Local enviros fret that without RTA Next, crucial wildlife linkages will lose funding

When voters passed the original RTA plan in 2006 and approved a half-cent-per-dollar sales tax to fund a 20-year, $2.1 billion package of road and transit improvements, they made history.

It was the first time a U.S. county had voted to fund wildlife crossings as part of road construction projects.

“All over the country, I’ve been asked to speak at conferences about how we’ve been successful in regional funding for these crossing projects, which in other places tend to be federal or philanthropic,” said Kate Hotten, co-chair of the environmental umbrella group Coalition for Sonoran Desert Protection. ”So this is an unusual model.”

Carolyn Campbell, a longtime local environmental leader who worked on both the 2006 and 2026 versions of the RTA plans, said there was a lot of resistance to wildlife crossings 20 years ago, but she’s seen that turn around since they were built.

“Now they’re super popular,” said Campbell, who is among the chairs of Connect Pima, a political action committee pushing for the passage of Props. 418 and 419 in the March 10 RTA Next election.

Prop. 418 would approve the 20-year, $2.67 billion RTA Next plan, while Prop. 419 would extend the half-cent sales tax to pay for it.

Since the passage of the original RTA plan, about $25 million has been poured into more than three dozen wildlife crossings in the county, according to Hotten, who penned a Tucson Sentinel guest opinion in favor of RTA Next.

While many of the wildlife crossings are underpasses that have been built as roads were widened, particularly on the Northwest side, one major project was a wildlife bridge over Oracle Road in northern Oro Valley that creates a connection between the Catalina Mountains and the Tortolita Mountains.

Campbell said the Arizona Game and Fish Department has been monitoring some of the crossings with cameras that allow them to track wildlife as they pass over or under roads. The video and still images show mule deer, javelina, coyotes, bobcats and even a mountain lion using the crossings. 

Hotten expressed concern that those kinds of projects are in jeopardy if voters reject RTA Next.

The plan includes $50 million for wildlife crossings between now and 2046. As a portion of the $2.76 billion plan, $50 million represents less than 2 percent of RTA Next’s overall spending, which includes more than $1.5 billion for roads and $726 million for transit service.

But it’s vital to connecting Pima County’s sensitive lands and allowing wildlife to move across the region, said Campbell.

While some of the $50 million would be spent on underpasses as roads are widened through the county’s sensitive lands, the big project is a wildlife bridge over Interstate 10 and the Union Pacific Railroad tracks near Avra Valley Road. 

Some preliminary work has been done, including land acquisition and wildlife ramp out of the Santa Cruz River that the county completed last year, but the most expensive portion still lies ahead.

“It would reconnect the Tucson Mountains with the Tortolita Mountains,” Campbell said. 

Wildlife crossings have not been at the center of the debate over RTA Next. 

Proponents have focused on other issues, including the importance of finishing the projects that were not completed during the initial run of the RTA, expanding and repaving other streets, and ensuring that transit funding is not slashed. 

Some opponents have focused their ire with the performance of the first RTA over the last 20 years. Transit and bike advocates say the RTA Next plan would spend too much on roadways and not enough on buses and bikepaths. Others complain about funding work on the city’s Southeast Side or in Marana or Oro Valley, saying it contributes to sprawl.

Some transit advocates, such as Ward 6 Councilmember Miranda Schubert, say that the city should abandon the regional approach established by the RTA entirely and look to pass its own sales tax with a plan more heavily weighted to transit and alternative transportation.

Other RTA opponents, such as Pima County Republican Party Chair Kathleen Winn, say the city of Tucson can’t be trusted to complete RTA projects. She’s also upset by other policy decisions by the Tucson City Council, such as fare-free transit.

While Winn said that the RTA should start on another plan if this one fails, she said other jurisdictions such as Marana, Oro Valley and Sahuarita might need to move on from the regional approach.

“They’re probably gonna have to raise sales taxes in their areas,” Winn said. 

If that kind of solo approach catches on, environmentalists worry that funding for wildlife crossings will be lost in the shuffle.

Hotten said none of the proposed wildlife crossings are within Tucson’s city limits, so she doesn’t foresee Tucson including them in any plan. 

“We wouldn’t expect a sales tax in the city of Tucson to support projects such as this,” Hotten said. “I think all of them sit outside of the city of Tucson.”

That would leave the work to various jurisdictions such as Marana and Oro Valley, which likely won’t have the purchasing power for wildlife crossings.

“We’re very grateful for the support of both the town of Marana and the town of Oro Valley,” Hotten said. “We’ve seen a lot of support for them for these projects. That said, neither of them alone would be able to fund the projects we’re talking about. So this does need to be a coordinated effort, and that’s part of what we’ve thought was so special about the RTA.”

Hotten said the members of the Coalition for Sonoran Desert Protection’s support for RTA Next “is 100 precent linked to the criticality of these wildlife processing projects. You know, we simply don’t think that this work can wait for however long it takes them to bake up a new RTA Next plan.”