The State of the System Report is a compilation of the physical inventory and status of the Maricopa County Department of Transportation’s infrastructure. It addresses roadway congestion, traffic safety, low volume road paving, bridges, and pavement conditions. Also, included are recommendations for future improvements within each of the infrastructure categories. The SOS report has been produced annually since 1998.

The Decision Center for a Desert City at Arizona State University—funded by the National Science Foundation since 2004—conducts research relevant to water resources and urban climate dynamics under multiple uncertainties. This report summarizes and synthesizes research findings and achievements of DCDC after almost a decade of research and science-policy interactions. Water resource decision-making is complicated by climate change and variability, population growth and economic development, diverse stakeholder interests and fragmented governance. While these factors generate various uncertainties and complexities for decision-makers, DCDC pursues research to create a more sustainable future. The DCDC contributes to water management and urban sustainability by conducting basic science and collaborating with policymakers and stakeholders to solve real-world problems. As detailed herein, DCDC research, education, and community outreach have made substantial contributions to improving water-resource governance and climate adaptation.

Prior to developing and approving new ordinances that would further regulate sex- offender distance restrictions and clustering, the Phoenix City Council approved a study to examine the nature and impact of sex-offender clustering. Their overall goal was to use the study to fill in some important knowledge gaps about the issue of sex-offender residential clustering in order to inform the development of effective policy. To examine this issue on behalf of the city council, we relied on a multi-methodological research design. We wanted to incorporate information from several different points of view, giving policy makers a more comprehensive perspective from which to inform their decision making. For this study, we relied on four resources: official police data, offender interview data, citizen survey data, and key stakeholder interview data.

The 2009 Navajo Nation Long Range Transportation Plan is a twenty-year comprehensive plan developed and updated by the Navajo Division of Transportation in a five-year cycle. The plan identifies the Nation’s multi-modal transportation needs over the next 20 years and develops strategies to meet them. The plan provides long range planning policies and implementation strategies for the Navajo Indian Reservation Roads Program improvements. It is based on a comprehensive analysis of all pertinent factors and issues affecting the Navajo Nation’s existing and future transportation needs.

In a rapidly growing desert metropolis such as Phoenix, the question of which water conservation measures and factors actually save water and which do not is an obviously important one. The water-related decisions made today and in the years to come will have lasting impact on the future of this area, including upon its sustainability. Estimates from the City of Phoenix suggest that, in non-SRP-areas, water demand will exceed water supply by the year 2025--absent droughts or intervention.

This report documents and analyzes the results of a multivariate regression analysis designed to estimate the effects on residential, single-family water consumption of a host of factors, particularly water conservation policies.

Believing that voters might support transit if they felt like an integral part of the transit proposal decision-making process, the Phoenix Chamber of Commerce's Valleywide Transit Task Force set out in early 1995 to initiate a bottom-up process which would enable people to say, "here's what we want." The Task Force agreed that the first step in the process was to initiate a new dialogue. the Morrison Institute for Public Policy was asked to write a briefing paper, which would re-invigorate the transit debate. The resulting report, "Transit in the Valley: Where Do We Go From Here?" painted a bleak picture of the Valley's existing transit system and challenged many long-held conventional wisdoms. The dialogue had begun. The report was then presented to the citizens of 17 Valley cities and towns for their consideration in 16 public meetings sponsored by cities and their local Chambers of Commerce. In community forums conducted between October 1996 and February 1997, more than 500 Valley residents discussed the Valley's transit future. This document summarizes the questionnaire responses by 501 people who attended the forums.