The Pinal Regional Transportation Authority Board recently suspended current work efforts on developing a new regional transportation plan due to financial considerations and the region’s inability to fully fund a viable plan consistent with state statute.

The action at its Nov. 12 meeting was recommended by the county’s transportation technical advisory committee and staff, according to a release.

The Pinal Regional Transportation Authority Board considered nine regional transportation and major arterial road projects. The board acknowledged that the costs for delivering those projects, despite evaluating multiple options, far exceeded the ability to fund the projects over the 20-year forecast period. The board was presented with a financial analysis that included debt-financing, phasing and inflationary forecasts which led to the board’s decision, the release states.

The board was presented with an option to pursue work in the future, led by the region’s stakeholders to create a long-range transportation framework study to identify the entire county’s significant transportation needs, with an emphasis on funding strategies, regional corridors and their connection to the arterial road system of the County’s cities and towns.

“While it is certainly disappointing to not be able to pursue more work on a viable regional transportation plan, this suspension of efforts in no way means that the work on regional transportation will be discontinued,” PRTA Board Chair Craig McFarland, mayor of Casa Grande, said in the release, “We are in the fortunate position that we have tremendous collaboration and cooperation among all of our participating agencies who are deeply committed to making progress in our region. I thank everyone for their cooperation and support in getting us to this point. I look forward to the region moving forward on an alternative strategy to develop a long-range transportation framework study that will focus on not only the near-term needs but our changing environment for the next 50-years.”

The PRTA board will continue to meet annually and on an as-needed basis in accordance with statutory provisions and its bylaws.

The Pinal Regional Transportation Authority is an independent taxing district in Arizona within Pinal County. It was established in 2015 by the Pinal County Board of Supervisors to coordinate multijurisdictional transportation planning, improvements and funding. The PRTA is comprised of members from Pinal County plus municipalities and tribal nations within the county.

Go to https://pinalrta.org/.