YMPO seeks summit on road issues
Gathering may clarify how to improve transportation plans
The Yuma Metropolitan Planning Organization is beginning to organize a transportation summit for the area, aiming to bring top elected and administrative officials from around the county to itemize their local needs and wants.
YMPO Executive Director Paul Ward told the executive board at its Thursday meeting the Yuma Regional Transportation Summit is being planned for sometime in March, and could be a first step toward finding some way to widen roads and make other improvements the state isn’t likely to help fund for the foreseeable future.
He said the Arizona Department of Transportation’s long-term plans, looking out 20 to 25 years, don’t include any projects for widening roads outside of Maricopa and Pima counties, and limited money for other types of modernization.
This, along with diversion of Highway User Revenue Funds from local governments to the state Department of Public Safety, leaves Yuma County and other rural areas without much cash to work with.
“We hardly have enough money to actually maintain the existing system. We certainly don’t have enough money to make improvements to the system, let alone widening the ones we have,” he said.
He said a gathering of the county’s mayors, city and county administrators and
engineers, tribal leaders and other decision makers would be a good way to clarify exactly how the local transportation network needs to be expanded, and then figure out how much it would cost to do that.
Once that’s accomplished, officials could then debate how to raise the money to pay for the improvements locally, which would most likely involve seeking voter approval for some kind of tax, though there could be other options.
“Once we’ve identified the needs and wants, then it’s appropriate to talk about if we want maybe a sales tax, maybe a regional transportation agency, something like that. I don’t want to prejudge,” he said.
A regional transportation authority is a public, political, tax-levying improvement subdivision of the state government which can be formed to create and get voter approval for a long-term transportation plan, as well as a dedicated sales tax to fund the improvements.
A road tax could also be levied by the county, again with voter approval, he added.
“My experience has been that if we’re going to go for some sort of funds from the public — quite apart from the decision makers, so to speak — the way to do it is to identify what specifically this money is going to pay for,” Ward said.
“Specifically,” County Supervisor and executive board member Lynne Pancrazi said. “If it’s not specific enough, it doesn’t pass.”
Yuma County voters did approve a capital improvement half-cent sales tax in 2000 to help pay for construction of State Route 195, as well as several county buildings. The tax was retired ahead of schedule, in 2006, after a booming economy generated the money more quickly than anticipated.
In recent years, voters have defeated a sales tax increase proposed in Yuma and a property tax for Wellton.
In other action the executive board:
• Approved an amendment to the YMPO’s Transportation Improvement Program for 2018-22 to allocate $236,393 in additional federal government funding for a Yuma County project on County 14th Street between Avenues A and D, and $42,291 for the city of Yuma’s planned HAWK pedestrian signal on 8th Street.
• Authorized Ward to negotiate a contract with Green Light Traffic Engineering to update the Regional Strategic Transportation Safety Plan. Green Light was one of three firms to submit a proposal, and all three provided a cost estimate around $92,000, or $5,000 above the amount allocated.
• Wellton Mayor Cecilia McCullough became board chair, moving up from vice-chair in the annual rotation. Somerton Mayor Jose Yepez moved up to vice-chair, and Cocopah Indian Tribe Vice-Chair- man J. Deal Begay Jr. was selected as the board’s treasurer. Yuma Deputy Mayor Gary Knight, who had been the chairman, is now in the running for a seat on the Arizona State Transportation Board.
YMPO is the staterecognized metropolitan planning organization for Yuma County, and includes the jurisdictions of the county, cities of Yuma, San Luis and Somerton, town of Wellton and Cocopah Indian Tribe, along with the state board. It administers Federal Highway Administration funding in the county and produces regional plans, among other duties.
Yuma Sun staff writer Blake Herzog can be reached at (928) 539-6856 or bherzog@yumasun.com.