Arizona has earned a bronze rating as a bicycle friendly state from the League of American Bicyclists, according to a news release from a local cycling committee.

Just six states applied for the designation, which is based on factors related to the states’ commitment to improved cycling conditions, and four made the grade, the Tucson-Pima County Bicycle Advisory Committee news release said.

The league rates states based on legislation, programs, places to ride and education of the public on bicycle recreation and transportation, according to the league’s Web site.

The program, which was launched last year, has four levels of recognition: platinum, gold, silver and bronze. No state earned the platinum or gold award. Only Washington and Wisconsin earned silver.

Tucson is Arizona’s only gold level bicycle-friendly community. Tempe and Scottsdale earned silver awards and Chandler, Flagstaff, Mesa and Gilbert earned bronze.

Traffic on Interstate 10 through Tucson will be detoured to the frontage roads over the weekend.

I-10 will be closed from Prince Road to 29th Street from 9 p.m. Friday until 6 a.m. Monday as part of the I-10 widening project.

Northbound I-19 will also be closed at the westbound I-10 frontage road exit and all traffic will be detoured onto the frontage road.

Speedway Boulevard and Congress Street will be closed at I-10 from 8 p.m. and 9 p.m., respectively, Monday through Wednesday until 6 a.m. the next morning.

State lawmakers have pulled back on an effort to raid up to $210 million in development impact funds raised by cities and towns, but area officials say they are not convinced the issue has gone away.

The Pima Association of Government’s Regional Council aired the issue at its monthly meeting Thursday, with some members fearing that such an action could shred regional transportation improvement programs.

Impact fees collected by municipalities must be spent to lessen the effects of new development. The funds can be spent on roads, police and fire stations, and parklands.

The Legislature is facing a $3 billion deficit for the fiscal year that starts July 1. Senate leaders have vowed not to act on any bills until a 2009-10 state budget is passed.

That is one factor blocking floor votes on the proposal, which would hold back $210 million from state shared sales tax revenues owed to municipalities.

Municipalities would then have to replace those lost shared revenues with money from impact fees to maintain services funded by the state tax receipts.

“It’s impossible to fathom how they’re going to implement this,” John Liosotos, transportation planning manager for PAG, told Regional Council members.

Support for the proposal among legislators in limited, Liosotos said.

“Everything we hear is there is not a lot of support in either party,” Liosotos said.

But Oro Valley Mayor Paul Loomis voiced concern that the proposal could come back later in the legislative session, after the budget issue is settled.

The measure has the backing of the homebuilding industry in the state, whose members have called for a moratorium on development impact fees during the down market for new homes.

PHOENIX – The debate over the first statewide speed camera enforcement program in the nation has reached a boiling point following the fatal shooting of a camera operator.

Critics of Arizona’s program condemned the killing but vow they’ll continue to fight what they call unfair and overly intrusive government. Supporters of the program say camera opponents have inflamed the public, and that the speed cameras have made highways safer.

Doug Georgianni, 51, was killed on April 19, as he operated a speed-enforcement van on a Phoenix freeway. Thomas Patrick Destories, a 68-year-old Phoenix man, is being held in Maricopa County jail on a first-degree murder charge in the death. He has declined to comment.

Authorities haven’t said what they believe the motive might be, but said the two men had never met. Many simply assume the killing was the latest and most extreme backlash against Arizona’s photo-enforcement program.

Arizonans have used sticky notes, Silly String and even a pickax to sabotage the cameras since September when they began snapping photos of highway speeders driving 11 mph or more over the speed limit.

State lawmakers have proposed two bills to do away with the cameras, and three separate citizens groups are targeting them in initiatives for the 2010 ballot.

“The conversation on everyone’s mind in Arizona is the photo radar killing. That’s what everyone is talking about,” said Shawn Dow, a volunteer with the citizens group CameraFRAUD.com.

CameraFRAUD.com is the largest and most organized of the groups going after the cameras. Its initiative would ban photo-enforcement cameras throughout Arizona, including those in the statewide program and those run by individual municipalities, such as red light cameras in Tempe.

Dow said the Arizona Department of Public Safety and camera operator RedFlex Traffic Systems Inc. put Georgianni in danger by having him in a marked law enforcement vehicle even though he was a civilian.

“They’re putting these people in marked police vehicles that are civilians that have no training, no way to defend themselves,” Dow said. “We should have trained police officers – cops, not cameras.”

