The country’s “most innovative” university could help solve Pinal County’s transportation woes.

Members of the Pinal Partnership got a sneak peek this morning at how the researchers of Arizona State University’s Decision Theater may be a new tool for the county leaders to better envision how today’s infrastructure decisions can impact the future.

It’s a needed tool after the Pinal Regional Transportation Authority, which had for nine years had similar goals, voted unanimously to suspend operations indefinitely last month.

The researchers would collect a vast amount of data from local municipalities, tribal communities, the county, the state and federal agencies to map current and future transportation plans, known and potential issues, as well as creating potential solutions with interactive visual data and simulations.

“Our expertise area is bringing all of those things and a lot of complex systems together in a way that makes it a lot more easy to understand [and] a lot easier to deliberate over for more informed decisions,” said Decision Theater Associate Director Chelsea Dickson.

State Rep. Teresa Martinez, Republican of Casa Grande, who initially introduced community leaders to ASU’s Decision Theater in August, said she was confident it’s a direction county leaders will want to take.

“I think they will say it’s good,” she told InMaricopa. “I think it would be silly for us not to since ASU is offering [the service].”

It likely would. Be silly, that is.

Both Martinez, the House voice for Maricopa, and Dickson said ASU President Michael Crow “has given his blessing” for the project to move forward using “baseline university resources.”

It would be up to the county government, if it joins the partnership, to come up with the additional funding. If it and members of the Pinal Partnership decide to join forces with ASU, the next step is submitting all the data and then working in focus groups to decide what questions need to be answered or the possible solutions generated from the data set.

Martinez said she felt today was a good step forward.

“I feel like we’re finally getting to the starting line. Everything else was a warmup,” Martinez said. “My biggest struggle is just being patient, but good process equals good policy. The process has to be right so we can build something strong.”