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.

This circulation study has developed transportation improvements for all transportation modes including automobile, transit, bicycle, pedestrian, and equestrian transportation. Although bicycle and equestrian travel is not common on the East Reservation, projects were developed to encourage future use of these modes of travel. The plan recommends transportation improvements for 5, 10, and 20 year planning horizons

This study identifies a plan of improvements for vehicular, transit, and nonmotorized transportation and outlines the specific actions necessary to implement and sustain the plan. The recommendations for these elements are based on technical analyses of existing and future conditions as well as stakeholder and public input. The Study identifies projects that establish and improve multimodal options for Nation members. The development of these suggested projects includes consideration of evaluation criteria addressing such issues as safety and connection of multimodal transportation modes throughout the Nation and to the greater region. The Study projects will be included in the Nation’s Long-Range Transportation Plan, which provides the vision for meeting the community’s transportation needs over a 20-year planning horizon.

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.

The purpose of the Verde Valley Multimodal Transportation Study is to develop a long-range regional transportation plan to guide the implementation of transportation improvements on the roads of regional significance in the Verde Valley, including I-17, State Routes, and roads on the County Regional Road System. This Study is an update of the 1999 Verde Valley Transportation Study Update.