The Office of Highway Safety produces the annual Highway Safety Plan to serve as the implementation guide for highway safety projects throughout Arizona. The Plan also is an application for funding through the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Project selection is data driven and utilizes state and national traffic safety data (e.g., crashes, fatalities, injuries, citations, etc.). Knowledge of the Arizona political, economic, and demographic environments, as well as highway safety expertise on the part of staff and other partners also are taken into account where appropriate.

The CAPER report represents a collaborative effort between the Arizona Department of Housing and the Arizona Department of Economic Security. This document outlines the State’s affordable housing and community development resources, their methods of distribution, geographic funding objectives, and actions by the State to meet those objectives during the past fiscal year.

Housing plays a major role in the United States and Arizona economies. It is estimated that the housing industry accounts for one-fifth of our nation’s Gross Domestic Product. Despite the economic importance of housing, Arizona did not have a comprehensive approach or strategy for dealing with housing policy issues. In 1994, a Housing Summit addressed increasing concerns about the cost of housing. Participants from across the state met to discuss growing housing needs. A major outcome of the summit was the formation of the Affordable Housing Task Force, designed to review the state’s housing market and suggest ways the state could address housing affordability. Its principal recommendation was the creation of a permanent body that would focus attention on workable housing solutions. The Arizona Housing Commission was created by Executive Order in 1996 to serve as an advisory body to the Governor, the Legislature and the Arizona Department of Commerce, which is the primary agency currently responsible for housing programs. In 1997, the passage of House Bill 2011 formally established the Commission in statute.

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development requires all government entities receiving federal low-income housing and community development funds to prepare an Annual Action Plan. This is a one-year plan to address the low-income housing and community development needs in the state of Arizona, with a special focus on serving the small cities and rural areas of the state. It consolidates the planning, application, and funding requirements for several programs funded by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development: Community Development Block Grant; HOME Investment Partnerships Program; Emergency Solutions Grant; and Housing Opportunities for Persons with AIDS. The federal and state-funded housing and community development projects and programs described within the Action Plan are administered and implemented by ADOH, the Arizona Department of Economic Security, units of local or regional government, or non-profit agencies.

This report includes both housing data and policy recommendations which are meant to stimulate debate and provide a menu of options for policy makers and intends to fulfill the following goals:
• Provide information on key socioeconomic trends which affect housing affordability including population
growth, household formation, age distribution and income growth.
• Communicate information on housing market trends including home ownership rates, rent levels and vacancy rates, home sales prices and new construction activity.
• Analyze cost components of typical new single-family housing and multifamily construction in Arizona.
• Identify potential regulatory and policy barriers to housing affordability.
• Recommend leadership and resource policies that will avert a potential housing crisis and improve housing affordability across the state.

The Arizona Department of Transportation has been involved with railroad planning since 1976, with its first State Rail Plan Update issued in 1978. The most recent report, the 2000 Arizona State Rail Plan Update was an important starting point for this Inventory and Assessment in that the seven-year-old study provides the description and inventory of Arizona railroads as they existed at that time. There have been a number of important changes over the intervening years, and these are reflected in this 2007 Inventory and Assessment. In addition to the 2000 State Rail Plan Update, RLBA made use of the 2003 Maricopa Association of Governments (MAG) High-Capacity Transit Study and the 1998 Arizona High Speed Rail Feasibility Study. The information contained in this report was gathered from a number of sources, including the railroads themselves, ADOT, the Arizona Corporation Commission, MAG and numerous Arizona officials. A listing of persons who contributed to this Railroad Inventory and Assessment is provided under “Acknowledgements” inside the front cover. Information in this report also was obtained from the Association of American Railroads and from RLBA’s extensive data banks.