Latest Dates on I-17 Improvements

On March 3, representatives from the Arizona Department of Transportation joined residents from District 6 for our monthly coffee meeting at the Anthem Community Center. Here’s a highlight of what they talked about:

• The State Transportation Board has approved funding from the Statewide Acceleration Needs (STAN) account authorized by the Legislature to advance construction for a third general-purpose lane on I-17 from the Carefree Highway to Anthem Way. This project was originally scheduled to be constructed in 2023, based on the Regional Transportation Plan developed by the Maricopa Association of Governments. However, construction of the HOV lane along this section of I-17 is still planned for the phase from 2021 to 2025.

• Construction of I-17 improvements between Loop 101 and Anthem Way are set to begin this spring. Here’s how the projects are scheduled:


• New interchanges at Jomax Road and Dixileta Drive will start construction this spring.


• This summer, construction will begin on the new Carefree Highway interchange – which will be a diamond-clover design developed with community input. There will not be roundabouts installed.


• This coming winter, we will see the addition of new lanes from Loop 101 to Jomax Road. This will add one general-purpose lane and one HOV lane in each direction. Deer Valley Road interchange improvements will also begin.


• In the spring of 2008, ADOT will begin the addition of freeway lanes from Jomax Road to the Carefree Highway. This will also add a general-use and an HOV lane in each direction. At the same time, new interchanges at Dove Valley Road and Lone Mountain Road will begin. Lone Mountain Road will be the future connection for the Loop 303.

ADOT said all I-17 improvement projects from Loop 101 to the Carefree Highway are scheduled to be complete by the end of 2009. By 2010, they will complete the additional lanes to Anthem Way. They stressed the importance of drivers to slow down, pay attention and be patient during construction.

If you have questions, here’s the West Valley contact for ADOT projects:

Timothy Tait
ADOT Community Relations
Email: ttait@azdot.gov
Phone: 602.712.7070
Project Hotline: 602.283.1195

What Exactly is it That you Do?

“What exactly is it that you do?”

You may have met me around town or at a mutual friend’s barbecue, but don’t remember…  I was the one seeming to dodge your direct question with very general (but true) answers.    Why?  Well, honestly, because I would really like to finish my bratwurst without you realizing it was your state senator with sauerkraut hanging on her chin.   And, in my effort to stay on dinner guest lists in the future, I am desperately trying to avoid politics as a topic.  

In this effort to preserve my normalcy in new social situations, I have developed a fun little repertoire of snappy comebacks when asked about my employment.  I realized, in a moment of quiet reflection, while sitting in yet another hopeless traffic jam on I-17, that there is a lot to learn from these little downplays of my job.  Here’s what I mean…

“I work for the government.”

“Well, actually, I answer to thousands of bosses.  It is really impossible to please them all.”

“I spend most of my time in meetings.”

“I am in the business of defining anti-social behavior.”

“It’s kind of like volunteer work because I get paid next to nothing but it is very satisfying.”

“I go through a year-long interview every even numbered year in order to keep my job.”

“Half the people I deal with are ridiculously nice to me.  The other half are incredibly abusive.”

“Most people smart enough to do this job are smart enough to not do it.”

The real shocker, though, is when I have run through my entire list of avoidance tactic explanations of my employment and I finally confess that I am a State Senator.  The responses I get from “real” people are the most revealing…

#1 Response:  “How do you like D.C.?”
#2 Response: “Sooooo.  What exactly does a legislator do?”  (At which point, I loop back to the snappy comebacks).

Napolitano wants to be Your Big Brother... err, Big Sister

Napolitano wants to be Your Big Brother… err, Big Sister

In the Gov’s State of the State address, there were many fantastical ideas thrown about.  Most will never see the light of day because they are just that, a fantasy.  Some of them we are happy to know will remain in the 9th floor chuckles archive titled “Can you believe they fall for this stuff?”  But, at least one of her ideas mentioned has already quietly taken flight through the previously appropriated budget for her Department of Public Safety (DPS).  It is the license plate recognition program.  The Gov pitched it as a way she plans to crack down on car thieves and catch criminals on our roads.  What she didn’t mention is the enormous sacrifice law-abiding citizens will make of their privacy and that the State of Arizona has effectively become your Big Brother.

I caught wind of this during a meeting with DPS regarding a completely different issue over the interim.  The agency representative was apparently excited by the idea that they would be taking a picture of every passing vehicle at various locations around the state and keeping that data for future review.  I suggested immediately that they may have trouble with this program, seeing as how many of us down at the legislature still believe in the American citizen’s constitutionally-protected right to privacy…

Fast forward to post-election and the introduction of the “One Arizona” by the Gov. and this frightening idea is now moved beyond a little pilot project by an agency without oversight.  Now this “government is watching you” program has been jettisoned into the heady atmosphere of the Governor’s priority programs, specifically mentioned in her State of the State address.  

This is why I recently introduced a bill that would prohibit your state and local governments from recording and then storing information on the whereabouts of law-abiding citizens (which in America, you are all presumed to be, least ‘til proven otherwise).  My bill allows law enforcement agencies to view passing vehicles via their cameras, as I understand they need to find criminals. But they cannot store the image or the data collected there beyond 24 hours if they do not have information showing it is a stolen vehicle or was used in a crime.  

I realize it sounds easier to find criminals by requiring each of us to report our whereabouts hourly, give a drop of blood for DNA testing to the government, have cameras with facial recognition software installed throughout the state in public and private locations, submit identifying information every time you complete a financial transaction, etc.  But at what cost?  How “free” would you really be, even as a law-abiding citizen?  If in trying to track down the miniscule percentage of people that make trouble, all people must live under the constant scrutiny of “Big Brother” government and her ongoing political agenda, we have given up far too much.

Our freedom is the core of what makes us Americans, after all.