July 03, 2006

MARICOPA - Newly hired Transportation Manager Brent Billingsley certainly has a long road ahead.

After all, he's come to work in one of the fastest growing communities in the United States, where many developments and land-use plans have already been approved without much regard to their impact on area transportation. Fortunately, what makes working in Maricopa such a challenge is also Billingsley's favorite part of the job.

"The coolest thing about my job is I came in at a time where I get to build things from the ground up," Billingsley said. "This is a progressive community. This is a proactive community. This is a community that's starting from scratch. ... How neat is it to write the ordinances and the policies and start out with a new fresh system that's just being built."

Like a kid with a brand new set of Legos, Billingsley enthusiastically scours the maps and studies the traffic models in his office, searching for solutions to Maricopa's growing transportation problems. He is currently focused closely on two major projects, the Maricopa-Casa Grande Highway study and the Arizona 347 grade separation at the Union Pacific Railroad tracks, and has numerous other issues lined up on his planning horizon.

Billingsley calls the railroad crossing the most significant transportation project the city of Maricopa has ever faced. Consulting firm HDR Engineering is in the process of completing a feasibility study to determine whether the city should build an overpass or underpass at the location, as well as the implications of the large-scale project.

"The most important thing with this type of project is coming together with the funding partners," Billingsley said. "It's going to be very expensive. That's going to be the hard part. There are some creative funding mechanisms out there, such as opportunities to create public-private partnerships. But to get an improvement done, there is obviously a very high priority for the city."

The other major project on Billingsley's plate, a study of the Maricopa-Casa Grande Highway corridor, is closely related to the grade separation study as the railroad tracks run parallel to the roadway.

"This study is to update the corridor study that was done in 1993. Ultimately, what we want to get out of that is a design cross-section for what that highway needs to look like, where it needs to be, right-of-way issues, potential environmental impacts, drainage impacts, those types of things. It will help us determine what needs to be designed on Maricopa-Casa Grande Highway for the future."

According to Billingsley, public involvement, such as attending open-house meetings like the one held this past Wednesday, is crucial. Having worked in other states and large metropolitan areas like Denver, he has seen overwhelming citizen turnout for similar events, but says it's a different story in Arizona.

"The public part of these processes is key to the development and understanding of projects," Billingsley said. "Especially in Arizona, all too often, nobody shows up to these meetings and it does nothing but detriment the city, the consultants, and ultimately the public in the future. I think it will be different in Maricopa, knowing what I know about our demographics. I fully expect and hope that we're going to have a lot of folks participate in these processes."

Looking toward the near future, Billingsley hopes to turn more of his attention to a possible transit study.

"I'm sure that a lot of people hear the word transit and they think we're going to have buses driving around," he said. "More than likely, that's not the case. We're going to be looking at a number of different things."

Billingsley foresees several logical projects resulting from the study, including the possibility of a local Park-and-Ride lot and partnership with Valley Metro, as well as Dial-A-Ride and van pool programs. He also sees the potential for a regional commuter rail system.

"New rail is really expensive. I can't emphasize enough how expensive it really is. We're talking tens of billions of dollars to build a commuter line between Phoenix and Tucson. We just don't have that kind of money. ... That being said, there are opportunities. There is an existing corridor that runs from downtown Phoenix, past Arizona State University to Coolidge and on to Tucson. ... That's not to say we're going to bring commuter rail all the way to Maricopa, but it's certainly going to be looked at."

And while Billingsley says widening Arizona 347 to handle commuter traffic would be nice, it's not the ultimate solution.

"I've said it before and I'll say it again, 347 is a very important issue for us. It's a key issue. But widening 347 does not solve our problems. We need an alternate route. That is the key."

To that end, Billingsley is working to form a committee of key stakeholders, including officials from both Maricopa and Pinal counties, surrounding Indian communities and representatives from West Valley cities and developers to discuss alternate routes. One very real possibility is a future connection to Loop 303, which serves such West Valley cities as Avondale, Goodyear, Buckeye and Glendale.

"It's just so logical," Billingsley said. "I'm not saying that's going to happen, but it would make a whole lot of sense to have that connection."

Having watched similar projects and studies closely, such as the South Mountain Freeway expansion and East Valley corridor, Billingsley knows the city has many obstacles to overcome before any of these dreams become reality.

"But we have to plan without boundaries. We have to understand that there's going to be hurdles. If we don't plan, we're not doing ourselves any good. ... I have hope that we're going to be able to work something out for all of our good. I hope that we can show enough mutual benefit so everyone is hurt if something isn't done and everyone can win if something is done. ... History tells us there will be challenges. But to plan into the future, you have to hit those hurdles when you get to them. In the meantime you do the handshakes, the meeting in the middle, the trade-offs. You build relationships."

©Casa Grande Valley Newspapers Inc. 2006