By Alexander Lomax
Photo Credit: AZ Big Media
It’s not often that you need to pay back a major sum of money to not build a road. However this is exactly where the city of Scottsdale finds itself after a controversial and somewhat head-scratching decision by city council.
In a recent decision, the Scottsdale City Council voted to cancel the construction of a roundabout at the intersection of Scottsdale Road and Dynamite Boulevard in north Scottsdale. This project, initiated by the previous administration, was funded by a $30 million federal grant. With the project’s cancellation, the city is now obligated to repay these funds.
The decision to halt the project was influenced by various factors, including community feedback and reassessment of the project’s impact. The council’s choice ostensibly reflects a shift in priorities, aiming to address residents’ concerns and allocate resources more effectively.
This move has sparked discussions among Scottsdale residents and officials regarding the financial and infrastructural implications of such decisions, with residents on both sides of the issue coming out in relative force to speak to it. While a robust public debate is no doubt a positive, it is unfortunate that it came to this.
Arguments against the roundabout generally focused on one issue: driveability, and more specifically for certain types of vehicles it would be relatively tight, as well as the difficulty of learning how to drive on a roundabout.
While the concern about trucks with horse trailers is a fairly valid one, the rationale about the difficulty in driving them rings absolutely hollow. It’s not rocket science. Even for an elderly population, it’s difficult to not see any functioning adult pick up on it rather quickly.
In the meantime, $30 million will need to be diverted from other projects to pay back the federal grant. That’s $30 million that could have been used to make the roundabout lanes a bit wider to address concerns, or to create an educational campaign to teach drivers how to use it.
It seems as though this iteration of council has often been more concerned with undoing anything that started with the last iteration, even at a significant cost to the city. Being punitive is one thing, but being punitive at a $30 million price tag is a whole other thing altogether.