ValTrans was "the one that got away"

Flashback: When lawmakers originally gave their blessing to the transportation sales tax that came to be known as Proposition 400, they cleaved the proposal into two separate ballot measures — a half-cent sales tax for roads and highways, which voters approved in 1985, and another half-cent for a mass transit plan that went to voters in a 1989 special election.

• ValTrans would have created a 103-mile elevated rail system in the Valley, modeled on Vancouver, British Columbia's SkyTrain. ValTrans even hired the person who built SkyTrain to design the proposed system.
• The plan also included 1,500 new buses and a commuter train between Chandler and downtown Phoenix, along with $300 million in freeway improvements.

What happened: Maricopa County voters overwhelmingly rejected the proposal, defeating it by a nearly 2-to-1 ratio.

Between the lines: Proponents touted ValTrans as a way to lessen reliance on cars and reduce pollution while providing new public transportation options.

• Critics labeled it a boondoggle that would be too expensive, too ineffective and too complicated.

• Goddard, a leading advocate, said that legislative opponents who succeeded in splitting the two transportation measures made ValTrans "the biggest, sourest pill they could possibly make it."

What they're saying: ValTrans was "the one that got away," he said.

• "We lost 35 good years or 30 good years of developing around a different pattern."
• Marty Shultz, who worked on the pro-ValTrans campaign, took a different view, telling Axios Phoenix the philosophy that created the sprawl wouldn't have changed. "The Valley was, I think, always destined to be large."

The big picture: In 2000, Phoenix voters in 2000 approved the framework for the current light rail network, which opened in 2008.

Go deeper: Uncertain light rail expansion forces Valley officials to consider other mass transit options