DPS spokesman Lt. James Warriner said the department is working with RedFlex to decide how the vans will operate in the future, and that they may be unmanned.

The speed vans were pulled from Arizona freeways Monday; fixed cameras are still operating.

Warriner said critics have blamed his agency for the killing “when all we’re doing is administering a program that was mandated by state Legislature and the former governor.

“Because of (critics’) vocalness, you could almost say they’ve led to this, too – because of their protests, the encouragement of people to strike out,” he said.

Warriner said Georgianni’s killing will not stop photo enforcement.

Karen Finley, president and chief executive officer of RedFlex, said in a statement that the company is being “deliberative and prudent” in its review of establishing criteria to redeploy mobile speed cameras. She declined to comment further.

Republican Rep. Sam Crump of Anthem, who is seeking to ban speed cameras on state highways, condemned Georgianni’s killing.

“While we don’t know at this time what the motives were for this senseless killing, many have understandably speculated that it was due to anger against the speed cameras,” he said in a statement the day after the killing. “To the extent there is any truth to that, I call on all individuals to reduce the war of words on this topic. Whatever the motives for this crime were, there is absolutely no justification for such a heinous act.”

The photo-enforcement program was launched under then- Gov. Janet Napolitano.

PHOENIX — Screeners working at their regular Customs counters at Phoenix’s Sky Harbor International Airportwere on the lookout for people showing flu-like symptoms Monday.

Such passengers will be given masks and gloves and brought into a separate room where they will be asked about their travels and activities over the past week.

Passengers arriving from Mexico are being given a flier saying public health officials are investigating an outbreak of swine flu, listing symptoms of the respiratory illness, and providing tips on how to prevent it from spreading. If necessary, sick travelers will be referred to local health officials and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“We are going to be able to hear if they are coughing, if they are stuffy,” said Bonnie Arellano, a spokeswoman for U.S. Customs and Border Protection in Arizona, which is in charge of the screenings here.

Eighteen nonstop flights by US Airways and Aeromexico are run each day between Phoenix and cities in Mexico.

Arizona health officials say the state has no confirmed or suspected cases of swine flu so far.

Department of Health Services spokeswoman Laura Oxley said Monday that the department’s lab is testing flu samples submitted by physicians and other clinicians but that none fall outside normal flu types.

Documented cases of swine flu have turned up in a number of other states, including California and Texas.

Arizona officials are urging health providers to be on the lookout for swine flu and to submit samples for testing.

Meanwhile, health officials say people should frequently wash their hands, sneeze into a tissue and stay home if they’re sick.

The first layer of asphalt went down Friday to give the first inkling of what the new Scott Avenue will look like between Broadway and the Temple of Music and Art.

Trees and shrubbery will be planted this week along both sides of the newly laid sidewalks.

The five blocks of Scott south of Broadway should be ready for pedestrians May 4 and “shortly after that” the street should be reopened for vehicle traffic, said Fran LaSala, assistant to the city manager. Drivers will find a drastically narrower street and limited parking.

The $4.8 million streetscape project was funded with Rio Nuevo tax increment financing money and also involved replacing water lines. A grand opening ceremony is set for May 20.

RENEE BRACAMONTE/Tucson Citizen

There are major Interstate 10 lane restrictions planned for next week:

• The eastbound frontage road at Interstate 10 from Speedway to 29th Street is to be closed Saturday from 8 p.m. until about 6 a.m Sunday.

• The eastbound frontage road from Miracle Mile to 29th Street is to be closed Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. until 3 p.m. and 7 p.m. to 6 a.m.

• The westbound frontage road from 29th Street to Speedway is to be restricted to a single lane Saturday from 8 p.m. until about midnight and again from 2 a.m. until 6 a.m.

• The westbound frontage road from 29th Street to Speedway is to be closed Saturday from midnight until 2 a.m.

• The westbound frontage road from 29th Street to Miracle Mile is to have intermittent closures Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. until 3 p.m. and from 7 p.m. until 6 a.m.

• Grant Road at I-10 is to be closed Monday through Friday from 8 p.m. until 6 a.m.

• Speedway Boulevard at I-10 is to be closed Thursday from 8 p.m. until 6 a.m.

• St. Mary’s Road at I-10 is to be closed Saturday through Monday from 8 p.m. until 6 a.m.

