When the widened stretch of Broadway finally reopens in a month or so, bicyclists wonโt be too impressed with the safety improvements.
Instead of a single line designating the bike lanes, there are now double lines..
In other words, despite all the arduous design work and construction money poured into Broadway between Euclid Avenue and Country Club Road, there are glaring imperfections.
Now, I acknowledge I was happier about Broadway back in March, when I wrote about how the widened 2-mile stretch was going to have a great result. I still think it will be much better than before and will lead to a development boom. But the end result, delayed again by some last-minute sewer work, falls short of what it could have been.
The unprotected bike lanes are one example of an old paradigm seeping into a new project. The sidewalks, too, should be wider, in my opinion, and better protected from the street. In short, Broadway will be good, but it should have been better.
This struck me this week after watching Mayor Regina Romero, Sen. Mark Kelly and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg announce a $25 million grant to help complete the replacement of the East 22nd Street bridge over the Union Pacific railyard.
It turns out that $25 million is only a part of the money needed for the bridge project, which covers the half-mile from South Tucson Boulevard to South Kino Parkway. The city, county and Regional Transportation Authority have cobbled together a total of $95 million for the bridge project, including the new federal grant, and even that will not be enough.
It will likely cost millions more, but where the rest will come from is unclear.
On Friday, when I spoke with her, Romero was still basking in the glow of winning the federal grant, which should allow preliminary work on replacing the bridge to begin in the next few weeks.
โAt the end of the day, the city of Tucson is being a very good partner,โ she said. โWeโre hustling big-time. We know how urgent the need is.โ
As mayor, Romero is a member of the Regional Transportation Authority board, but she has often fought with the management of the authority and other board members over what she argues is poor treatment of the city of Tucson in the regional system.
Whatever additional money, beyond the $95 million, is needed for the bridge project, the Regional Transportation Authority should come up with, she said.
โWhat Iโm trying to say is that the RTA, the staff at the RTA and the RTA board need to come up with a solution,โ she said. โThis shouldnโt be left at the feet of the city of Tucson alone.โ
Future widening unfunded
Then thereโs still another big project to come, farther west on 22nd Street.
Under the plan passed by voters in 2006, there is still a major widening left to do on 22nd Street between Kino Parkway and Interstate 10. Like many of the authorityโs projects in Tucson, it was scheduled in the last years of the planโs 20-year span, and now money is short for those projects, as construction costs rise.
The deputy director of the RTA, Jim Degrood, noted to me Friday that the authority has been allocating money into its Transportation Improvement Project for the 22nd Street project, which is supposed to widen the whole stretch to six lanes under the ballot language.
But itโs unclear when the full funding will become available for the project. Itโs scheduled to be completed by 2026 under the original plan.
Neighborhood residents met more than two dozen times between 2006 and 2010 as part of a citizens advisory committee, focused mostly on the interchange at East 22nd Street and South Kino Parkway, where the Bob Walkup Overpass was completed in 2015.
The cityโs work back in those early years of the RTA isnโt likely to be very relevant anymore, sadly.
โThe work that was done in the past shouldnโt be discounted,โ said Sam Credio, the cityโs transportation and mobility director. โIn terms of the public outreach, some of the sentiment might still exist.โ
But any design work done back then can be forgotten. And as far as Iโm concerned, thatโs for the better. Times have changed.
โI remember the old days when it was just widen, then you throw a bike lane down next to the sidewalk and youโre good,โ Credio said. โWe have to shift away from the old mindset of widening at all costs.โ
Six lanes too wide?
We were in the midst of this shift in mindset when Broadway was a hot topic in the 2010s. Neighborhood residents and City Council member Steve Kozachik complained that the plan to widen the street to eight total lanes was far too big. It really was.
A similar critique is likely to arise when we talk about widening 22nd Street โ that six lanes is unnecessarily wide in the narrower stretch west of Santa Rita Avenue.
And a huge complication will be separating the railroad tracks that cross 22nd Street near Santa Rita Park from the cars and pedestrians. It will be expensive but it has to be done.
On Broadway, after years of conflict and compromise, the City Council and RTA board agreed to a redesigned 6-lane street that curves between Euclid and Country Club, allowing more historic buildings to be saved.
Arriving at that compromise took years of debate. The result is good but not great, especially when it comes to bike infrastructure.
Bikes protected or rerouted
On these corridor streets, we really need to decide whether we want people to bike on them or not. If not, we should shunt them over to improved bicycle routes on parallel streets. If so, we need to build real, protected bike lanes on the busy corridors.
I was in the Netherlands for almost a week this summer. Iโll tell you, that changes your perspective of what is possible. Amsterdam, famously, has bike lanes that are large and often more crowded than the car lanes, even though it is a densely populated city.
More rural areas of the Netherlands, too, have lots of separate bike paths passing among farms and woods, connecting towns. It opens your eyes.
In Tucson, weโre fortunate to have the space to accommodate everybody and protect the vulnerable users of the roads, too.
As we proceed on projects like 22nd Street between Kino Parkway and I-10, we ought to strive for near perfection. Otherwise, whatโs the use of spending all that money on what is a functional road now?
The compromise on Broadway shows how close you can come without getting it completely right.
