When people from other, larger, metropolises hear Tucsonans complain about our traffic, they’ll often dismiss our moaning saying something to the effect that we don’t know what traffic congestion is compared to what they have in whatever city it is they came from.

Thank goodness we don’t have the kind of traffic they have elsewhere. Those places should also be thankful they don’t have our traffic planners. 

I’ve been thinking about this since August when I ran into a former high school classmate of mine who went on to become an engineer with CalTrans, California’s Department of Transportation. He was here visiting a mutual friend. We got to talking about the widening of Interstate 10 through downtown Tucson.

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It has bothered me that the widening is only adding one lane in each direction, which even Arizona’s Transportation Board has said isn’t enough to handle projected traffic loads.

Although my engineering friend didn’t know future traffic stats, he knew something about the I-10 widening and said I was overlooking an important aspect of the widening for both traffic flow and safety - there is going to be a continuous auxiliary lane between on-ramps and off-ramps.

Aren’t those always there? Not in Tucson. The CalTrans engineer was surprised at how little right-hand space there is between traffic lanes and curbs, even on major boulevards.

Not only does it impede the flow of traffic, it’s dangerous, he said. Having a right-hand lane wide enough to accommodate slowing and turning vehicles, allows continuing traffic to move at a steady pace. There are a few - East Broadway, Silverbell Road and First Avenue north of the River - but not many.  

Even new roadways aren’t being designed with proper shoulders. Take Pima County’s  recently completed Craycroft Road between River Road and Sunrise Drive. It’s a brand-new roadway on which a white stripe is painted, presumably to mark a bicycle lane. (If you want to see something that would be funny if it weren’t so stupid, take a look at the handicap ramp on the northeast corner of Craycroft and River. It goes right into block wall.)

Although these right lanes are legally available for turning traffic, they’re not wide enough. 

Without proper road designs, Tucson engineers have had to come up with add-ons or work-arounds to these basic design flaws, which in many cases only compound problems. Things such as lag left-turn traffic lights and pedestrian-activated traffic lights at crosswalks.

The $2.1 billion regional transportation plan approved by voters in 2006 included  200 bus pullout lanes which run just under $100,000 a pop to build. These wouldn’t have been necessary if roadways had been designed with proper shoulders.

And Tucson can talk all it wants about how bicycle friendly it thinks it is, but, really, how friendly is a city where people put up “ghost bike” monuments along unsafe roadways to commemorate where bicyclists have been killed?

E-mail comments for publication to editor@azbiz.com.

Contact David Hatfield at dhatfield@azbiz.com or (520) 295-4237.