The Arizona Department of Transportation, in coordination with Apache County District II and the Fort Defiance Chapter of the Navajo Nation, analyzed the traffic circulation conditions of Navajo Routes 7, 12, 54, 110, and 112 within the Fort Defiance Industrial Area which is designated as a major growth area on the Navajo Nation. The study was funded by the Federal Highway Administration’s State Planning and Research Program and administered through ADOT’s Multimodal Planning Division's Planning Assistance for Rural Areas (PARA) program. The study was initiated to develop a planning strategy to improve the mobility and safety within the Fort Defiance Industrial Area.

The primary purpose of this study is to determine what transportation improvements would be needed to accommodate future growth and development of the Raytheon Missile Systems facility located south of Tucson International Airport on Hermans Road. A secondary purpose of this study is to consider longer-term roadway and transit improvements that will improve access to Tucson International Airport and associated airport property planned for future development. Specifically, the study analyzed the effects of closing Hughes Access Road/Alvernon Way to non-Raytheon traffic and recommends alternative roadway improvements that would be needed to accommodate this closure.

"This guidelines and procedures manual is intended to be used by the staff of the Arizona Department of Transportation (ADOT) and Arizona's regional transportation planning agencies, which include Councils of Governments (COGs), Metropolitan Planning Organizations (MPOs), and Transportation Management Areas (TMAs). In addition to outlining the guidelines and procedures for regional transportation planning functions, this manual provides an overview of the programs administered by the ADOT Multimodal Planning Division (MPD)."--Introduction, Page 1-1

The Multimodal Planning Division (MPD) of the Arizona Department of Transportation has been tasked with identifying corridors throughout the state where improvements to the transportation infrastructure supports the greatest potential commercial and economic benefits. These "Key Commerce Corridors" represent a strategic statewide approach to leverage infrastructure improvements to enhance Arizona's competitive economic position. This document presents the basis for the identification and evaluation of the Key Commerce Corridors.

This report describes the development of base and future socioeconomic estimates for the Pinal Corridor Planning Model, developed by ADOT to support the evaluation of potential new highway corridors in Northern Pinal County. This section presents a summary of the methodology, data sources used, and historical trends in population and employment growth. The following two sections present the base and future year methods and resulting estimates of population and employment.

In September 2004, ADOT awarded a contract for the Pinal County Corridors Definition Study to Kimley-Horn and Associates. The scope of the Pinal County Corridors Definition Study included the following activities:
* Confirm the need for the East Valley and the North-South corridors;
* Define planning-level corridor definition alternatives;
* Perform a technical assessment of engineering, environmental, and land use compatibility constraints opportunities for the planning-level corridor definition alternatives;
* Identify to the extent possible, feasible and preferred planning-level corridor definitions on the basis of the technical evaluation;
* Document planning-level costs of corridor development (including studies, design, construction, and right-of-way costs) for the preferred corridor definitions.

The Pinal County Corridors Definition Study resulted in sufficient detail to provide a basis for the future establishment of geometric roadway alignments and corridor design concepts, the preservation of right-of-way, and the identification of required environmental clearance studies.

In order to work effectively, concurrency requirements and level of service standards mus be an integral part of long term planning and the development review process. To create incentives for density, affordable housing, and mixed use development, staff will propose the application of lower level of service standards for land use types appropriate to certain growth areas.