We all agree traffic in Sedona is terrible. There has been a steady increase in tourists over the last 20 years, plus a slower growing resident population, compounded by more residents from the Village of Oak Creek and Cottonwood who drive in to work at Sedona businesses.

Comparatively, traffic in a city five miles wide isn’t nearly as congested as other cities with hours-long 20-mile traffic jams or major accidents that shift intra-city freeway traffic onto arterial roads unable to handle the tens of thousands of extra cars.

Yet the fact that traffic along all five miles can be slow from one end of town to the other is beyond frustrating. And State Route 179? On busy weekends, traffic backs up from the “Y” to south of the Red Rock Ranger Station south of the Village of Oak Creek, prompting locals to stay home.

It’s part of the reason we published a two-page map spread in November that consolidated all the proposals made over the years so readers could see what’s been proposed over the decades.

The city has opted to conduct a citywide comprehensive traffic study. While we can question the relevance or the use of funds, the fact is the $250,000 has already been allocated and the study has been underway since April.

Putting that aside, the onus falls on us as residents to look at the data and use it to help us redefine our layout and how to improve the traffic mess we deal with.

Later this month, the contracted firm will unveil the public outreach portion of the study, based on the collected data and ask residents to examine it, and make recommendations as to what changes we are willing to accept, what we can live with, what changes we’re willing to make and most importantly, how we will pay for it.

The study will be available online for several weeks and we strongly encourage all readers and residents to visit the poll, look at the data and make decisions that will affect the future of our city.

After all, it’s your tax money that paid for this research project and it will be your tax money, collected by the city, Yavapai and Coconino counties and the state that will make the improvements we tell the current Sedona City Council we want. It will be up to future city councils to implement these changes and improvements in the years to come.

Part of our duty as taxpayers is to make sure the subsequent councils follow through with these promises to better our traffic situation so we can make the drive from West Sedona down State Route 179 with the desire to play bumper cars with the Cadillac Escalade from Arkansas that just can’t understand how to navigate a roundabout, even after the eighth one we followed it through.

The last thing we want is to see is the City Council of 2026 to ask us to spend another quarter-million dollars on another study because this one was shelved with nary an improvement made.