Time to plan for Tucson’s future
As a public artist, I get around the country quite a bit to see how other fast-growing communities are dealing with their growth and planning for the future. It is frustrating and disappointing to return home to my beloved Tucson and find most of our leaders — political and business — with their heads in the sand over growth.
It doesn’t have to be this way. Many metropolitan areas are creating broad-based public/private partnerships to study how good planning on a regional basis can ensure a better future where growth enriches us rather than bankrupts us. Salt Lake City, in the reddest of red states, is now acting on a process called Envision Utah which found that smarter growth with more public transit and more compact development will save water, create more jobs, and cost taxpayers much less money than to continue sprawling into the future. And they are now implementing specific land-use and public infrastructure recommendations to make that better future happen.
In the Sacramento region, another diverse group of public and private groups & individuals created a “Blueprint for the Future” which determined that compact developments near public transit will save the region about $8 billion in building costs for roads, utilities, and other infrastructure, even as their population increases by another 1.7 million people.
We are facing massive growth in Tucson in the next few decades, and we do not want that growth to bust our budgets, blade our desert, or drain our water supply. All of our future planning efforts must be in concert: for transportation, land use, water use, energy use, environmental preservation, economic development, education, and housing supply.
It’s past time for our leadership to get together with other organizations, businesses, neighborhoods, and governments in the region, and stop fiddling while Tucson burns. Other communities have overcome their internal divisions and have provided proven models to face the future with hope — we don’t have to reinvent the wheel. Let’s do it!
May 30th, 2005 at 7:18 pm
Any of those plans would be a good and sensible place to start. Tucson needs to focus on water sustainability, public transportation (especially an east-west link), livable wages, affordable and attractive housing and mixed use neighborhoods, and parlaying the educational asset we have into a growing and vibrant economy. Personally, I would like to see a de-emphasis on cars and significant traffic calming techniques used in new and existing develpment (such as the new street-scape on 6th), and more usable recreational facilities such as the linear park system.
Of course the toughest challenge politically might be the creation of a usable public transit system. I’d be interested to hear your plans for furthering this issue if you are elected to the council.
May 31st, 2005 at 8:07 am
I’ve been dedicated to improving Tucson’s public transit system for many years now, and I am not waiting for my election to work on this issue. I spearheaded the Citizens’ Transportation Initiative and gathered more than 18,000 signatures to place that on the ballot in November 2003. Our huge support in all 39 central city precincts spurred the city into doing a formal study to qualify us for federal funds to build a central-city Modern Streetcar system (for which I am a citizen advisor).
That project now has $75 million in federal matching funds approved by D.C. as requested by Congressman Grijalva. He asked me in 2003 what Tucsonans for Sensible Transportation wanted as a Congressional earmark, and that was our request. (Note that Fred is now claiming credit for that request, hoping we forget his nonstop war on public transit for his entire two terms.)
I am also on the Regional Transportation Authority Citizens Advisory Committee, where I am working hard to include significant improvements to our bus system and instituting new express, collector, and rapid bus systems as the projects being funded by the proposed countywide sales tax. There are other better funding sources available, and I will be pursuing them. I will continue pushing for better public transit when elected, with a commensurate increase in influence lent by the office of City Councilmember.
June 1st, 2005 at 2:32 am
“He asked me in 2003 what Tucsonans for Sensible Transportation wanted as a Congressional earmark, and that was our request.”
Now that is something interesting I did not know. Could you elaborate on this earmark and what it’s for a bit more?
BTW, I just got done reading the latest issue of Wired and it has a very interesting article on new firefighting techniques. Given the reductions in fatalities among firefighters realized by departments using the new methods, it might be something the council should look at. The article is not online yet, but will be on June 2nd.
June 1st, 2005 at 10:36 am
Here’s the link to my March 11 post when I first caught Fred bragging about this earmark: http://www.friendsofarley.com/2005/03/11/fred-hogs-the-bacon/
The money is now available for a 1 for 1 match with local funds to design and build the first phase of our modern streetcar system, and Raul was the only member of local government with the guts & influence to make it happen, after he was infuriated that the City of Tucson only requested earmarks for roads at the edges.
