The Regional Transportation Authority hopes to avoid past mistakes by starting projects earlier — including a high-priority new highway interchange at Cortaro Farms Road.
RTA Executive Director Mike Ortega said he has instituted new internal policies to avoid delays and drawn-out construction timelines for RTA road projects.
“My goal is to set us up to complete the program in 20 years, not start the program in the 20-year period. And that’s a tall order,” Ortega said.
Several projects from the RTA’s first 20-year plan, adopted by voters in 2006, were not finished by 2026 and had to be included again in RTA Next, the authority’s newest plan approved in March.
Ortega said his staff is now giving quarterly updates to the RTA’s board, management committee and citizens’ advisory committee. Those updates include the newest information on current projects as well as those still on the horizon, he said.
“That way, if there are challenges with the delivery going forward, it’s a very public and open discussion where the accountability becomes crystal clear,” Ortega said.
He said a new Advance Delivery Team within the RTA is tasked with identifying such challenges, like buying land for road widenings, building new electrical substations for major construction work, or addressing environmental concerns and public opposition. The team has also started updating the RTA’s board and committees.
Several of the most expensive projects in RTA Next — highway interchanges at Cortaro Farms Road, Tangerine Road and Moore Road as well as road improvements at Colossal Cave Road — involve building new bridges over railroad crossings.
Work could begin on the Cortaro interchange about 10 years earlier than scheduled, according to an RTA draft planning document.
“We’re having a lot of conversations about all the projects and how we can focus on those that are really complex and see what we can do to start them sooner,” Ortega said.
Under the original plan approved by voters, the much less heavily used Moore Road was set to receive a highway interchange before Cortaro Farms Road, despite Cortaro being identified as a higher need by Marana’s own transportation master plan.
But according to the new RTA draft planning document, a $20.4 million federal railroad crossing elimination grant Marana received last year could help preliminary work on the Cortaro interchange start as early as next year. The document — which Ortega emphasized is subject to change — says the RTA would later contribute its own $20.3 million to the project in 2030, with $220 million in expected state funding coming over the following years.
Highway interchanges in RTA Next are primarily funded by the Arizona Department of Transportation, which sets aside a portion of its annual highway funding for Pima County.
Ortega said starting some projects sooner will not delay other projects. According to the draft of ADOT’s most recent five-year plan, written before voters approved RTA Next, tens of millions in Pima County’s state highway funds were not yet allocated.
Ortega said the adoption of RTA Next means that ADOT can fill in its plan with new Pima County projects. He said the draft planning document is a way for the RTA to suggest to ADOT how to distribute state funds to local projects over the next 20 years.
The RTA draft planning document also proposes building a new highway interchange at South Rita Road between 2035 and 2039, rather than in RTA Next’s last period after 2042, as was originally scheduled.
Though the full draft document wasn’t presented to the RTA’s management committee until May 13, it is timestamped April 8.
One local official appears to have publicized part of it much sooner. On April 16, Marana Mayor Jon Post announced in a social media video that ADOT and the RTA told him work on the Cortaro interchange could start sooner than expected.
“I feel pretty confident that that could happen and if that happens, wow, that’s going to be a big game changer for the Continental Ranch area,” he said in the video.
Post, who succeeded the late Ed Honea as Marana’s mayor in 2025, is running for his first full term as mayor, in an election set for July 21.
