State Transportation Board 101

ADOT’s Long-Range Transportation Plan was formally adopted earlier this month.

You might remember that we blogged about the plan and wrote about the successful outreach effort used to help shape the plan.

ADOT planners will now use the Long-Range Transportation Plan as a guide to build a transportation system designed to carry Arizona into the future!

But just who is this group – otherwise known as the State Transportation Board – that adopted the plan?

The State Transportation Board is made up of seven members appointed by the Governor. Six of the members are chosen to represent a specific transportation district and one serves at large. Board members serve a term of six years each.

In addition to serving in an advisory capacity to the ADOT Director, the Transportation Board is granted specific policy powers and duties, including:

• Responsibility for establishing a complete system of state highway routes and determining which state highway routes are accepted into the state highway system and which state highway routes are to be improved.
• Final authority on establishing, opening, relocating, altering, vacating, or abandoning any portion of a state route or state highway, including establishment of parkways and historic and scenic roadways.
• Awarding construction contracts and monitoring the status of construction projects.

And it doesn’t end with roads… the Transportation Board also:

• distributes the money appropriated from the State Aviation Fund for planning, design, development, land acquisition, construction and improvement of publicly owned airport facilities;
• approves airport construction;
• has the exclusive authority to issue revenue bonds for financing needed transportation improvements throughout the state;
• determines priority program planning with respect to transportation facilities;
• annually adopts the five-year construction program;
• and, as we mentioned earlier, adopts the Long-Range Transportation Plan.

The board typically meets once a month and its meetings are open to the public. For more about the board, or to check out the minutes of past meetings, visit the State Transportation Board.