Sun City Traffic Impact Committee

Helping Sun City Control Traffic Congestion to 2025

"Crossing Grand Avenue
in the Future" 

ADOT has assembled a working group to discuss the impact on Sun City and other communities along Grand Avenue, with the impending widening of the route by an additional two lanes of traffic.  Plans are to widen Grand Avenue all the way from loop101 to loop 303. 

Sun City leaders have been advocating grade separations at both 103rd Avenue and 107th Avenue as part of the project.  If adopted as part of the plan, future traffic in Sun City crossing Grand Avenue would travel either over or under Grand, or Grand would be tunneled under or bridged over those crossings. 

ADOT representatives came out to Sun City on November 7th 2007, to take public comment on the widening project.  Residents viewed ADOT exhibits, listened to a presentation by Tim Tait, Community Relations Director at ADOT, and voiced their questions and concerns over the push out until 2015 of safe north-south traffic crossings across Grand through Sun City.

Gary Bourne and Ben Roloff from SCHOA and Norm Dickson of the RCSC have been lobbying ADOT Working Group members to make grade separations along the proposed widened corridor a major priority. Read Gary Bourne's press release of 11/11/07 (My View). 

Sun City is likely the only retirement community in the world severed on a diagonal by a U.S. Highway.  Widening that route to six lanes of traffic impacts automobiles, ambulances, fire trucks, golf cars, pedestrians, motorized wheel chairs, senior citizens, and those disabled, as well as impacting all alternate modes of transportation attempting to safely cross Grand Avenue.

Currently the plan is to widen Grand Avenue by two extra lanes and then possibly consider safer crossings at some future date -- maybe after 2015, if there is extra money left to do so! The entire budget for the widening project is set at $64 million.

Sun City leaders strongly believe that plan needs to be reconsidered NOW, and strongly encourages you to download and print out a petition requesting that ADOT include grade separations on Grand Avenue at the same time as the widening of Grand Avenue project.  Funding may not be available later. Costs are rising, and Sun City has/had no representation when MAG (Maricopa Association of Governments) recommended the regional traffic plan in 2004. 

Circulate the petition among your Maricopa County neighbors. Please get your copy of the petition back to Peggy Corrado of the SC Traffic Impact Committee.

Think about the difficulty of crossing Grand Avenue today.  Visualize adding two more lanes of traffic to cross, while adding thousands of vehicles to Grand Avenue on a daily basis. 
 
Also, please check out the ADOT website and email ADOT your opinion of why we need grade separations at the same time as Grand Avenue widening -- NOW -- instead of in 2015!

Questions: Contact Peggy Corrado

S.C. Traffic Committee Cares 

Sun City residents are facing increasing pedestrian, traffic and driving hazards just trying to walk and commute to shopping, dining, medical appointments, or other daily activities. The population of our surrounding communities is steadily growing. With Sun City being between Peoria and Surprise, it appears the desired path to travel west to Loop 303 seems to be: Union Hills Road, Bell Road, Thunderbird, Grand Avenue, Peoria and Olive. All of these roads go through or near Sun City.

Thunderbird Road expansion:

The S.C. Traffic Impact Committee is working to reduce the impact of the impending road construction through our city. We are working with residents living on Thunderbird Road east of 94^th Drive.  Residents of affected area are still circulating petitions. They are asking Maricopa County for three requests:

1. Raise the wall by 2 feet
2. Epoxy the decorated tile to reduce sound
3. County to erect "No thru traffic" signs on Boswell

Note:
The immediate community of the affected area seems to be having problems in collecting the signatures. Pat DeRosia offered to help the group acquire the necessary signatures.

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PURPOSE OF COMMITTEE

To establish a consolidated voice in transportation issues and monitor road proposals which will have a significant impact (keep a close eye) on the future of Sun City, (Arizona’s) thoroughfares, and study the impact of increased traffic on the community as West Valley growth continues, we have formed the Sun City Traffic Impact Committee. 

IMMEDIATE OBJECTIVE

This committee is opposed to the proposal to reconstruct Peoria Avenue through our community into a six lane thoroughfare.  We are also opposed to the proposal to build a bridge over the Agua Fria River on Peoria Avenue.

ISSUES AND CONCERNS 

• Reconstruction of arterial streets, such as Peoria, to six lanes, is deemed detrimental to the first (and model) senior community in this country, with 43,000+ citizens and more than 20,000 golf cars.

• Additional traffic would negatively impact senior health, because of added stress, air pollution, dust and noise pollution.

• By reconstructing streets into arterials, the speed limit would increase to 45 MPH or more.  Raising the speed limit makes a now-residential street golf car unfriendly, further limiting our residents' mobility. 

• Road expansions historically will attract MORE traffic, rather than alleviate traffic congestion. Many seniors are disabled, use motorized wheelchairs, other power assisted vehicles and three wheel bicycles to get to doctor appointments, local strip mall shopping and recreation centers.  We fear for our safety on roads. Signal timing for traffic lights on arterial streets would have to be adjusted to make the lights longer to accommodate handicapped and slower moving seniors. 

• Maricopa County DOT unfortunately creates impediments to public input on these projects, by holding hearings and meetings at distant sites and at inconvenient times.

• Our community boasts a slower paced, retired lifestyle.  That’s why we moved to Sun City! We prefer to keep it that way. The congestion on Bell Road and Grand Avenue are more than enough for the elderly to handle. Why add another unnecessary burden and risk greater numbers of seniors injured or dead because of accidents caused by additional high capacity roads running through residential areas.  The walls surrounding our community are not only to keep out noise from traffic, but to remind outsiders of slower reaction times that our seniors have and alert drivers to added dangers.

• Should additional arteries be built through Sun City, they will induce congestion, increase air, dirt and noise pollution and possibly increase crime, with the influx of non-residents who just pass through Sun City.  Local posse volunteers now police our community.  Additional County resources would be necessary to enforce safety and crime issues.  Why penalize seniors with lower property values along a corridor they did not ask for, need or anticipate?

• We should take as an example the traffic accident statistics at the Grand Avenue intersections as well as Bell Road intersections in Sun City.  What we can learn from these numbers would no doubt apply to new arterials in Sun City.

• Phase I of our community is south of Grand Avenue, whiles Phases II and III are north of Grand Avenue. 

ALTERNATIVES 

Alternatives should be considered for any arterial streets in the future, which do not involve reconstruction of roads, without creating additional lane capacity.

History has proven that the most efficient way to move large volumes of traffic is on controlled access roads.  Using surface streets through residential areas is not as efficient and always causes opposition among the affected residents.

Our Committee urges the completion of the connection between the 303 and the 101 as early as possible.

CONCLUSION 

In summary, Sun City has a fixed number of homes and is a planned retirement community.  It would be negatively impacted, both directly and indirectly, by the construction and completion of new arterials.

Sun City residents recommend and support a controlled access highway to be built near or along Northern Avenue.

The County should ideally consider alternatives which do not involve road reconstruction into any arterials in the future. 

We urge ADOT and MCDOT to find a win-win solution for addressing our concerns and issues.

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