(PEORIA, Ariz.) January
25, 2007
– More than $14 million in regional transportation funds from the countywide
half-cent transportation sales tax have flowed into the city’s coffers in recent
months. This money is a reimbursement to the city that covers part of the costs
for the design, land acquisition and construction of Lake Pleasant Parkway, a
road with both local and regional importance.
“When the extension of the
countywide transportation tax went to the voters in 2004, people were told how
that money would help them locally,” said City Engineer Dave Moody. “This
project shows how that promise is being fulfilled, how that regional fund has a
local impact.”
The new four-lane segment of Lake
Pleasant Parkway between Williams Road and Westwing Parkway, which includes a
critical traffic signal at the intersection with Happy Valley Road, opened to
traffic in September. When the initial $7 million reimbursement arrived in June
2006, Peoria became the first Valley city to receive a disbursement of half-cent
sales tax money for an arterial street project after the extension was approved
by voters in November 2004.
The city expects to receive
additional money beginning in 2011 to further increase capacity on Lake Pleasant
Parkway. Two other Peoria street projects will be partially reimbursed through
the half-cent sales tax — Happy Valley Road from Terramar Boulevard to Lake
Pleasant Parkway, and the Beardsley Road connection to Loop 101.
The Regional Transportation Plan,
funded by the half-cent sales tax, supports countywide road construction
including freeways, transit and arterial street projects.
Peoria voters approved a local
three-tenths cent sales tax in September 2005 that will start to affect
transportation construction in the coming months. $1 million generated by that
tax is going to traffic signal improvements in the current fiscal year. Next
fiscal year, the tax will contribute $15 million to the construction of Happy
Valley Road between 75th Avenue and Lake Pleasant Parkway, and $5
million toward widening Thunderbird Road from Loop 101 west to 95th
Avenue.
“These are very important and
very expensive projects,” Moody said. “Every dollar is critical.”
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