I love cars and I love driving and I love driving stickshift cars all that much more! It's this amazing feeling of being in control of a piece of machinery both beautiful and functional yet powerful enough to destroy if not controlled within the confines of speed, gear ratios, traffic, road conditions, etc. etc. Yet, today as I was inching my way on to the 10 East bound from the I-17 I couldn't help but thank my lucky stars that I was not in a stick shift car. As a REALTOR and a loyal ARIZONAN I can't help but feel great about the expansion of the Valley into it's outer periphery and when I hear people are moving here I get excited. Our local economy is critically dependent on population growth, affordable housing, a healthy job market and a fairly low cost of living compared to other metropolitan areas. 6 Summers ago I realized the beauty of the Valley was in it's ability to connect the East and West Valleys with ease through a network of highways that connect us to each other within 45minutes (barring rush hour and freeway wrecks) but this afternoon I realized that our freeway infrastructure is over loaded at rush hour! Do we need more roads? Do we need tolls on some roads? Do we need mass transit? I don't know, I'm too exhausted to think through all that's involved in understanding the needs of each of the above but I think perhaps as a start we can each just make a consciencious decision to use car pool, The light Rail once it's ready, and be efficient in our itenerrarys to the degree where we can manage to avoid extraneous trips. Not only would that curtail some traffic gridlock but I think it'll also help our Air Quality.
And here's some more interesting reading:
The article, Toll roads not option for Napolitano, from the Arizona Republic, reports that Gov. Janet Napolitano told members of the East Valley Partnership last week that she opposes toll roads as a way to relieve Arizona's transportation woes. "I am not a fan of toll roads," she said. "I'll tell you right up front. There's a reason I don't live in New Jersey." But she is for faster freeway construction and other alternatives. In addition to $300 million in state budget surplus money appropriated last year to speed road construction, Napolitano said bonds used to pay for roads should extend to provide an additional $400 million to further accelerate freeway construction, including Southeast Valley projects. She also requested that the Arizona Department of Transportation submit proposals to her within 90 days for the possible installation of commuter rail systems or more light rail to alleviate traffic congestion. Senate Majority Leader Thayer Verschoor said he is interested to see ADOT's rail study that was ordered by Napolitano. A vocal supporter of commuter rail, Verschoor said having the governor back a study of that transit option "will add some extra needed weight to it."
http://www.azcentral.com/php-bin/clicktrack/print.php?referer=http://www.azcentral.com/community/gilbert/articles/0113gr-gov0113Z12.html
