Over Salt River and up I-17, to play in the snow we go!
We’ll be really smart, and get an early start, as US 180 traffic can be very slow!
On the shoulders of US 180, the snow is so white and close! 
But help first repsonders out and park in legal lots, because emergency vehilces need the whole road.

It happens every winter. After a hefty snowfall in northern Arizona, many of us in the Phoenix-metro area get a sense of excitement.  

Snow! Let’s go! We can dust off our mittens and hats and build snowmen!

But, before you hop in your car and drive north, there's something to know: Don't park on highways to play in the snow. We get it, everyone in the car gets excited at seeing the first dusting of snow. But there's better snow -- and more snow -- to play in that isn't on the highway shoulder, so keep driving.

Not only is parking on highway shoulders dangerous for people and their vehicles, it puts in harm's way other motorists and can restrict travel for first responders.

A few more Know Snow tips for making the most out of a winter day-trip to Arizona's high country:

Give snowplows plenty of room to work. That means staying at least four car lengths behind a plow and never passing a snowplow that’s clearing the road.

Consider leaving for home a little earlier. When congestion occurs, it typically peaks after snow-play areas along US 180 near Flagstaff start closing around 4 p.m. To avoid the worst traffic, you may want to begin your trip home earlier in the afternoon. 

 

Be prepared. No matter where you’re traveling, if you are headed into snowy, icy or cold conditions, you want to be prepared for potential delays. Follow our Know Snow advice, including taking warm clothing and blankets, a fully charged mobile phone and charger, a flashlight with extra batteries, drinking water, healthy snacks, a first-aid kit and necessary medications. Also make sure your gas tank is at least half to three-quarters full at all times and ensure that your wipers, window defroster, headlights, taillights, brake lights and turn signals work.

One of the most important tips takes place before you even get behind the wheel: Research weather conditions. Visit az511.gov or dial 511 for updated road conditions. Follow ADOT's Twitter account at @ArizonaDOT and our Facebook page. However, never use a cellphone or mobile device while driving.

Days of yore, holiday drives to grandma’s house and Arizona highways are among the topics that Dolan Ellis, Arizona’s official State Balladeer, has captured in his songs about the state.  

“Historians write the history, but balladeers bring it to life,” Dolan said during a visit to ADOT, when the agency’s Video Team recorded his rich baritone as he performed three of his ballads, "Scrubby," "Rock Springs" and "I-10 Highway."

Two of these songs have ties to the holiday season, making this a good time to revisit and share Ellis' melodies.

“Scrubby”

While we’re not certain of Scrubby’s condition these days, for more than three decades, the cedar tree in the median of Interstate 17 at Sunset Point has thrilled passersby with holiday finery secretly applied in the middle of the night. With its glowing lights, ornaments and tinsel, it has become a shining beacon of seasonal spirit for motorists.

Perhaps no Arizonan has captured this mystery better than Ellis in this ode to an evergreen. It begins:

Out in Arizona there’s a story to be told. 
Of Scrubby, the little cedar tree, that grows beside the road. 
I-17 to Flagstaff, from the desert down below, 
And a random act of kindness by some secret, caring soul. 

It brings a smile to every face that passes by that sight. 
Scrubby becomes a rock star, and for him this song I write. 

 “Rock Springs” 

In the mid-1950s, it could take eight hours to travel by car from Flagstaff to Phoenix. This song, written by Dean Cook, Lon Austin, and Tony Norris, is about family’s holiday trip to Phoenix, with the children, the dog and grandma's tree in the back – before Interstate 17 Black Canyon Freeway was completed in 1978. 

"Rock Springs" tells of a meandering route through Oak Creek Canyon, the Cleopatra Mine, Mayer and Bumble Bee. Much of this was along the Old Black Canyon Highway, scratched out of the 1878 Black Canyon stagecoach trail. It begins:  

It was snowing up in Flagstaff but we knew that the desert would be hot. 
So we crawled beneath the blankets. The dog always got the warmest spot, woof woof. 
It was 2 days to Christmas and we crawled into the back of dad’s old truck. 
Eight hours down to Phoenix -- if we didn’t run out of water, tires or luck. 

“I-10 Highway”

This song is a nostalgic journey, as Ellis recalls a trip along Interstate 10 to Tucson, where he passes farmers and reminisces about a sense of community and purpose. He also waxes historic about the instantly-recognizable Picacho Peak. 

It begins: 

Arizona I-10 Highway, there’s a trucker going my way, play a tune in the afternoon with a guitar that I carry on my back. 
I can see the sign to Tucson, from the freeway that I ride on, telling me all the sights to see down in Tucson, that are long gone with each puff from a diesel stack. 
As I pass the irrigation roads (and) crops some Pima farmer grows, folks flipping by like the pages of a worn-out history book. 
And the story that it seems to tell the pride of his work in a job done well and the cooperation of a reservation full of neighbors and the labors of his people (that it took).  