• Congress Street is to be closed at the freeway Monday through Thursday from 9 a.m. until 6 a.m.

• 22nd Street at I-10 is to be closed until 6 a.m. Monday.

The Tucson police photo radar van, its use suspended this week after a unit operator was killed in Phoenix, will be back in service next week, the Tucson Police Department announced Friday.

American Traffic Solutions pulled its Tucson van from operation after the Phoenix shooting to implement security measures. The new security – which police declined to identify – is in place and van patrols will resume Monday, a TPD news release read.

Thomas Patrick Destories, 68, faces charges of first-degree murder, drive-by shooting and firing a gun at a structure. Doug Georgianni, 51, was fatally shot Sunday as he operated a state photo radar van.

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Monday schedule

• 7-10:30 a.m., Alvernon Way near Kleindale Avenue

• 11 a.m.-1:30 p.m., Fort Lowell Road between Mountain and Campbell avenues

• 2-5 p.m., 3700 block of North Stone Avenue

• 5:30-9 p.m., Wetmore Road near Oracle Road

PHOENIX — A Federal Aviation Administration database released on Friday shows aircraft have struck birds or other animals more than 1,200 times in Arizona since 2000.

In six cases, aircraft flying out of Tucson or Phoenix had what the FAA classified as “substantial” damage after hitting birds, and others had lesser damage. At least six commercial jetliners had engines with damaged fan blades needing replacing or repair. In one 2002 case, a propeller-driven commuter plane had to return to Phoenix after a bird struck its wing and punched a hole in a fuel tank.

Passengers evacuated the plane safely as fuel poured onto the runway. Firefighters covered it in foam and plugged the leak.

In all, 1,259 bird strikes or animal collisions were reported from 2000 through 2008. No fatalities were reported.

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On the Web

FAA Wildlife Strike database:

http://wildlife-mitigation.tc.faa.gov/public—html/index.html#access

Arizona needs more money, coordinated efforts and planning on transportation, a diverse gathering of community leaders and transportation experts said Wednesday.

A higher fuel tax, the elimination of a transportation sales tax cap for counties and the creation of a statewide panel to guide planning were among the chief recommendations by the biannual Arizona Town Hall’s 127 participants from across the state.

Planning is the key, said Town Hall President Tara Jackson. “Some would argue we are already behind,” she said.

The group concluded the best way to plan would involve a state-level panel of representatives from cities, counties, tribes, businesses, academia, nonprofits and other stakeholders.

The panel should plan based on the grass-roots needs of communities, a “value-based” approach, the group said.

The plan should recognize economic development and ecological considerations and help shift the state away from dependence on foreign oil.

The panel would work to eliminate fragmented planning, educate the public and encourage discourse and prioritize needs.

The Town Hall recommends several ways to pay for transportation improvements.

The fuel tax should be adjusted to account for inflation and indexed to inflation to make sure it does not fall behind on the cost of providing services, the group suggested.

“One is to play catch-up, and one is to index for the future,” said Si Schorr, a Town Hall participant who represents Pima County on the State Transportation Board.

The fuel tax has not changed since its inception in 1991.

Other suggestions include toll roads with “congestion pricing,” which would charge more for people using the highways during high-traffic hours, said James Condo, a Phoenix attorney who led the final session to hammer out amendments to the Town Hall report.

Participants met in four groups Monday and Tuesday at the Doubletree Hotel Tucson at Reid Park, then met as one big group to craft amendments to the draft, which was completed Tuesday evening and posted on the Internet for Town Hall members by midnight. Throughout the day Wednesday the document was evolving.

A final draft will be on the Arizona Town Hall Web site next week, Jackson said.

The final report will be combined with the massive background report and distributed widely, Jackson said.

She thinks the goals are achievable, because they were crafted by a broad array of community leaders and experts. Those experts and leaders can now help make the suggestions happen, she said.

“Little of this can be done tomorrow, but I don’t think any of this is pie in the sky,” Jackson said. “These are not people prone to pie-in-the-sky ideas.”

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On the Web

Arizona Town Hall Web site:

www.aztownhall.org

PHOENIX — Financing of highway work around Arizona is being hindered by the state’s budget crisis and resulting cash-flow problems, coming on top of anticipated delays in projects due to slipping tax collections.

The Arizona Department of Transportation announced Wednesday that its contractors will have to wait longer for payments because the department had to repay $110 million in short-term financing early at the request of Treasurer Dean Martin.

