CATALINA FOOTHILLS, Ariz. (KGUN) — Every time Ed Bartkowski leaves his house on Williams Drive and goes onto Rudasill Road, he’s worried about the amount of cars that speed.
Coming upon an S curve on Rudasill, he’s seen many cars that have exceeded the speed limit.
“You can see that it’s a sharp S Curve out here that people were traveling at a high rate of speed,” Bartkowski said.
Until recently, the speed limit on Rudasill was 35 miles an hour, but the County recently changed it to 30 miles per hour after Bartkowski and his neighbors pushed for the decrease.
Bartkowski, who along with his neighbors has met with officials from the County, is also hoping the County puts a guard rail on the north side of the road where there have been deaths.
“The guard rail will protect vehicles from losing control and veering off,” he said.
The County said the Department of Transportation is looking into money for the guard rail and said a new developer called UIP Quail Canyon One might have to pay for it. They’re the developer that is building 117 houses and over 200 apartments on Rudasill.
The County said they are considering putting signs that will tell drivers their speed. They also said they’re coming up with a county-wide plan for those signs. They say that plan will be available next month.
Bartkowski said he also wants the County to put a stop on demand light at the intersection of Rudasill and First.
“It would stop the flow of traffic going north and south on First. The traffic trying to make that left hand turn would do so,” he said.
When it comes to improvements, he said the County did paint arrows to clarify the lanes.
Back in November, reporter Andrew Christiansen put in a Freedom of Information Act request to the Pima County Sheriff’s Department for statistics about how many accidents have happened on Rudasill Road between First and Oracle.
Since February 2019, PCSD said there have been 14 crashes and wrecks. They said most of them have been because of a left turn. Two out of the four in 2023 happened after Christiansen’s last story aired.
Bartkowski said he’s worried the new development will also bring more traffic and accidents.
“Those people are only going to raise the probability that those numbers are not the highest that you’ll ever see. They’re going to probably just quadruple in frequency,” Bartkowski said.
However, since working with the County, Bartkowski is glad they are working with him and other neighbors, but knows it will take time and money to make improvements.
“If they don’t make those improvements, people will be hurt,” he said.
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Andrew Christiansen is a reporter for KGUN 9. Before joining the team, Andrew reported in Corpus Christi, Texas for KRIS6 News, Action 10 News and guest reported in Spanish for Telemundo Corpus Christi. Share your story ideas with Andrew by emailing andrew.christiansen@kgun9.com or by connecting on Facebook, or Twitter.