Ellis has been writing and performing songs about Arizona, its people, heritage, culture, wildlife and beauty, since 1959. Learn more about the State Balladeer, by reading these blog posts: 

Arizona's official balladeer celebrates I-17 Mystery Tree

State balladeer croons nostalgic over 'I-10 Highway'

State balladeer sings of drive from Flagstaff

Learn more about Ellis, his performance schedule, history and songs at DolanEllis.com. You can also learn about the Arizona Folklore Preserve in Ramsey Canyon in the Huachuca Mountains, which Ellis founded to preserve songs celebrating Arizona’s western heritage and culture, at ArizonaFolklore.com. 

 

What you see in these photos may seem like little more than a chunk of old pavement.

And it's true that, today, this aged segment is merely a modest pedestrian walkway outside of Prescott.

But belly on up and listen closely. This is a relic of the “Old Black Canyon Highway,” and it has a grand story to tell.

It begins in the pre-statehood days of the mid-1860s before there were highways, automobiles or railroads. It tells of a how a route that was little more than a footpath evolved into the Interstate 17 Black Canyon Freeway.

This is how it went, according to our comprehensive 2011 Arizona Transportation History.

The original Black Canyon Highway followed a Native American trail that wove along the Agua Fria west of Phoenix, twisted through a gorge and traipsed up a plateau that spreads from the Bradshaw Mountains to the edge of the Verde River valley.

 Are you listening? Can you hear marching feet?

“In 1864, the part of this route between Dewey and Prescott was declared the first public road in the new Arizona Territory,” ADOT’s history says. “Soon it was being used by the U.S. Army as part of a route from Fort Whipple, outside Prescott, to Fort McDowell, east of Phoenix.”

It had a major makeover in 1877, when Maricopa County included the Black Canyon route on a roster of wagon roads that would be constructed from Phoenix to Prescott.

Hear the galloping hooves?

In 1878, the first stagecoach line began operating on the route from Cañon, today’s Black Canyon City, to Prescott. It may sound glamorous, but the horse-drawn carriages provided passengers a jarring 30-hour ride. There were steep climbs, dangerous crossings of the Agua Fria River and the threat of literal highway robbery by bandits.

But no matter how risky, the route was convenient (for the times), and when Arizona became a state in 1912 the stagecoach road along the Black Canyon route had become a favorite of early automobile enthusiasts.

Can you hear loud engines and honking horns?

The road stayed like that for a while. Competing highway projects, politics and an old-time railroad that shortened the trip prevented the Black Canyon road from turning into a major highway for several more decades.

It wasn’t until 1936 that construction began on State Route 69 between Phoenix and Prescott, a stretch that followed the Black Canyon route and would later comprise part of modern day Interstate 17. The project didn’t get too far along before it was interrupted by the Great Depression and World War II.

After the war, the highway was realigned out of the canyon north of Black Canyon City and up onto the mesa. It bypassed Bumble Bee and the other old mining camps, which by then were mostly abandoned. The new highway was dedicated in December 1952, though it would not be completely paved until 1955.

There’s more than a little sentimentality about making the trip between north and south in those days.

Songwriters Dean Cook, Lon Austin, and Tony Norris wrote the ballad “Rock Springs” about a 1950s family driving in an old pickup truck from Flagstaff to Phoenix at Christmastime. 

Dolan Ellis, Arizona’s State Balladeer, also performs this song, and did so in ADOT’s studio along with two others in December 2019. It puts to verse the meandering route through Oak Creek Canyon, the Cleopatra Mine, Mayer and Bumble Bee. And it delights in the memory of how thirsty travelers would stop at Rock Springs for water and gas.

As the chorus goes: 

And we’ll stop at old Rock Springs, where the water flows so clean.

Cool water in the desert was a thirsty traveler's dream.

And we’d stop at old Rock Springs, where the water flows so clean.

Cool water in the desert was a thirsty traveler's dream.

Construction on today's I-17 started in earnest in 1956 and wasn't finished in northern Arizona until August 1978.  Even this seems a ways back. But now you know how this important interstate grew from a footpath more than 160 years ago.

This was just a thumbnail sketch, but you can learn more about the extraordinary history of this highway in an earlier ADOT blog. 

Bringing natural forms onto roads and bridges was the idea behind the artwork on the new Happy Valley Road bridge over Interstate 17.

By now, many motorists have likely noticed the purple slashes and blue diamonds on a white background that adorn the new overpass wall. Metal pipes form gentle swells along the wall, adding to abstractions that, put together, form the shape and color of natural mountains.

“Blue diamonds are like stars merging with the landform silhouettes,” said Joe Salazar,  aesthetic designer/coordinator for aesthetic landscaping and designs for ADOT.

On the concrete just below the wall is a line of brown diamonds, representing the thorns of the Sonoran Desert saguaro. This abstraction is taken a step further with the vertical patterns on the sides of the bridge. These represent the ribbing of the saguaro, he said.

“It is unfolding the trunk of the saguaro, laying it out and putting the pattern over the wall,” Salazar said, “It is a continuation of the saguaro.”

And that's the pattern you are seeing in the lower photo to the right.