Martin has said he legally had to call in the ADOT financing before resorting to short-term borrowing in the past week to pay for a big payment to schools. That short-term borrowing was the state’s first since the Great Depression.

Arizona faces a shortfall in the current budget despite a $1.6 billion fix approved by lawmakers in January. Lawmakers expect to eventually use up to $1 billion of federal stimulus money to keep the budget in the black.

A construction industry group, Associated General Contractors, criticized the development, saying it was “the latest erosion of funding for transportation projects.”

“The construction industry in Arizona is one of the hardest hit by the economy,” said David Martin, president of the group’s Arizona chapter. “To not pay contractors for work that has already been performed is unacceptable. This continual raiding of transportation funds, including those by the Legislature, cannot continue.”

ADOT officials told the state Transportation Board last week that reduced revenue from fuel-tax collections and other sources would require deferrals of numerous construction and repaving projects, including work on such major routes as Interstate 10.

“We are looking at a reduced five-year plan overall,” ADOT Director John Halikowski told The Associated Press on Wednesday.

ADOT said the short-term financing provided by the treasurer acts as bridge between when the state spends money on highway work and when it is reimbursed by the Federal Highway Administration and other sources for that spending.

ADOT said it might have borrow money from other accounts to pay contractors.

“Without this additional operating capital, ADOT contractors and their subcontractors may have to wait longer for payment, affecting working families across the state,” ADOT said. “Early repayment of these funds will impact ADOT’s ability to manage cash flow and does reduce funds available for transportation projects.”

The department noted that the repayment came at a time when the agency is gearing up to launch $350 million of highway projects funded by the federal stimulus program.

Gov. Jan Brewer said Tuesday she had asked the Obama administration to change the stimulus program so that cash-strapped states like Arizona don’t have to advance the money for the stimulus work and get repaid by the federal government.

National Transportation Safety Board says safety standards for motorcoaches came too slowly

A charter bus carrying people from a Colorado ski resort sits upright after running off a wet road and rolling several times down an embankment in southeastern Utah on Jan. 6, 2008.

WASHINGTON – A federal safety board on Tuesday cited driver fatigue as the cause of an Utah bus crashed that killed nine and injured 43 others, but blamed inaction by another safety agency for the severity of the accident.

Among those killed was 67-year-old Pam Humphreys, a retired hospice worker from Tucson who was returning from a Colorado ski trip with her family.

The National Transportation Safety Board voted unanimously to include the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s failure to implement motorcoach safety recommendations – which were made a decade ago – as a contributing factor in the crash’s severity.

“I am extremely disappointed watching NHTSA crawl toward the standard we have asked them to make,” acting board Chairman Mark Rosenker said.

The board investigates accidents and makes safety recommendations. The traffic safety administration makes regulations.

NHTSA spokesman Rae Tyson declined to comment on the board’s action, but said the agency was “working very hard” on motorcoach safety standards. He said extensive crash tests were conducted in 2007.

Investigators for the board said the bus was traveling 88 to 92 miles per hours when it ran off a rural highway near the town of Mexican Hat. The bus driver, Welland Lotan, who was 71 at the time, suffered from sleep apnea and had trouble using a device to regulate his breathing while sleeping in the days before the accident.

“It’s really tragic – tragic in loss of life, tragic in the injuries people suffered and tragic because, in my judgment, this accident was preventable,” board member Kitty Higgins said.

The motorcoach was carrying 52 passengers returning to Phoenix from a ski vacation in Telluride, Colo., on Jan. 6, 2008, when it rounded a bend on a two-lane highway and then careened off the road and rolled down an embankment.

Investigators said it is likely the driver’s fatigue caused him to misjudge the bus’ speed and slowed his responses.

The bus was part of a charter of 17 motorcoaches carrying 800 people.

The roof of the motorcoach was sheared off in the accident and everyone was thrown out except Lotan, who was wearing the bus’s only seat belt, and one passenger, who was pinned between seats.

The board recommended in 1999 that safety standards for motorcoach roofs be strengthened, that buses have easy-to-open windows that don’t shatter, and that steps be taken – including possibly requiring seat belts – to prevent passengers from being ejected in rollovers.

While NHTSA has made considerable progress on auto safety, it has “left motorcoaches back in the ’60s and ’70s,” Rosenker said. “It’s time now. It’s not like the technology doesn’t exist.”

