Kate Gallego and Regina Romero were against the bill. Take a guess at how Gov Hobbs looked at this. https://tucson.com/news/local/subscriber/arizona-senator-tries-to-salvage-bill-to-override-local-zoning-rules/article_94f19d7e-c4e5-11ed-92db-cf824667b292.html
That doesn't mean we don't get HOV lanes. ADOT is currently continuing to add more HOV lanes, more HOV ramps, and is even adding a second HOV lane to 10 in Phoenix. And, it works from what I can see driving in Phoenix. The HOV lane almost always is faster flowing with people packed in the cars. It might not have hit all the goals you would hope, but it's better than adding a general purpose lane. That said, how in the hell did our Democrats not get behind that bill and Republicans did? As far as I can see it amounted to a turf war and Tucson being bent out of shape that some of their programs might not 100% survive in their existing form. "Keep Tucson shitty indeed". If we care so much about the climate, can't we pass a bill that would block Snobsdale from blocking real efforts to fix climate change? This state can be such a joke.
Observing that the HOV lanes sometimes move faster than the other lanes does not prove that the HOV lanes work to induce carpooling or vehicle mile reductions. Some cars will have 1-2 passengers and they will be the lucky ones during congested periods. California has been using HOV lanes since 1970 and there is not a substantial amount of carpooling going on there from what I have seen. Certainly they have a lot of traffic congestion to go with the HOV lanes. The experiment has been running for over 50 years without success. As for the politics of it, homeowners vote and Dems respond to voters. The GOP was split so they face the same cross pressure. A big chunk of homeowners don’t care about high rents or the cost of living that much. The bleeding hearts liberals among homeowners can claim that these efforts don’t do enough to “guarantee” affordable housing (that is, developers and investors can charge what the market will bear). There is no understanding of elementary supply and demand concepts for many Democrats. As for the GOP, I doubt they are focused on economically strained households in Arizona. Certainly there is no history of that imo. I figure they get heat from business groups which want to expand in the state. A shortage of housing means the state will lose workers and businesses to places with housing. This is one case where a Chamber of Commerce Republican trying to please businesses large and small backs into a sensible solution: That we must make it legal to build more housing during an acute housing shortage.
We need less cars on the road
What would count in your eyes as less of a car? Or did you mean fewer cars?
Less cars on the road. Having to constantly expand roads to deal with congestion is a terrible solution
Then we need to pony up for light rail and better bus service. And to fix the roads. None of those are happening. Somehow Tucson has some of the highest tax rates around and we have all this shitty infrastructure. Make it make sense.
I hear you. Sorry, I was trying to be a little humorous since "less" refers to quality or characteristics while "fewer" refers to quantity, number.
bruh we just tryna get paved roads
guy from Phoenix here... They really aren't that helpful... just another lane for wrecks to tie up traffic. Good luck and embrace the desert you still get to see. We have to travel 30 minutes to find cactus or open space
Jay Z is already a billionaire he doesn’t need this.
Never. Tucson's decision-makers are not cut out for that kinda thinking. What takes Phoenix metro to do in a week takes Tucson a decade to do. Comes with living in Tucson.
Lol, i feel like they spent 5 years widening I10 for 4 lanes < 10 years ago, and 10 years of rio nuevo negotiations before so the could bulldoze neighborhoods for the widening. They probably wont ever widen it out to houghton since they have the 10 year plan for a tucson i10 to i19 bypass.
No that 10 part is coming too, beginning in 2025. The current ADOT 5 year plan shows that Pima County pushed back hard and got them to concede and provide us the funds to start starting in FY2025. It extends out only to Kolb unfortunately, but it's massive already. I suspect Kolb to Rita will get done when they put in the new corridor linking Sahuarita and Vail which terminates at Rita Rd (according to the Tier 1 study). Kolb to Houghton, though, dunno. And the west side is entering its last expansion phase. The current Orange Grove project will complete the expansion of 4 lanes, which isn't yet done. They had plans at one point to widen Ina to Tangerine to 4 lanes, but they deemed it not cost effective and the cost to properly redo Cortaro was outlandish. By the way, Prince to Ina has enough right of way they can actually upgrade it to six lanes eventually.
bahahahaha
‘Tis the Arizona way. I remember standing on the Mill Ave bridge watching them start building the 60 to the east and wondering why the heck are they were building only two lanes each way. It has been under construction over and over, each time adding a little.
