In the depths of the Great Recession, there was talk among some regional transportation planners of the county having passed “peak gas.”
Not peak oil, mind you. Peak gas, as in the most gasoline by volume local drivers would ever buy in a year.
In 2000, a record 410.6 million gallons of gas were purchased in Pima County, and then it was all pretty much downhill from there through 2009, when that figure bottomed out at 356.6 million, a 13 percent drop.
A combination of rising gas prices and the fallout from the economic downturn drove the trend; there were also indications that younger generations were less enamored with driving and more interested in bicycles, public transportation and other alternatives, several local planners told the Road Runner.
There was some good news in the trend, in that it might mean less need for building roadway capacity, said John Liosatos, transportation planning director for the Pima Association of Governments.
“Not only do you have less need for capacity, but then you also have a greater ability to have air-quality gains,” he added of such a scenario.
The not-so-silver lining of that downward trend was its impact on funding for regional road projects.
The Highway User Revenue Fund (HURF) is the most important source of money for those projects and is heavily dependent on the state’s 18-cent gas tax. Additionally, the portion of those funds that individual counties receive is largely determined by gas sales inside county lines.
Data provided by PAG shows statewide HURF revenues peaking at $1.38 billion in 2007 and dropping by roughly $200 million in just three years, meaning that there was less money to work with for improving alternative transportation infrastructure, Liosatos pointed out.
However, in the seven years since 2009, gas purchases have climbed back up steadily and reached a 13-year high in the most recent fiscal year at 396.4 million gallons, according to data compiled by PAG’s Nathan Barrett and provided to the Road Runner.
The main factors this time around are low average gas prices, a modest economic recovery and rebounding interest in less fuel-efficient vehicles (though the Road Runner is not holding his breath that we’ll see the Hummer become a thing again, and fuel efficiency is up since the eve of the recession, on average).
The local trend parallels the national trend: average daily gasoline purchases in June crested 406 million gallons, besting the previous record set in July 2007, and between July 2015 and July 2016, American motorists drove a record 3.19 trillion miles (a distance it would take light just shy of 200 days to travel, a mind-bending figure the Road Runner checked many times before printing).
That turnaround has spelled more money available for projects in the area. In a presentation to the Regional Transportation Authority board Thursday, RTA Deputy Director Jim DeGrood said that projections for HURF money from the state highway fund destined for the area are up roughly $50 million between 2020 and 2026, though he qualified that a little by saying that 2014 projections had been on the “conservative” side.
Projections for HURF money destined for Pima County are also on the rise.
Barrett qualified the trend by saying that per capita HURF collections have been slower to rebound, which he was a “good example of why we need to be looking at alternative (transportation) funding.”
Beyond their financial implications, as a transportation planner how do you make sense of these competing trends, which showed driving on the decline up until six years ago and rising since then, and incorporate them into long-range plans?
The answer, according to Liosatos, is slowly, skeptically and cautiously. He also clarified that it is not PAG itself that proposes roadway projects, which is done by the member jurisdictions like the towns of Marana and Oro Valley and the city of Tucson.
“As we look at the data, we always try not to go too crazy about what the trends are saying,” he said.
“Even when we saw the dip, you didn’t see a large influx of projects that necessarily addressed that need. Because it has to go a little longer.”
The Road Runner spoke with a couple of advocates for alternative transportation options, like public transit, walking and biking. They said they hope the recent uptick in gasoline purchases and miles driven isn’t used as a reason to deprioritize investment in those alternatives.
Even with the uptick and lower gas prices, Living Streets Alliance’s Kylie Walzak said many county residents do not have their own automobiles and are dependent on buses, bikes and other more-affordable options. Recent Census data show that roughly one in 10 county households does not have access to a vehicle.
Furthermore, if (when?) gas prices start heading back to $4 and beyond, which Census data suggest makes transportation alternatives more popular, will alternative transportation resources be ready for the uptick in interest?
“We never know when the next spike is going to come,” Walzak said. “You can’t get comfortable.”
Addressing concerns like Walzak’s, Liosatos said the region has a “great track record of embracing alternate modes,” even when miles driven and gas consumed are trending up.
“As we went down, we didn’t hit the brake and start dumping all of the roadway projects to start doing all alternative mode projects,” he added.
“The inverse isn’t going to be true. We’re not going to do all roadway projects.”
DOWN THE ROAD
The unseasonably late monsoon rains have complicated scheduling for a number of city of Tucson fog-seal and crack-seal projects. City department of transportation spokesman Michael Graham provided an updated schedule to the Road Runner Friday afternoon:
Oracle Road – Miracle Mile to Drachman Street: Sunday, Oct. 2, and Monday, Oct. 3, 6 p.m. to 6 a.m.
Congress Street – Pennington Street to Interstate 10: Monday, Oct. 3, and Tuesday, Oct. 4, 6 p.m. to 6 a.m.
Park Avenue – 36th Street to I-10 and Tucson Marketplace – Park Avenue to the roundabout: Tuesday, Oct. 4, through Thursday, Oct. 6, 6 p.m. to 6 a.m.
Alvernon Way – 22nd Street to 29th Street: Tuesday, Oct. 4, through Thursday, Oct. 13, crack/fog seal 6 p.m. to 6 a.m., asphalt patch 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Congress Street – Pennington Street to Interstate 10 and Toole Avenue – Broadway to 12th Street: Sunday, Oct. 9, 6 p.m. to 6 a.m.
Lane restrictions will be in place during the work, though at least one lane in each direction will always be open.
Rains have also impacted striping work on the Catalina Highway, which has been extended to Thursday. Work will take place at several locations on the way up to Mount Lemmon from 5 a.m. to 1 p.m.
In the city, crews will install new traffic signal poles at the Speedway-Stone Avenue intersection on Monday. From 3 a.m. to 6 a.m., the westbound curb lane on Speedway will be closed to travel, though left and right runs will be allowed. From 9 a.m. to 2 p.m., the westbound median island lane and the eastbound left and right-turn lanes will be closed to travel. Left turns from eastbound Speedway to northbound Stone will also not be allowed during this time.