PHOENIX — Gov. Jan Brewer says she’s asked the Obama administration for leeway in meeting a requirement that Arizona and other cash-short states provide upfront funding for transportation projects eligible for stimulus program money.

Brewer said she made the request to Vice President Joe Biden during a White House-arranged conference call between Biden and several state governors on Tuesday.

Brewer said the stimulus program’s requirement for states to provide advance funding for transportation projects “can exacerbate the cash-flow issue.”

She said she suggested that the federal government either provide advance funding to states with cash-flow problems or create a fund to make temporary loans to states.

This photo provided Monday by the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office, shows Thomas Patrick Destories. Destories, a 68-year-old Phoenix man, was booked on suspicion of first-degree murder, in connection with the shooting death of a man operating a photo radar van in Phoenix.

PHOENIX – A suspect arrested in the shooting death of a man operating a photo radar van in Phoenix told police that he didn’t mean for anyone to get hurt, according to a court document released Tuesday

“I’m sorry. I was going to turn myself in,” 68-year-old suspect Thomas Patrick Destories told police, according to a probable-cause statement filed in Maricopa County Superior Court.

“I didn’t mean for anyone to get hurt,” Destories said. “I saw it on the news. The gun is in the saddlebag.”

Destories had been riding his motorcycle when he was arrested Monday on a first-degree murder charge about 12 hours after 51-year-old Doug Georgianni was shot and killed as he operated a photo radar van on a north Phoenix freeway Sunday night.

Police say they don’t know the motive for the killing.

It’s unclear whether Destories has a lawyer. He’s being held in Maricopa County jail on a $2 million bond and is scheduled for his next court appearance on Monday.

Phoenix police Sgt. Andy Hill said Monday that the analysis of items at the scene and statements Destories made led investigators to decide that a first-degree murder charge was appropriate. He made the statement when asked about the assumption many people make that photo radar vans aren’t manned.

Arizona became the first state to use photo speed enforcement on state highways last year. The Arizona Department of Public Safety awarded a contract for the operation of 100 fixed and mobile photo speed enforcement cameras in July and the first were deployed in September.

The program has drawn criticism from many who call the effort costly and unfair to motorists. Its proponents say photo radar saves lives by slowing motorists and frees up police to tackle other problems.

Georgianni had worked for three months for Redflex Traffic Systems Inc., which has the state contract to operate the photo radar systems.

Hill said investigators believe Destories stopped behind the van and then slowly pulled alongside it and fired a gun multiple times.

The probable-cause statement said that Georgianni was sitting in the van, doing paperwork with an interior light turned on when he was shot.

Five large-caliber gunshots hit the marked Department of Public Safety van; three of them were in a tight pattern and grouped on the window of Georgianni’s seat, according to the document.

Hill said Georgianni was on the phone with his wife when he was shot.

Police found the magazine for a .45-caliber pistol in Destories’ front pocket when they arrested him, according to the probable-cause statement.

Tickets for speeding at four locations where Pima County has placed photo enforcement cameras won’t start being issued for up to a month.

The vendor, American Traffic Solutions Inc. of Scottsdale, is fine-tuning the camera systems at those locations, Lindy Funkhauser, assistant county administrator for justice and law enforcement, said Monday.

“We’ve told them that we want them to take their time. We’re not going to rush into this,” Funkhauser said.

Citations were due to be issued to violators captured on film at the four intersections starting Monday, after a one-week warning period.

The tickets and warning period have been delayed, however, as the vendor ensures the system meets advertised specifications, Funkhauser said.

“There has to be a period of corrections and a period of testing,” Funkhauser said. “It could easily be a month for it to meet specifications.”

Locations are:

• La Cholla Boulevard at Sunset Road

• Mission Road at Nebraska Street

• Ina Road at Camino de las Candelas

• Swan Road at Calle Barril

Under Pima County’s $1.5 million pilot project, approved by the Board of Supervisors in January, cameras will be placed at 10 locations.

The remaining six cameras are due to be in place May 1. For a week, drivers will receive warning notices. Starting May 8, tickets will be issued for violations at:

• Alvernon Way near Station Master Drive

• Valencia Road near Camino de la Tierra

• Valencia Road near Wilmot Road

• River Road near Country Club Road

• Ruthrauff Road near Rillito Street

• Nogales Highway near Hermans Road