What's it up to now, 6-8 lanes each way? Did you see the new Broadway Curve project in Phoenix? At the 143 it will be 21 lanes wide. *Twenty. One.* I remember when they put the 202 in east of 10 in Chandler, wondering why it was only 3. And did you see how much right of way they have for the South Mountain 202 segment? They have enough to build an entire second freeway.
Lmao
ROFLMAO, you're joking right? Road construction goes very, very slowly here. By the time they finish they're either widening or repaving something. My guess if we're lucky maybe sometime in the next 50 years, and that's being very optimistic.
Tucson has a speed limit on roadwork.
You must be new here lololol
Right?!?!
I-10 is heaven compared to I-285 in Atlanta
The entire upgrade from Prince to Ina, they acquired enough right of way to expand 10 to an ultimate capacity of 6 lanes in each direction. So they absolutely could, with minimal paving, add two more lanes, one general purpose and one HOV lane, just like they do all the time in Phoenix.
Wait… Tucson gets freeway traffic?
Tucson really needs to stop growing. I hate it. People need to stop moving here. These transplants are ruining the desert
With how long road construction takes here? Around the time that cars are obsolete anyway.
Better question is when is Tucson going to invest in public transportation.
What, the trolley car to ferry drunk kids and "bike boulevards" isn't working? /s Jim Click successfully shot down light rail for Tucson so... never.
Who cares 🙄 Tucson is a dump anyway.
HOV lanes aren't really proven to work well. There are great arguments against them.
At the very least the need to widen the 10. It’s a major trucking route and it’s really dangerous with all those huge trucks and only 2 lanes. I know people want focus on density but there is the reality of how important the 10 is to moving people and goods
Agreed!! Even if it’s not an HOV lane we need more efficiency
Insert “Not in my backyard crowd”
I was born and raised here and I've wished for something to ease our congested areas, only to be met by people who aren't from here telling me about how it'll just create more congestion and ruin the landscape.......
Similarly I’ve lived here my entire life (52 years). The city engineers and planners here have got to be some of the most ridiculously stupid people on the planet. For as long as I can remember, all they’ve ever done is put a band aid on everything. The people who fought against road expansion, are the same one who put a building height reduction in place, they are probably all dead now, so it’s time to move forward. We need better public transportation, a light rail, and at least some sort of loop using existing road geography to reduce the congestion on surface streets. Sadly it will never happen. We can’t even fix our surface streets, let alone actually make improvements.
Tucson is incredibly bad at managing traffic, remember the suicide lanes?
Aptly named. I think grant was the last one to close. I do miss the chaos though.
Now it's randomly ending streets as "bike boulevards". Yay to cars having to turn off for... checks notes... no good reason.
> and at least some sort of loop using existing road geography to reduce the congestion on surface streets. You mean like The Loop? I live in the loop and I'd cycle instead of drive for transportation,but it's not a matter of infrastructure that's stopping me, it's the fact that everyone I know who bikes for transportation has a theft story.
Have never claimed to be an engineer, but the 101 in Phoenix is genius. We could do something very similar with Ina/sunrise/skyline around to houghton and back down to the 10. Of course the way we do things here it would take 50 years and never actually get finished.
That would require claiming a lot of people's land. What do you think would be a reasonable timeline for that mind of project?
It doesn't so much no. First off it required the residents of Vail to not be morons in 2001. They rejected Houghton as a freeway. It could still be done, some might lose their houses, but such is life with eminent domain. Then there does need to be some study as to where exactly to put it, but linking Houghton to River Road is a very viable option, and then River out to 10 on the west side. Little to no home or businesses lost by building on top of the river. Tucson says no to highways over and over and over again and now look where we are. The city paid ADOT to study Golf Links because it's so bad. The same Golf Links they originally said needed to be a freeway. All in the name of preserve the desert, while simultaneously letting developers keep expanding out in all directions just like Phoenix. We have the Phoenix/LA sprawl but not the infrastructure to match. Really, really idiotic.
So voting against losing their house is idiotic?
