From chuckwallas to elephants: South Mountain Freeway by the numbers

The South Mountain Freeway has been open less than one full month, but most drivers already refer to Arizona’s newest freeway by its number: 202. There are now three segments of the Loop 202 circling the Valley.

But to those involved in building Arizona’s largest-ever freeway construction project, other numbers are far more meaningful. With hard hats in hand, here are some of those numbers. Click on the figures to see pop-up photo examples from the past three years of construction. 

• 13.5 million cubic yards of earthwork moved, enough to fill State Farm Stadium at least 15 times
• 446,000 square yards of concrete used to build 176 lane miles of freeway, 2,530 catch basins and more.
• 40 bridges that contain 2.5 million square feet of bridge deck and 1,004 girders, including the longest concrete barriers in state history at more than 175 feet over the Salt River
• 1.3 million square feet of sound walls covering 11 miles
• 40.4 million pounds of rebar – roughly the weight of 3,100 African bush elephants, or more than 6,700 if you prefer African forest elephants
• About 120 chuckwallas safely relocated from construction areas
• 975,000 tons of asphalt
• 316,000 linear feet of concrete barriers
• More than 1,000 desert plants – including saguaros and palo verde trees – salvaged from construction areas, nurtured for more than three years and replanted along the side of the freeway.
• 15 interchanges, including one under construction at 32nd Street
• 6 miles of multi-use path currently being built on what used to be Pecos Road
• 140,000 linear feet of drain pipe
• 5 multi-use crossings designed to allow free movement of wildlife, rain water and hikers to pass safely under the freeway in mountainous areas that have no interchanges
• 4 unique landform graphic zones that reflect the history and environment of each region of the freeway
• More than 5.7 million hours of work without time-loss injuries, including 287,000 on-the-job training hours for less-experienced workers
• 2 half-diverging diamond interchanges, the first in Arizona history
• 1 pedestrian bridge

To see more photos from the Loop 202 South Mountain Freeway, check out the newest album on our Flickr page.