TUCSON, Ariz. — Officials in charge of major reconstruction of a five-mile stretch of Grant Road have turned the tables on criticism of the project’s impact on businesses and properties, citing the final project's green efforts and community involvement in the planning.

Droves of local residents and business owners showed up at the Jan. 13 city
council meeting to protest the road’s widening, but council members voted almost unanimously to go ahead with the measure.

Most of those in attendance were angry that the businesses and homes they have become so attached to may soon be taken away from them.

In response, Grant Road project officials have attempted to curb the criticism by supplying figures of their own, supporting the idea that the new construction that began 18 months ago will actually reflect sustainability efforts.

Keeping them honest

Over the course of the first phase of the project’s planning, project officials held more than 60 meetings and gathered more than 6,000 comments from members of the public to ensure that citizens felt their voices were being heard. Officials rolled out 8-foot maps for meeting-goers to draw on, to better convey their ideas for the Grant Road Improvement Plan, said Project Manager Melissa Antol.

This type of public-construction interaction "is unheard of" for city projects and reflects the realization that whatever construction happens will impact the city for decades to come, Antol said.

“Going back to the guiding principles, this really represents what we heard from the public,” she said. “This is kind of an unprecedented approach to planning and design for the city, in terms of we’re really listening to what (citizens) say."

Out of these meetings came such ideas as 20-foot roadways rather than the city standard of 9 feet, wider sidewalks, increased bike-lane width and local access lanes, Perkins said.

“This was all input from the community,” said Dave Perkins, a project manager for the Grant Road project. “It’s good for the transit riders. It’s good for the traffic. It’s good for safety. It’s good for bicyclists.”

This type of public transparency and public interaction caused such entities as the Grant Road Task Force and the Tucson City Council to approve the project plans, said Councilmember Rodney Glassman.

“We’ve talked about a lot of things,” he said. “In the end, this was the decision.”

Traffic advantages

Because of the projected increase in smooth flow of traffic created by "Michigan" left turns and more available lanes, traffic jams will diminish for the now congested roadway, according to the Regional Transportation Authority, which has set up an official Web site for the project, due to the amount of community interest.

Indirect left turns, more commonly known as “Michigan” left turns, restrict motorists from turning left on major intersections. The turns instead redirect traffic into a U-turn, where afterward vehicles would take a right turn to their desired destination. The lack of traffic jams will mean less stop-and-go traffic, leading to cleaner air and less pollution along the roadway, according to the RTA’s official plan. Construction is set to begin in 2013.

Based on numbers derived from similar past projects, the indirect left turns reduce the amount of time vehicles are stopped at an intersection by 42 percent and reduce fuel consumption by 9 percent, Perkins said.



Water harvesting

Aside from utilizing public input on the Grant Road Improvement Plan, project officials have made sustainability a priority during the planning process — a measure that goes far beyond saving money on fuel and traffic congestion.

When the project’s vote went before the City Council, it was with the understanding that officials would work tirelessly to figure out ways to bring water harvesting into the mix, Glassman said.

“We were pretty much just voting on the alignment,” he said. “But water harvesting was definitely supposed to be a big part of the plan.”

As the city hurdles itself into the future, built-in sustainability methods in construction plans will become more of the rule rather than the exception — and Grant Road is the pioneer in the process, Perkins said.

“One of the things that’s happening with the city is development is now being asked to be much more active in rainwater harvesting,” he said. “This is the first public-sector roadway project (in the city) that integrates water harvesting as a concept.”

The water harvesting plans range from passive ideas like literally gathering rainwater from the road, to more active roles like storing rainwater and redirecting it to landscape areas, Perkins said.

Although project officials have a good idea on how best to utilize water harvesting, final plans will not be made until closer to the end of the current phase over the next several months, said Leslie Liberti, director of the City of Tucson Office of Conservation and Sustainable Development

“We’re really trying to get some kind of solid plan going,” Liberti said.

Saving nature

While the Grant Road Improvement Plan will demolish several historic structures on the way to its eventual completion, natural areas and plant life will be spared by the construction.

“The biggest impact of this project is the properties that we have to demolish,” Antol said. “We’re not actually taking out any major landscaping, major park — mostly buildings.”

A few areas in particular that have been spared by the Grant Road construction include a pair of parks around the intersection of Campbell Avenue and Grant Road. Tahoe Park and Jefferson Park lie south of the roadway and may have been in jeopardy by the project if not for public input stressing the protection of the parks, Perkins said.

Aside from preserving already-existing natural areas, the plan will also implement the creation of new ones, including urban landscaping, the placing of trees and remnant parcels — all of which will reduce the urban heat island effect, the unnatural intense warming of urban areas due to such things as concrete, asphalt and building materials, Antol said.

We’re looking at areas where we can further green the urban core of the city,” Antol said. “Our next phase of planning, we will be looking for those specific opportunities to enhance that.”

Further public input

Such measures are a tricky proposition, though, as the needs of business owners and residents often differ from each other, Antol said.

“One guy may want trees in front of his business; the other person thinks that it blocks signage or access to their business, so it’s really a juggling act,” she said. “Our goal has really been to try and make this roadway project as sustainable as possible, so feedback from members of (the) community…would be helpful.”

Project officials will continue to gather this feedback in the coming months to further gauge public perception of the project in hopes of properly balancing sustainable construction and public desire, Antol said.

“The input is continuous. It’s not like the public input phase is done,” she said. “There’s a whole other 18 months left and over 100 public meetings in that time span.”

With construction starting in four years and continuing until 2026, project officials are constantly fighting against time. They say they hope
to have a winning situation for both the City of Tucson and the area environment.

“These traffic considerations and alterations are made with the 2030 traffic in mind. If we did nothing, that traffic would still come,” Perkins said. “We’re designing for the future. We’re trying to fix things that are broken today.”