Local opinion: RTA requirements sacrifice safety for speed

The following is the opinion and analysis of the writer:

I experience Tucson’s transportation system every day: on a bicycle, as a pedestrian, and on transit. I am an architectural photographer who does not own a car. I bike and use transit across the city and region regularly, documenting everything from affordable housing projects to community centers, libraries, and single-family homes. I also serve on the board of Living Streets Alliance and on the City of Tucson’s Housing Commission. These roles give me both lived and professional perspectives on how our transportation investments actually show up on the ground.

Sometimes I ride my bike on the 3rd Street Bicycle Boulevard next to students, families, and others enjoying the neighborhoods. Other times I must figure out how to safely reach an affordable housing project like at Grant and Oracle, choosing between walking my bike across hundreds of feet of dangerous intersections or riding in an unsafe “bicycle lane,” little more than paint next to speeding traffic.

When Tucson asks residents what they want from street projects, the answer is consistent: safety. On the 1st Avenue project, safety ranked as the community’s top priority across surveys and outreach. People asked for safer crossings, better protection for pedestrians and cyclists, and streets that work for children, seniors, and people with disabilities. Yet 1st Avenue shows a gap between the city’s priorities and the demands imposed by the Regional Transportation Authority (RTA). While Tucson has adopted Complete Streets policies to prioritize vulnerable users, RTA standards still require vehicle level of service (how fast cars move) takes precedence over safety outcomes. Tucson is approaching 100 roadway deaths per year, including drivers, pedestrians, and cyclists, even as average commute times remain lower than those of most peer cities. We do not have a crisis of congestion. We have a crisis of safety.

The history of 1st Avenue shows this tension. Early plans, based on decades-old forecasts, assumed large vehicle increases that never appeared. Tucson, like many cities, was told traffic growth would require wider roads, more lanes, and larger intersections. Those projections consistently overshot reality. Even so, it took years of negotiation just to reduce lane counts and narrow widths, despite evidence this would save money and improve safety.

This pattern is not new. On Broadway Boulevard, litigation and public pressure were needed to reduce a road-widening project that was unnecessary, even though a slimmer design met traffic needs at a lower cost. That history shows how difficult it has been for Tucson to align street design with community values, even when data supports it.

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Today, we are told to plan for traffic growth that may never come. PAG and RTA project roughly an 8 percent increase in vehicles on 1st Avenue over 20 years. These forecasts persist even as travel behavior changes, remote work grows, younger generations drive less, and we see decades of declines in traffic on 1st Avenue. Meanwhile, the safety crisis is here. Most serious crashes occur at intersections, and pedestrians are disproportionately injured while crossing legally in crosswalks.

On 1st Avenue, even after lane reductions, intersections are so wide that pedestrians must cross distances longer than some I-10 segments. Slip lanes allow cars to turn at speed, often without stopping or yielding. I regularly wait as cars drive past crosswalks, wondering when we will stop prioritizing seconds shaved off a commute over people’s lives.

Complete Streets is supposed to prioritize vulnerable users. Yet RTA requirements force compromise. We may be allowed to reduce lanes, but not meaningfully shorten crossings. Bike lanes can be added, but often just a stripe of paint along a high-speed corridor. When RTA-required level of service governs design, safety is sidelined.

As voters consider RTA Next, we are promised better accountability and processes. But on the ground, safety is still negotiable, and local policy is overridden by regional standards that lag behind our values.

If safety is truly our number one priority, transportation investments must reflect that. We must not just talk about safety in words, but implement it in asphalt, concrete, and paint. Tucson should not have to fight the RTA structure to build streets that protect the people who use them.