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By Susanna Caņizo
ARIZONA DAILY STAR
September 10, 2003    

Plans to widen the Catalina Highway have been dropped by Pima County's Transportation Department because of resident opposition and new information that shows the road won't carry as much traffic in the future as previously thought.  Construction was scheduled to start this winter to widen the Northeast Side road between East Tanque Verde and North Houghton roads.

"I'm thrilled to pieces," said Nancy Record, who has lived on three acres next to the highway for 35 years. She dreaded losing almost an acre to make room for the wider road.  "I didn't want to lose my land," she said. "I've never seen traffic lining up by my house."  The county planned to spend $8.3 million on the widening project.

So far, $1.7 million has been spent to pay for early planning work, the completed design of the road improvements and administrative costs. Now, simpler upgrades such as adding bicycle lanes and a center turning lane are being studied.  The county Board of Supervisors must approve the scaled-back project before work begins.  Eighteen property owners living along the Catalina Highway banded together earlier this year to lobby against the widening project. They wanted to save their land - much of it native desert - from being paved.

The group hired attorney Lawrence Schubart to represent it in condemnation proceedings, which the property owners hoped to avoid by convincing the county that the road doesn't carry enough traffic to merit the road work.

The county planned to widen the road to four lanes - with a center turning lane and bike lanes - between Tanque Verde and North Harrison Road. Between Harrison and Houghton, the county wanted to keep the road at two lanes but add a center lane and bike lanes.  Those plans were based on traffic projections that stated the Catalina Highway would carry about 29,000 vehicles per day near Tanque Verde in 2020. Right now, that part of the road carries 14,000 per day.

Annabelle Quihuis, spokeswoman for the county Transportation Department, said the latest projections show that the road will only carry about 17,400 vehicles per day near Tanque Verde in 2025.  She said new information about the pace of development on the Northeast Side resulted in the different traffic projections.  Quihuis said a two-lane Catalina Highway should be able to handle 17,400 vehicles per day. She said the Transportation Department still wants to add bike lanes and a center turning lane along the road.

The county planned to spend $8.3 million on the road project as it was originally conceived. According to preliminary estimates, the scaled-back project could cost at least $1 million less.Quihuis said the county would spend less to buy land and materials for the scaled-back work, but new design plans would be needed.  She said money saved on the Catalina Highway project could be spent on other road projects.

Public meetings for the Catalina Highway project were first held in 1999.  A citizens committee was formed to make recommendations about the road upgrades, and it supported widening the road to four lanes between Tanque Verde and Harrison. The committee's recommendation was based on the older traffic projections.  

Rosemary Carmody, who has served on the committee since 1999, said she doesn't mind the county's change of heart regarding the road widening: "I've never seen traffic backed up on that road, but we do need bike lanes on that road," she said.  Carmody said the county should keep the citizens committee notified of any changes. At a meeting held earlier this summer, the county was still saying that the road-widening work would proceed as planned.

Another committee member, Cheryl Knapp, said she never understood why the county wanted to widen the road. She commutes to work on Houghton from the Northeast Side to the IBM offices on the Southeast Side.

"I wondered why they were doing it in the first place. There's a heck of a lot more traffic on Houghton than you ever see on Catalina."

* Contact Susanna Caņizo at 573-4176 or at slcanizo@azstarnet.com.

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