Maricopa County transportation tax measure clears Legislature after contentious fight

The most contentious bill of the legislative season won lopsided support on Monday as the Legislature authorized Maricopa County to call a transportation tax election next year.

The bill allows the county to ask its voters if they want to extend a half-cent sales tax to pay for a mix of transportation projects over the next 20 years. Senate Bill 1102 passed the House and Senate with bipartisan votes, following major changes made during negotiations between Gov. Katie Hobbs and GOP legislative leaders.

Of the estimated $14.9 billion projected to be raised by the tax, 40.5% would go to freeway projects, 37% to transit and 22.5% to arterial streets and intersection improvements.

Over months of debate, funding allocations for road projects in the 20-year plan grew at the expense of transit, whose light rail components were non-starters with many Republican members.

Measures in the plan originally proposed by the Maricopa Association of Governments to address climate-related issues also were pared back, as the final plan struck a markedly less environmentally friendly tone.

The transportation tax question is expected to appear on the November 2024 ballot in Maricopa County.

Bill fuels Valley growth

Supporters hailed the plan as key to maintaining the Valley's economic prosperity in the coming decades.

"These critical infrastructure investments will build and attract businesses and make Arizona the best place to live, work and raise a family," Hobbs said in a written statement.

Senate President Warren Petersen, R-Gilbert, highlighted provisions added to the bill that he said are aimed at getting maximum capacity out of highways and roads by reducing congestion and travel time.

The plan will help pay for two new Valley freeways: State Route 30, which will parallel congested Interstate 10 in the west Valley, and State Route 24 in the far southeast Valley, among other road projects. It also will pay for improvements to arterial streets throughout the Valley.

He called it the "most conservative transportation plan" the Valley has seen, rebuffing critics from his own party who derided the plan as a homegrown version of congressional progressives "green New Deal."

"If you say that, you are highly misinformed or lack integrity," Petersen said, as he touted the plan's guardrails against what he called "unattainable environmental goals established by the radical left."

The big dispute: light rail

Light rail was a lightning rod issue in the initial proposal from MAG, which represents cities and towns in the county. Lawmakers used the authority they have in state law to demand changes to the bill, which in the end boosted the funding for highways and cut the transit pot, including a prohibition on spending any money for light rail expansion in the Valley.

The plan bars any spending on light-rail expansion, although it does allot 3.5% of transit dollars to maintain existing rail infrastructure. The Valley's light rail system currently runs from Mesa, through Tempe and north to Dunlap Avenue in Phoenix. An extension to south Phoenix is under construction.

The final bill also tossed a number of provisions aimed at reducing emissions from vehicles and other measures intended to reduce reliance on fossil fuels.

Phoenix Mayor Kate Gallego said she was astonished that lawmakers would turn their backs on provisions intended to curb climate change and reduce air pollution.

“I am stunned, after the July we just had, that the resilience focus of the bill has been controversial," she said, referring to the Valley's unprecedented days of temperatures above 110 degrees.

For example, it explicitly bars cities and the state from restricting the sale of any vehicle based on its fuel type, a reaction to a California law intended to encourage electric vehicle purchases.

However, Gallego, who also serves as MAG chair, applauded the final product for its investment in the infrastructure needed for future growth.

No Capitol rail loop

Lawmakers also demanded, and won, an agreement that Phoenix would scrap plans for a light rail extension around the state Capitol complex even though that wasn't part of the bill.

House Speaker Ben Toma, R-Glendale, said the loop would have required lawmakers to drive over the rail tracks not once, but twice, as it would have passed the parking lots of both the House and the Senate.

“I saw it as a personal insult," he said.

Negotiations in July between Toma, Petersen and Hobbs revived the transportation bill, which Hobbs vetoed in June.

The vote was bipartisan, with every Democrat except one united in support. But the Republicans were split over the issue, with members of the Freedom Caucus objecting to any tax money spent on light rail.

Rep. Justin Heap, R-Mesa, said the bill holds road projects "hostage" to the requirement to also spend money on light rail.

He and other members of the right-leaning Freedom Caucus lamented the elimination of an earlier plan to split the question in two, with the transit provisions requiring a separate vote from the road projects.

Sen. Jake Hoffman, who questioned numerous portions of the MAG plan, leading to changes, said voters would have been better served by having two ballot questions: One to deal with road funding and a second to address what he called "the epically failed mass transit system that we have here."

He cited ridership figures from 2021 that showed transit accounted for a sliver to miles traveled in the Valley. In 2021, transit ridership had dropped due to safety concerns with the COVID-19 virus.

Many Republicans who supported the bill cast it as a decision best left to Maricopa County voters, not to 90 lawmakers, many of whom don't live in the greater Phoenix area.

Rep. Selina Bliss, R-Prescott, said lawmakers had no business telling Maricopa County whether it could hold an election.

“This is their sandbox," she said of Maricopa County residents. "I say let them play in it.”

“Let’s get over ourselves, let’s get out of the way and let's let Maricopa County voters decide what is best for them," she said, as she voted for the bill.

She also noted that if Maricopa County can provide for its own transportation needs, it will reduce competition for statewide transportation dollars among the other 14 counties.

Maricopa County is the only one of the 15 counties that requires legislative OK before calling a transportation election, due to a law enacted in 1999 by transit-skeptic lawmakers.

Reach the reporter at [email protected] or at 602-228-7566 and follow her on Twitter @maryjpitzl.

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This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Maricopa County to vote on half-cent transportation sales tax