More info on the City study, now nearly finished, is at http://www.TucsonTransitStudy.com
June 2nd, 2005 at 3:02 pm
Steve, how do you feel about a living wage being a part of a sustainable future for Tucson? Would you introduce a living wage for all jobs and all workers in Tucson?
June 3rd, 2005 at 1:20 pm
A sustainable community needs a sustainable economy for all its residents, including those (of whom Tucson has many) at the lower end of the payscale. It is absurd to expect any person or family to survive on $5.15 an hour, and given that our education system is pathetically underfunded, we are not preparing many of our people for jobs that pay more than minimum wage. I applaud the councilmembers years back who voted in a livable wage for city employees and for those who work for companies that do business with the city.
We should be finding ways to require all businesses within the city limits to pay a livable wage so all working people can afford to live, especially in an environment where housing and gas prices are going through the roof. That way, the extra profits currently being sent by Wal-Mart back to Arkansas will be paid to Tucson workers and spent here in Tucson, strengthening our local economy and benefiting local workers and businesses. It’s time for us to work together on this for mutual benefit.
July 24th, 2005 at 12:19 pm
There was article in the Tucson Weekly on June 30 entitled “Missed Opportunity” which compared Tucson to Portland, Oregon. In 1975, Tucson and Portland drafted similar long-range development plans, and while the one in Portland was passed resulting in the current smart growth and urban-friendly environment experienced in that city, many business owners in Tucson called the plan “socialist,” “dictatorial” and “dangerous.” The result is our current state of perpetual sprawl and degradation of our desert homeland.
Have the attitudes and level of awareness regarding the evils of sprawl changed enough in our area over the past 30 years to allow a smart (or at least smarter) growth plan to be instituted?
July 25th, 2005 at 8:34 am
I think Fred’s legacy of budget deficits, borrowing against future general fund revenues, cuts in community programs, traffic congestion, the spectre of drinking sewage water, and receding Sonoran Desert has changed a whole lot of minds here in Tucson, and I think we are ready for change. This election will certainly tell.
August 12th, 2005 at 3:14 pm
Steve Farley’s strong value of energy efficiency and implementaion of renewable energy technologies is one of the several very important reason’s I have supported him throughout the past eight years. The energy and economic impacts of a multi-modal transit system in Tucson is probably the best investment we could make. Sensible mobility would ensure a sustainable result for our local economy as we enter the transitional Period of the Global Oil Production Peak. Steve has not only supported sensible energy policy but has already significantly acted on this prioirity.
Recent world price developments are indicators that world oil supply simply hasn’t been able to keep up with growing demand. Today, Friday, August 12, 2005 the price of crude oil hit $67 per barrel. This is up from $60 a few weeks ago and $50 per barrel in April. The price five years ago was $10. Clearly, we are on a geometric price grow tragectory. Experts were quoted this week that we could see $70 per barrel in the fall and $100 per barrel by year’s end.
The challenge of rising oil prices is partly because our single passenger vehicle transportation system is mainly dependent on oil consumption. But perhaps even more importantly, our whole economy is also significantly dependent on the cost of energy. As a community we have not carried out a local strategic risk assessment of our different sectors and industries under “global peak oil” conditions.
For decades before 2000, our local economy tended to spend 10 percent of its total income on energy for all uses. However, in recent years the transportation share of energy expenditures has risen dramatically. In 1998, the metro area spent $480 million for transportation fuels. By 2000, spending jumped by $300 million, more than 60 percent, to $780 million annual total. The subsequent rise in gasoline prices is already a serious local economic issue for families, businesses, and governments.
Tucson’s business leadership including the Chamber and the Southern Arizona Leadership Council as well as builders and realtors have long opposed smart growth, increased multi-modal transit, and cost recovery of the public costs of growth. Unfortunately, the Democratic Party has not been very interested in those issues either. In particular, neither political party has addressed what is already unfolding in the economy, namely the world oil peak.
Steve, on the other hand, is the only candidate in Ward 6 who will act successfully on our local energy issues as a matter of priority and past experience.