 

 

The new overpass that bears this design is an integral part of a safety- and traffic-flow improvement project encompassing I-17 interchanges at Happy Valley and Pinnacle Peak roads in north Phoenix.

The project also included the new diverging diamond intersection at Happy Valley. In addition to reconstructing the traffic interchanges, ADOT and the Federal Highway Administration have added a travel lane on I-17 and replaced a box culvert on Pinnacle Peak Road to the east of I-17.

For Salazar, who was joined in the project by Phoenix artist Daniel Mayer, the artwork on the new intersection reflects the surrounding natural environment.

“If you drive along I-17 and look at your surroundings you will see what is remaining of the natural desert,” he said. “I was trying to bring that in.”

For more information about this joint Arizona Department of Transportation and Federal Highway Administration project, visit the project's page on our website.

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Art of Transportation
We think there is beauty in transportation. It’s not all hard hats and pavement. Art of Transportation is a blog series featuring unique photos our team has taken while on the road or on a construction project.

As part of ADOT’s recent major project along Interstate 17 in north Phoenix, the reconstruction of the bridge and traffic interchange at Pinnacle Peak Road often took a backseat to the rebuilding also taking place at the busier, nearby interchange at Happy Valley Road.

After all, the I-17/Happy Valley Road interchange received more attention because it was reconstructed as a diverging diamond with new – and different for Arizona – lane configurations and traffic signal setups. 

But enough about Happy Valley Road. We’re here to sing the praises of the new and improved Pinnacle Peak interchange. What a difference a couple of years and hard work can make.

As you can see in the video to the right, the Pinnacle Peak Road interchange now features a much wider bridge crossing over I-17. The old, more narrow bridge was demolished as part of the $50 million project that delivered the upgraded interchanges at Pinnacle Peak and....that other interchange a mile to the north.

Before this project, traffic on Pinnacle Peak Road often backed up approaching I-17, especially in the westbound direction during rush hour. Drivers had to wait in fewer lanes for traffic signals to change.

Now, there are left turn bays with two lanes for traffic entering I-17. That means more “storage capacity” for traffic making those left turns. The I-17 on- and off-ramps at the Pinnacle Peak interchange also were reconstructed with more lanes that provide drivers with improved options at the interchange. The traffic signals are all new and the interchange is much more aesthetically pleasing with individual red paver blocks used to fill the raised median islands.

The modernized, larger Pinnacle Peak Road interchange along I-17 is now in place to efficiently handle today’s traffic as well as traffic in the area for decades to come. We just want to let the new bridge and other improvements at Pinnacle Peak get a little time in the spotlight.

The reconstruction project was funded in part by Proposition 400, a dedicated sales tax approved by Maricopa County voters in 2004.

It’s happening!

The new diverging diamond interchange (DDI) at Interstate 17 and Happy Valley Road is scheduled to open to motorists sometime in mid-October.

The innovative Arizona Department of Transportation interchange paves the way for a slew of benefits: Better traffic flow, fewer “conflict points” between traffic traveling in opposite directions and thus, improved safety.

ADOT has worked closely with the city of Phoenix and Maricopa Association of Governments (the Valley’s freeway planning agency) in designing and now building the state’s first major diverging diamond interchange. The DDI design has been growing in use across the country for its innovative features. 

As mentioned above, diverging diamonds provide safety benefits by reducing the number of conflict points at intersections within the interchange. Those are locations with opposing directions of traffic. A potential conflict exists every time a vehicle crosses or turns across the path of another direction of traffic.

For example, at the Happy Valley Road DDI, intersections and traffic signals will allow drivers to cross to the left side of the bridge over I-17 and thus have a direct turn onto the freeway on-ramp. They are able to make that left turn without facing traffic in the opposite direction.

Reducing such conflict points as well as overall traffic-signal movements also allows more traffic to move through the interchange in a shorter amount of time. That helps to limit wait times for drivers, especially during times of busier traffic.

While you may be unfamiliar with such an interchange, studies and observations in other states have shown motorists quickly get the hang of traveling in a DDI. The use of noticeable pavement markings also helps direct traffic. You can see how it all works in the video to the right..  

ADOT State Engineer Dallas Hammitt discussed the benefits of a DDI in a blog earlier this year about two smaller diverging diamonds (called “half DDIs”) now in use along the Loop 202 South Mountain Freeway.

“This type of interchange works by temporarily transitioning traffic to the left side of the road, allowing through-traffic and left-turning traffic to proceed through the interchange simultaneously, eliminating the need for a signalized left turn.”

Crash rates improved dramatically after a diverging diamond interchange was constructed in Springfield, Missouri, according to the Federal Highway Administration. The study compared crashes from the first year after construction to the five-year average before, and found the following:

• Left-turn crashes were totally eliminated.
• Right-angle crashes were reduced 72 percent.
• Rear-end crashes were reduced 29 percent.
• Total crashes were reduced 46 percent.

“Where they have been built,” the FHWA report said, “travelers save time, agencies saved money, and communities will benefit from safer facilities for many years.”