It wasn’t even 9 a.m. last Tuesday and the mercury was already fast approaching 100 degrees.
Amber McCroskey, a 22-year-old Pima Community College student, had just gotten off her bus near North Stone Avenue and Speedway and was heading to class. Just across the street, new bus shelters covered the Sun Tran stops on northbound and southbound Stone, a welcome change in McCroskey’s view.
“I very much appreciate it,” she said. “Especially on a day like today, or even rainy days.”
Those two shelters are a part of five the city of Tucson has added as part of a bus stop improvement effort during the last year. Most of the work was on refurbishing 125 others scattered around the city. The county also recently finished adding 33 shelters at bus stops in unincorporated areas, which was the first sizable county effort to add new shelters.
Additionally, starting this month, the city will be adding 55 new bus shelters, which should be complete within the next four months. That means that nearly 100 new shade-providing shelters are already available or in the works for the Old Pueblo’s hottest months.
Tom Fisher, a project manager with the city’s transportation department, said the two city projects are part of a stepped effort to improve bus infrastructure, and new shelters are an in-demand way to do that. He said that of the more than 100 outstanding transit requests his office has at any given time, two-thirds are for additional protection from the elements at bus stops.
The Tucson City Council included bus stop improvements as a part of bus fare rate hike approved last September.
Normally, the city has $160,000 per year in Federal Transit Administration funding, with an extra 20 percent in city matching funds, for transit improvements. However, the recently completed fiscal year 2017 bus stop improvement program used $450,000 in FTA grant funds, and the fiscal year 2018 program, set to start soon, will get about $600,000 in federal support.
Fisher said that was made possible by combining monthly allotments of FTA dollars. The county project was enabled by an agreement between the city and county to share some of those FTA dollars, the lion’s share of which normally go to the city, according to Jonathan Crowe, a principal planner with the county transportation department. The county’s shelters, along with additional stop improvements, were funded with $400,000 in federal funds and another $100,000 in county matching funds, according to an April release.
“I think it’s great everyone realizes that transit is a regional issue and when we’re getting federal funds we need to share the funds and spend them where they’re most needed,” Crowe said.
But even with the sizable investment, a majority of all area bus stops are still without shelters. City data shows that a modest majority of the city’s share of the roughly 2,230 total Sun Tran bus stops — roughly 950 out of a little over 1,800 — are sheltered, while 45 percent of regional stops are. There are about 350 stops in unincorporated Pima County, according to Crowe.
Fisher said his department’s ultimate goal is a completely sheltered system, but available resources make that a distant prospect. Instead, the department tries to prioritize those unsheltered stops with the most riders, or requests made by elderly or physically disabled riders. There is also an effort to ensure that new shelters are fairly distributed between different areas in town.
The system also loses an estimated six to 10 shelters a year to car crashes, meaning additional shelters are needed every year just to maintain current levels, according to Fisher.
Though the county doesn’t have much money allotted over the next year or two for new shelters, Crowe said their intention is to eventually have a “more regular” stream of funding for annual additions.
“We got a fair amount done, but we still have a lot of needs out there,” he added. “If you can just keep chipping away, then you’re eventually going to get to all of them.”
Down the road
There’s plenty of road work happening in the area this week:
Beginning Monday, June 26, the county will implement a left-turn restriction on northbound North Mona Lisa Road onto westbound West Magee Road. Crews will install “no left turn” sign on northbound Mona Lisa, which will be in place indefinitely. Northbound Mona Lisa drivers who want to turn left will have to first make a right turn onto Magee and then make a U-turn at the next available median opening, about 1,000 feet to the east of the intersection. The traffic-control change is necessary to improve safety, the county said.
Also, Pima County and its contractor, AAA Landscape, will be trimming trees and cleaning up vegetation in the medians of several roads beginning Monday, June 26, from 6 am. to 3 p.m.
The roads are:
- West Ina Road from North Camino de la Tierra to North Paseo del Norte.
- West River Road from the Marana town limits to North 15th Avenue.
- La Cañada Drive from West Calle de las Tiendas to West Continental Road.
- Abrego Drive from East Calle Herboso to East Santa Rebecca Drive.
Crews will start at the Ina location first and work their way to the other medians. Crews will have equipment within the medians while working and some traffic delays may occur. Each median will take a week or less to complete, with the entire project estimated to be finished by July 21.
Also on Monday, the county will be installing speed-display signs at four locations on South Houghton Road. The signs alert drivers to their speeds and the posted speed limit. The locations on Houghton are:
- South of the East Brekke Road intersection.
- South of Pantano High School entrance.
- South of the South Black Jack Ranch Road intersection.
- South of the East Andrade Road intersection.
Lastly, eastbound Interstate 10 will be reduced to one lane nightly from Tangerine Road to Ina Road for maintenance work. The closures will be from 9 p.m. to 5 a.m. The work will be done beginning Monday night, June 26, until Thursday morning. Then from Wednesday night, July 5, through Saturday morning, July 8, according to the Arizona Department of Transportation.
