Here's an old photo we found showing what we believe are workers at the construction site of the Loop 202 Red Mountain Freeway, then known as the East Papago Freeway.

If we're correct, that would date this photo to the mid-'90s. The concrete cylinders in the background are drainage culverts that presumably will be placed into the ditch that the workers are standing over.

It's difficult to ascertain what these mystery men of ADOT were doing in the photo, but we have a few guesses:

• The guy in the front just stepped in "something" and the others are coming to help him scrape it off his shoe.
• They are taking turns re-enacting Neil Armstrong's first steps onto the lunar surface.
• They all showed up late to their shift and their supervisor is making them walk the plank.

Whatever the situation, it's an interesting slice of Arizona history. Nowadays, the Valley is ringed with an extensive highway system that loops the Valley -- Loops 101, 202 and 303. The most recent addition was the South Mountain portion of the Loop 202, which was completed ahead of schedule in December 2019.

There's no telling where these gentlemen are today, but it would be interesting to hear their thoughts on how far our highway system has evolved over the decades.

Thank you for your service, mystery men of ADOT.

By Dustin Krugel / ADOT Communications

2018 has been an important year with the Loop 202 South Mountain Freeway in its second full year of construction. With the freeway nearly two-thirds completed, signs of progress abound in the 22-mile corridor. Asphalt pavement is being installed, concrete medians and artistic sound walls are being built and overhead message boards are above the future travel lanes.

To date, crews have installed 20 miles of drainage pipe, laid 107,000 tons of asphalt pavement, moved 9.9 million cubic yards of dirt and used 10,800 tons of rebar manufactured from recycled steel.

Some of the highlights:

Pecos segment (32nd Lane to I-10 Maricopa/Loop 202 Santan Freeway)

• Crews have installed a new 48-inch waterline along a 1.3-mile stretch of Liberty Lane between Desert Foothills Parkway and 20th Street.
• Mainline paving started between 17th Avenue and Desert Foothills Parkway and west of 40th Street to the I-10/Loop 202 interchange in Chandler.
• Overpasses at 40th Street, 24th Street and 17th Avenue are nearly complete.
• After months of environmental study and public input, ADOT and the Federal Highway Administration decided to add a freeway interchange at 32nd Street that will be constructed after the freeway opens to traffic.
• Construction is underway on the 32nd Street interchange, including setting 15 steel-reinforced concrete girders (shown in the photo above).

Salt River segment (Lower Buckeye Road to 51st Avenue)

• In September, crews set the 292nd and final girder needed on the two half-mile Salt River bridges, the longest of the project.
• The Elliot Road bridge (shown above) opened to traffic in April, the first bridge completed for the South Mountain Freeway.
• Estrella Drive reopened to traffic in late October after crews completed construction on an interchange that includes two roundabouts.
• Crews laid the first “blacktop” lane mile of pavement from Estrella Drive to Olney Avenue in Laveen.

I-10 segment (I-10 Papago to Lower Buckeye Road and improvements to I-10 between 43rd and 75th avenues)

• Crews completed a 1,500-foot flyover ramp over I-10 that will carry northbound South Mountain Freeway traffic to westbound I-10.
• Motorists began using new I-10 access roads built in both directions between 51st and 67th avenues to improve traffic flow and maintain access to 59th Avenue.
• In October, I-10 travel lanes shifted to the outside, or right side, of the freeway to allow the next phase of work on the South Mountain Freeway interchange to begin along the I-10 center median.

Center segment (51st Avenue to 32nd Lane)

• Pre-construction work started, including plant salvage and geotechnical investigations.
• Crews began work on bridge foundations by drilling shafts deep into the ground.
• In April, controlled rock blasting started along two ridges at the southwestern edge of the South Mountain Park to break large rock into smaller, more manageable pieces for removal.
• After months of environmental study and public input, ADOT and the Federal Highway Administration decided to add a freeway interchange at Ivanhoe Street that will be completed after the freeway is opened.

You can see more photos of progress at the project's Flickr page.

The South Mountain Freeway will provide a long-planned direct link between the East Valley and West Valley and a much-needed alternative to I-10 through downtown Phoenix. Approved by Maricopa County voters in 1985 and again in 2004 as part of a comprehensive regional transportation plan, the South Mountain Freeway will complete the Loop 202 and Loop 101 freeway system in the Valley.

For more information, visit SouthMountainFreeway.com. 

By David Rookhuyzen / ADOT Communications

During recent work for the future South Mountain Freeway, crews poured the equivalent of 60 dump trucks worth of concrete into a steel-reinforced deck for the flyover ramp that will eventually connect with Interstate 10 west of downtown Phoenix.

While that work is fascinating in and of itself, for our purposes it’s a convenient segue to talk a piece of machinery known as a Bid-Well.

Put simply, different models of Bid-Wells are a concrete finishing machines typically employed for this type of bridge cement pour and used to ensure a flat deck surface. The picture above shows one in use while crews were doing similar South Mountain Freeway work at the 40th Street interchange.

