Given the context for BRT planning in the Valley, this project, the Comprehensive Arterial Bus Rapid Transit Planning Study, is tasked with identifying demand for BRT and defining operational characteristics, capital infrastructure needs, and fleet requirements. The study considers how operational characteristics and needs of the BRT corridors may change as the regional transit network develops over the life of the 20 year transit program.

A diverse community of abundant, native amphibians is persisting along waterways of urban and urbanizing Tucson. Community and government leaders in Tucson support the concept of urban amphibian conservation in principle. Meanwhile, concurrent, commingled plans for infrastructure improvements and ecological restoration along major urban riparian corridors are being developed under leadership from Pima County, City of Tucson, and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

Paradoxically, as this work gets underway, it could impact local amphibian populations – temporarily via direct earth-moving impacts, and permanently via elimination of seasonal waters in which amphibians breed. Pima County wishes to minimize these negative impacts, and to learn how to protect, manage and improve habitat conditions for native amphibians. This report describes means by which—despite complex public health issues—such conservation may be possible with proper planning.

This floodplain study was prepared to identify the extent and magnitude of flooding within the boundary of the park under existing conditions. The results of the analysis and the associated hydrologic/hydraulic model will serve as the base condition model for all future developments to aid in the planning and design process.

Because the West Branch area has been left alone, it has a chance to recover and become a part of the larger Paseo de las Iglesias project, and a cornerstone of a more extensive effort at ecological restoration involving the mesic coorridors of Pima County, the Santa Cruz, Rillito, and Pantano.