The city of Sedona and immediate surrounding communities — the Village of Oak Creek, Sunset Hills, Sedona Shadows, Oak Creek Canyon and the Red Rock Loop Road areas — were brought to a complete and total stop on Monday, Dec. 31.
For the better part of three hours, a predicted and relatively weak snow storm shut down our entire city. Residents and visitors were stranded all over the city as minor crashes, slow-speed collisions, drivers slipping on black ice and traffic jams halted all vehicle movement.
Callers and visitors to our Facebook page used colorful language to describe their views of the shutdown, with many including an expletive.
Sedona police were responding to accidents around the city and also had to wait for snow plows and tow trucks to remove vehicles from the roadway. In their defense, police officers are first responders who deal with accidents, law enforcement and emergency traffic direction. Cops don’t drive tow trucks nor snow plows, nor should they; that’s what other city departments are for and what our taxes fund.
Due to early deadlines, we had just put the Wednesday, Jan. 2, newspaper to bed and sent the plates to the press when the snow began to fall. While some of our staff stayed later to finish up stories and pages for the following edition, most of our staff were out of the newsroom by noon, but had gotten caught at various locations between Uptown and the accidents on Cooks Hill.
We updated residents as we could via our Facebook page with information we could get from the city and first responders, but for the most part there was no news once traffic stopped and the entire city waited for snow plows from other government agencies.
The traffic standstill was an utter failure of local government to keep our roadways functioning. Sedona has endured much worse storms.
The city owns two snow plows, according to Public Works Department. But the city had to wait for snow plows from the Arizona Department of Transportation to come down from Flagstaff in order to clear the bottleneck of State Route 89A between Brewer Road and Airport Road.
Why?
This stretch of highway is the one portion of the city all traffic eastbound or westbound must pass through to reach Uptown or West Sedona. There are no alternate routes, no detours, no back roads, no secret secondary means to go between the two halves of our city other than a 55-minute detour through Cornville, which was, due to the delays on the poorly-designed and completely backed-up State Route 179, not an option.
As we discussed not even a month ago when a head-on collision cleaved the city in twain for more than two hours, the city needs some alternate route to connect Uptown with West Sedona, even if it’s a back road that is normally gated shut except in case of an accident or road closure. Such a detour would allow traffic to move even slowly while our lifeline is shutdown due to collisions or traffic emergencies.
One city leader suggested a median down State Route 89A between Brewer and Airport Road would prevent head-on collisions, but the Arizona Department of Transportation won’t tear up an otherwise functional road for a year to put one in, the construction would cause even more months of delays and a median would make it even harder for tow trucks to reach the scene of a crash if they could only access it via one side of the roadway.
Also, such a median wouldn’t have helped in this case — only working snowplows in the city would.
We’ll save the city the $250,000 for a new Snow Conditions Traffic Study: Buy heavy-duty, working snowplows dedicated to clearing State Routes 89A and 179 as soon as snow falls or hire a company that does so.
If city leaders refuse to build any other means to connect our city then that stretch of road should be the No. 1 priority always, and without exception. If city leaders don’t have the political will to build a alternate route or a workable detour, then park a tow truck and snowplow at the Adobe Jack Trailhead so city workers can clear up accidents as soon as possible.
Or store 500 snow shovels and rock salt there so residents can do the work ourselves. And as we shovel, we’ll talk about who to vote for.
Christopher Fox Graham
Managing Editor