According to Kole Dea, an ADOT senior resident engineer who is overseeing the construction of the freeway's Papago segment, a Bid-Well “is a self-propelled piece of equipment that finishes cast-in-place concrete to a smooth, uniform finish. The roller travels back and forth to achieve this."

The ends of the machine, between which the roller moves back and forth, typically is traveling forward on rails which are attached to a bridge’s girders or the temporary bridge structure, Dea said.

The tweet below shows a Bid-Well 4800 smoothing cement during a 2016 deck pour at the I-10 Davidson Canyon bridge east of Tucson.

Pouring and smoothing concrete at @ArizonaDOT Davidson Canyon Bridge project, I-10 east of Tucson. pic.twitter.com/oijHaUEK5X

— Steve Elliott (@elliott602az) April 21, 2016

A YouTube search will bring up other videos of Bid-Wells in action.

And next time you travel over the smooth surface of a freeway bridge, maybe bid the Bid-Well thanks for a job well done.

Transportation Defined is a series of explanatory blog posts designed to define the things you see on your everyday commute. Let us know if there's something you'd like to see explained ... leave a comment here on the blog or over on our Facebook page!

By Dustin Krugel / ADOT Communications

Good news for Ahwatukee motorists!

Two-way traffic is being restored in stages along Liberty Lane, an Ahwatukee roadway providing access to schools, churches and more that runs parallel to Pecos Road, where the Loop 202 South Mountain Freeway is being built.

Liberty Lane had been restricted to eastbound traffic only on a stretch of about 1.3 miles between Desert Foothills Parkway and 20th Way since work began in March to relocate a 4-foot-diameter city of Phoenix waterline from the freeway right of way.

This past weekend crews restored two-way traffic between 12th Street and west of 18th Way. That's much of the area that had been restricted to one direction of traffic.

Crews have now set a full closure of Liberty Lane between 18th Way and 20th Way as the next phase of work includes completing the waterline connection with a city of Phoenix water main. The closure is expected to remain in place through early October, and local motorists should consider Pecos Road as an alternate route in the interim.

Crews are working six days a week to install the final segment of pipe between Desert Foothills Parkway and 12th Street, but work has been especially challenging due to hardness of rock and a large concentration of underground utilities that must be avoided in the area.

The remainder of Liberty Lane, from 12th Street west to Desert Foothills Parkway, is scheduled to return to two-way traffic by the end of the year. Final resurfacing and lane striping is also scheduled to be completed early next year, along with replacement of sidewalks, curbs and gutters.

By Dustin Krugel / ADOT Communications

Construction is occurring along 95 percent of the 22-mile corridor that will become the South Mountain Freeway.

Recently, ADOT’s video team got a first-hand look at progress on the west end of the project. You can see the result above.

First up is the I-10/Loop 202 interchange that ADOT and Connect 202 Partners, the developer of the South Mountain Freeway, are building near 59th Avenue. It’s easily one of the most visible signs of South Mountain Freeway construction in the Valley as nearly 200,000 vehicles pass through this busy area daily.

The interchange will include five flyover ramps to seamlessly carry traffic to and from I-10 in the West Valley. In fact, the video interview with Rob Samour, ADOT’s lead engineer on the project, is atop a ramp nearly 100 feet above I-10 traffic. This 1,565-foot-long bridge will carry northbound South Mountain Freeway to westbound I-10.

Next up is visiting the two largest structures on the project: two half-mile-long bridges over the Salt River between Broadway Road and Southern Avenue at 59th Avenue, about 4.5 miles south of the I-10/Loop 202 interchange.

At this location, ADOT is installing the longest bridges girders of their type in the state. These precast concrete girders are essentially support beams that weigh 169,000 pounds and are 170 feet long. That’s 9 feet longer than ADOT’s current longest span for a similar girder type.

Our last stop is Laveen, where the Elliot Road overpass opened to traffic in April and now the first lane mile of freeway has been paved north and south of this location.

While work is now over halfway complete on the South Mountain Freeway, Samour reminds everyone that there’s still a lot of work to be completed.

“We ask for patience for the motorists," he says. "We are going to have some restrictions in place for the next 15 months but the end result will be better connectivity for motorists in the East and the West Valley.”

By David Woodfill / ADOT Communications

As with any new construction by the Arizona Department of Transportation, the Loop 202 South Mountain Freeway will have aesthetic details reflecting the area's history and environment.

As we shared last week, our designers have worked with the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation to honor the late modern architect with decorative fins and other details added recently to sound walls along the Pecos segment between 40th and 48th streets in Ahwatukee.

This sawtoothed pattern, which also will appear on retaining walls, abutments and bridge barriers, is a nod to Wright's 1920s work at the Ocotillo Settlement in what became Ahwatukee. This winter encampment, where the architect worked on designs for a resort that never came to be, included triangular structures with horizontal bands that were Wright's artistic interpretation of South Mountain's peaks and valleys.

The slideshow above includes more pictures of these newest features on the 22-mile freeway that will provide a direct connection between the West Valley and East Valley.