The Sedona Shuttle passed its quarter-million passenger mark in November and is reporting on-time performance averaging around 80%, while the Sedona City Council continues to explore the idea of restricting traffic flow along the publicly-owned Back o’ Beyond Road to drive increased transit use.
Shuttle Boarders
In the last four months of fiscal year 2022, the shuttles registered 95,978 boardings, or about 47,989 passengers, over 63 service days, equivalent to 762 passengers per day. In FY23, the first full year of operation, the shuttles recorded 309,559 boardings, or about 154,780 passengers, over an estimated 238.5 service days for 649 passengers per day. Through Dec. 17 in FY24, the system logged 121,049 boardings, or 60,525 passengers, over 103 service days, for 588 passengers per day.
According to the latest study, Sedona receives slightly under 10,000 visitors per day, with the trailhead shuttle serving about 8% of visitors.
Councilman Brian Fultz has estimated that the Sedona Chamber of Commerce Visitor Center serves about 4% of visitors.
The number of daily boardings was highest from March through May, generally exceeding 1,600, and in October and November, when it ranged from 1,400 to 1,700. At the other extreme, daily boardings fell to a range of approximately 600 to 700 during July and August.
For FY23 and the first five months of FY24, the trailhead shuttles’ on-time performance averaged 81.3%. In FY23, the average was 81.8%, declining slightly to 80.4% so far in FY24. On-time performance was best in August 2022 at 98% and October 2023 at 96.29%. The poorest on-time performance was seen in March 2023, at 64.3%, and July 2022, at 70.09%. On-time performance was also low in July 2023 at 72% and November 2023 at 71.71%.
In the city’s FY24 budget, city staff estimated that there were a total of 77 days during FY23 in which traffic coming into Uptown down Cooks Hill was delayed by more than 10 minutes or traffic coming into Uptown via State Route 179 was delayed by more than 30 minutes, or 21% of days total.
Weber did not provide the numbers for on-time performance for each trailhead shuttle route as requested, saying that doing so “would take a lot of time.”
Back o’ Beyond
During its priority retreat on Dec. 13, the council also discussed options for restricting use of Back o’ Beyond Road by visitors.
Director of Public Works Kurt Harris presented a concept sketch for a possible reconstruction of the intersection of Back o’ Beyond and SR 179 that would be constructed entirely within the city’s existing right of way.
The concept showed a traffic control station that would be installed in the middle of the road with a turnaround for vehicles just beyond it.
“Long-term, it might include a gate, if that’s possible, and that would not be to restrict anybody’s access, it’s just to monitor and meter people,” Harris said.
“We’ve been in debate about that, but I still feel like, whether it not be an automated gate but one that a person could stand there and shut and not have to be the sole mechanism to keep traffic out, I think that helps,” Deputy City Manager Andy Dickey said. “Part of the issue is just being able to control the traffic most effectively … I haven’t given up hope on having something a little more helpful for our staff.”
Harris said the intent of the proposed new alignment would be to “capture pedestrians and bicyclists to tell them about our transit and trailhead transit and the opportunity for them not to walk or drive in there.”
“What we’re trying to do is make some improvements that would make [traffic control] more permanent, and that’s a need that’s been expressed by the neighborhood,” Dickey said.
City Manager Karen Osburn added that without a physical barrier, drivers would still continue to use the road and cause parking issues.
“[This] rose to a priority because of the trailhead issue. We basically took care of that,” Councilwoman Jessica Williamson said. “We dealt with it as a priority. We got the shuttles, and we closed it, and we’ll continue to sort of do that, but it’s not a priority anymore.”
“We should not be individually discussing our ideas about ongoing projects that [staff] do,” Williamson stated.
“It makes me very uncomfortable for us to be thinking about spending the public’s dollars making permanent a staffed entry to a development that the developer never paid for and the neighbors didn’t pay for,” Councilman Pete Furman said. If the neighbors don’t want to pay for it, he continued, “then they got to live with what they chose.”
“Worst case, maybe it backs 179 up half a dozen cars,” Councilman Brian Fultz said of the current intersection’s effect on traffic. “Honestly, I wouldn’t spend a dime to fix that problem.”
“Back o’ Beyond Road is not a community in and of itself. It’s a public road. It’s not a private road,” Councilwoman Kathy Kinsella said, calling the existing solution a “stopgap. I think that what’s being brought forward is a responsible proposal to address some of the problems that now we’ve created.”
“This is a trailhead access that was there before the neighborhood was there,” Mayor Scott Jablow said. “Yes, it’s a public road … I just believe we should be doing something … I just leave it in your hands.”
“We’re educational. We’re not enforcing. If someone has the desire and demands to go to Back o’ Beyond, we don’t stop them,” Harris said. Back o’ Beyond Road was paid for and is maintained by public taxpayer dollars and the public has legal access to use such roads under Arizona law. “They can go in and verify that the lot is full … We’re not there as, like, guards. We’re just there as educational outreach to tell them lot’s full, use the transit.”
Other Matters
Police Chief Stephanie Foley addressed the council on police traffic control efforts in Uptown. “It’s very resource-intensive … very staff-intensive,” Foley said of the city’s recent efforts to use police cars to block access selectively to the “Y” and Brewer Road roundabouts in various configurations to smooth out traffic flow. “We might impact traffic a little bit by being there, but I think what it does provide our community is showing that we are trying to help with the problem, we’re aware of it … Unless you want to increase my staff a lot.”
“I know that there has been a general lack of interest in tackling the fact that we have three trash vendors in town, but I still think that’s something we should be going into,” Fultz said with regard to pavement degradation due to vehicle weight. “I’d love to see us tackle that at some point.”
Dickey confirmed that the city is not ready to adopt cool pavement technology. “If we’re talking about moving toward a very lightcolored pavement, we do have snow here, we have ice,” Dickey said. “What does that do to our snow removal effort? … Even when we have red concrete, a lot of the time it ends up red-slash-black because of the tires. If it was fully white, I’m not sure that would look very good. The heat dome effect is actually not necessarily better with light pavement.”
Harris said Public Works would like to increase the budget for pavement preservation from $1.3 million to $2 million, or from $14,000 per mile to $21,000 per mile. This would fund higher-quality pavement repairs rather than more pavement repairs.
City staff have also included tentative plans to expand Owenby Way to a two-way street as part of a future capital improvement project.
