5th/6th Street Livability & Circulation Study
Introduction
The relationship between land use and transportation was not well understood in the early 20 th century. Major streets were established without awareness of their potential adverse impacts on neighborhoods. It was not until the mid-1960s that the idea of layout out the street network to protect neighborhood units was incorporated into land and road planning documents. These patterns of development are apparent in the 5th/6th Street corridor, with its primarily residential land uses with pockets of commercial land uses, and structures dating back to the early 1900’s. As a result of these patterns, 5th/6th Street tends to straddle definitions of both collector and arterial roadway.
Fifth-Sixth Street is a collector in the sense that it is located halfway between two major arterials, funnels traffic from neighborhoods, and doesn’t provide ramps to Interstate 10. It also operates at times like an arterial, providing continuous travel as far east as Wilmot Road, and carrying more than 26,000 vehicles per day on western segments.
Before Speedway Boulevard was widened, the City acknowledged 5th/6th Street’s function by designating it in the Major Streets and Routes plan (MS&R) as a “commuter arterial.” Following completion of Speedway widening and removal of the reversible lane operations on 5th/6th Street, the Mayor and Council, in June 1995, reclassified 5th/6th Street from “commuter arterial” to “collector.”
In spite of the reclassification, with continuing growth of auto-oriented land uses in the Tucson metropolitan area, tens of thousands of people are driving every day past front doors on what is, predominantly, a residential street.
Some corridor residents feel that to functionally achieve a downgrading from arterial to collector, the capacity of 5th/6th Street should be reduced to one through lane in each direction. People who depend on 5th/6th Street for cross-town travel, commuters and business interests in particular, object to this proposed action.
Due to the uncertainty regarding the number of lands and types of facilities desirable for 5th/6th Street, the City of Tucson undertook Phase I of the 5th/6th Street Livability and Circulation Study.
The 5th/6th Street corridor is defined as the mile-wide swath bounded by Speedway Boulevard and Broadway Boulevard between I-10 and Wilmot Road. During Phase I, from September 1999 to April 2000, public sentiment about improving the corridor was gauged through a mail-back opinion survey, a motorist survey, and a series of public forums. Many diverse opinions were received. Concern fro the safety of all users of 5th/6th Street was clearly voiced. In terms of the number of lands and types of facilities for 5th/6th Street, however, no single sense of direction was registered.
It was also during Phase I that the 5th/6th Street Citizens Corridor Advisory Group (CCAG) was organized for Phase II. The CCAG’s role throughout Phase II of the project was to make recommendations on roadway design alternatives and to register preferences for master plan elements for the 5th/6th Street corridor. (A list of CCAG members is included in the Appendix.)
From the first CCAG meeting it was clear that CCAG members did not all share the same view as to what should be done to improve the livability and circulation of the corridor. It was, after all, a study advisory committee comprised of 40 people, representing such diverse interests as neighborhoods, educational institutions, businesses, and motorists from outside the corridor. A major difference of opinion among CCAG members was the number of travel lanes 5th/6th Street should accommodate.
Achieving consensus in Phase II was not easy, but over the course of a year, the CCAG demonstrated a high degree of enthusiastic participation. Monthly meeting attendance averaged a remarkable 72%, and observers numbered as many as 27 people. In the end, the CCAG crafted their own guiding statement for the corridor, which is presented in the Final Phase II Recommendations.
