The Broadway Coalition, a tireless group of Tucsonans who has been calling for reasoned expansion of Broadway Blvd., has issued an urgent call to action. If you don’t want to waste money on yet another unnecessary, unaffordable, and destructive road widening project, you need to speak up NOW– before Wednesday, March 11, 2015. (Details below.)
You can also learn more at tonight’s Sustainable Tucson which features the Broadway Coalition’s vision. (Details here and below.)
The proposed Regional Transportation Authority (RTA) Plan calls for widening Broadway from downtown to Country Club Road. The original suggestions were based on growth projections from the 1980s. Unfortunately– or fortunately, depending upon your point of view– Tucson didn’t grow East. It grew North. (Background here.)
Tucson’s needs don’t match the old growth projections. Developers and people who will make money knocking down and rebuilding businesses along Broadway or make money on the road construction, want to go blindly forth on yet another unnecessary road widening project. The Grant Road widening will happen in the future; 22nd Street was just expanded and improved; and the Aviation Parkway is also available as a speedy East-West route from downtown.
With these three improved thoroughfares, why do we need a fourth? Why destroy our historic buildings to make way for more chain stores and strip malls? Why destroy thriving local businesses along Broadway to make way for a road project we don’t need? Enough crony capitalism already.
As mentioned above, shit is getting real now. The latest round of public comment ENDS MARCH 11 (Wednesday). Please read the call to action, and act!
From Broadway Coalition…
CALL TO ACTION
After 3 long years we are at thecritical point of the Broadway Project. This project affects all of us in our community and sets the direction for transportation decisions for years to come. The proposed alignment would wipe out at least 37 businesses and homes, including most of the structures on the north side of Broadway between Campbell and Park! This threatens the Rincon Heights Historic District. We can significantly and creatively improve Broadway without this kind of destructive widening, wasting tens of millions of dollars, decreasing support for transit and other forms of travel. An entire small business sector will be affected.We, that is, YOU, can make a valuable difference now. It will take you about 1 minute. There is a public comment period open now, but it will close March 11th. Doing just one (or maybe all) of the following is critical…