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Surprise previews transportation master plan: congestion, safety and draft road projects highlighted
Summary
City staff and consultants briefed council on the Transportation Master Plan vision and goals, reporting 663 survey responses and draft roadway recommendations that prioritize congestion relief, multimodal access, safety countermeasures and emerging technologies; staff said prioritization and funding plans will follow.
City staff and their consultant team presented an update May 5 on Surprise's first Transportation Master Plan (TMP), outlining the TMP vision, four goal statements and preliminary roadway recommendations prioritized by near-term needs analysis.
Consultant Brian Snyder said the TMP has completed the vision phase and that public engagement to date included a six‑week online survey with 663 responses and an interactive mapping activity that generated more than 100 location pins. "Seventy‑nine percent of the survey respondents had said that congestion is their number one barrier to getting from point A to point B," the consultant said, citing the survey findings.
Snyder and staff described four goals that will guide recommendations through 2050: (1) proactively manage growth and congestion by expanding and completing the roadway network and applying demand‑management strategies; (2) enhance a complete, multimodal transportation system that supports walking, bicycling, transit and other modes; (3) improve safety and reduce crashes and serious injuries; and (4) plan strategically for emerging transportation technologies such as intelligent transportation systems, electric vehicles and autonomous vehicles.
On roadway recommendations, the consultant highlighted draft projects prioritized for a 2030 horizon that respond to identified needs: capacity additions on Peoria Road through the city, expansion of Sun Valley Parkway, capacity work on Patton Road, and a new 179th Avenue connection to State Route 74. Consultants said prioritization is based on projected congestion by horizon year and further refined by needs analysis in Technical Memorandum 1.
Councilmembers asked technical and policy questions: Councilmember Duffy asked whether Maricopa County and neighboring cities had been engaged for freight and truck routing; staff said county and Glendale representatives participated in the regional partner focus group. Councilmember Haney and others pressed on deliverability and funding; staff said the next steps will prioritize short‑, mid‑ and long‑range projects and identify funding sources outside the general fund.
On active‑transportation and safety issues, the TMP team noted common barriers to walking and biking — lack of sidewalks, poor lighting, insufficient ADA facilities and lack of shade — and proposed targeted crossings and a Transportation Safety Action Plan as a component of the TMP.
The TMP presenters said outreach will continue (public outreach round 2) before moving into prioritization, drafting the final TMP and returning to council for formal adoption and implementation planning. The council did not take an adoption vote at the May 5 briefing.
