By Parker Leavitt | The Republic | azcentral.com
Hop on an express bus from Goodyear to Phoenix. Cruise along Loop 303 past Luke Air Force Base. Scoot into the carpool lane on the Pima Freeway portion of Loop 101 to avoid a painful commute home.
None of that was possible a decade ago, until Maricopa County voters renewed a 0.5 percent sales tax increase to improve the region’s sprawling transportation network. When Proposition 400 won 58 percent of the vote in November 2004, George W. Bush was still in his first term as president and Facebook had just 1 million users.
Much has changed since then. The tax has raised about $3.1 billion for dozens of freeway, street and transit projects, but that vast sum is still $1 billion less than initially projected, with the Great Recession largely to blame.
The revenue gap is expected to widen to about $3.2 billion over the next decade, until the Prop. 400 tax expires in 2025. As a result, regional officials say, the public will almost certainly be asked to approve another tax extension, perhaps as soon as 2020.
Without an extension, the revenue shortfall could jeopardize freeway expansions in the East and West Valleys, a planned light-rail extension into northeast Phoenix and more than two dozen surface- treet projects across the region.