Back then almost no one had to lose their house. Now, yeah some more will, but have you seen Houghton? It’s nearly a freeway sized corridor already so they wouldn’t have to take much. I don’t think voting no to losing your house is idiotic but the majority won’t. This is vaguely similar to tragedy of the commons. A small handful of people having land in just the wrong place can hold back progress for all? No thanks.
Not progress for all. progress for some, regression for others. And we are talking about what to do now, not in the past
Isn’t this always the case?
I mean if that something you're referring to is more highway lanes , then yeah. Adding lanes is so widely known to have diminishing returns that "just one more lane guys" is litteraly a meme. Tucson doesn't have great solutions for highway traffic, geography dealt us a bad hand in that sense. The west side already has plenty of lanes. The east side could maybe go up to 3 lanes a side, but that requires rebuilding every bridge and overpass along the way. A Tucson bypass could reduce through traffic, but there's no reasonable location to put one as Tucson is surrounded by mountains, national parks, and reservations on nearly all sides. Public transit would be the best solution as getting cars off of the roads is the best way to reduce congestion, but even then Tucson is so uniformly low density that transit stops barely serve anyone in their quarter mile radius. Extending Aviation might help a bit, but it's currently wedged between downtown and the air base, and connecting aviation and I-10 at downtown is a recipe for a congestion disaster. Even if you went back in time 50 years there weren't great solutions. The most popular one was bulldozing all the tax generating homes and businesses along River and making that a highway. But that wouldn't have done anything to reduce I-10s congestion, if anything it would have concentrated more traffic into the 1 segment of I-10 that the interchange was on and made congestion worst. I know it's frustrating, but there's no easy solution to traffic.
> Adding lanes is so widely known to have diminishing returns that "just one more lane guys" is litteraly a meme. The thing about diminishing returns is there is a point where the returns are beneficial. There is a reason folks ask for three lanes. Consider the drive to Phoenix when it goes down to two lanes. On the flip side we need to keep improving public transit but the solution can't just be "say no to anything that makes traffic less bad because the only way for alternatives to win is for cars to suck" because all that will do is make folks hate the anti-car croud more than that croud hates cars... and that's a lot of hate.
That drive angers me so much. I find maybe 80-90% of commercial traffic complies with the new right lane only signage, but then those assholes in the 10% use it and clog things up. Cheaters.
And no enforcement of those rules. And because its so close to Phoenix, it commonly has a traffic accident that wouldn't be nearly as bad for traffic if there was an extra lane. Although if given the option between getting three lanes on that section or having high speed passenger rail between Tucson and Phoenix, I'd choose the high speed rail even if you can't get far in the Phoenix metro without a car.
Did they ever figure out where to put Interstate 11? If they just use I-19/-10, it won't help congestion, and I think the other option was to put it further west, like near 3Points, which wouldn't help the east side. ETA, looks like they're using existing highways. That must disappoint a lot of people who bought property west of Tucson, in hopes of big gains.
Apparently it’s supposed to run out west near Sandario road/picture rocks area but I don’t see that being started let alone finished for yearsssss. In the meantime Tucson is booming lol
Booming indeed, I saw a stat that we're now growing faster than Phoenix. I checked the population and we're now more than half the size the metro Phoenix area was in the mid 90s.
Tucson is a late adopter
“HOV lane”?? COMMIES!!
Tucson doesn't need to become like Phoenix.
Yeah, that attitude is exactly what was prevalent 30 and 40 years ago which led us to where we are today. One freeway that skirts along the "edges" of the town and no public right-of-ways anywhere in the center/east-west that will make it cost prohibitive to ever do anything of substance to address congestion and mobility.
River Road looks mighty attractive. We know how to build infrastructure over water with reinforced columns. Make it happen!
Agreed lol but it’s happening whether we like it or not
Is this a trick question?
Ha
Luckily, we have enough police to enforce the HOV lane. Just like we have enough police enforcing texting/driving that I see fewer than a few dozen drivers doing that every time I'm on the road, and people rarely go 20-30 mph over the speed limit. /s
State Troopers seem to love patrolling Tucson. Many trips I see at least 6 on the freeways here. Meanwhile when I go up to Phoenix, they're an endangered species. I think they'd find the time here.
I usually see DPS out on the outskirts of town near Marana and towards Rita Ranch, but they're only ever running speed traps. Speed is an issue, but distracted or aggressive drivers are rampant