Please visit azdot.gov/ADOTKids or use the hashtag #ADOTKids on ADOT's Twitter, Facebook and Instagram accounts to see what we have going on.

By David Rookhuyzen / ADOT Communications

Our ADOT Kids post announcing our latest activity on decorating freeways had facts and figures about the Loop 202 South Mountain Freeway, which opened last December. I hope you were paying attention, since we're giving you a chance to put your knowledge to the test! 

Please take the quiz below and then see how well your parents or friends can do! We won't tell if you look back at our original post before proceeding. 

And remember, we still want to see how you would decorate the freeway! Make sure to check out our previous post to find a downloadable coloring page to show off your highway art. Have an adult take a picture or scan your artwork and send it to us at [email protected]. We'll post every design we receive by 5 p.m. Wednesday, May 13, in a slideshow that we'll post Friday, May 15.

Please visit azdot.gov/ADOTKids or use the hashtag #ADOTKids on ADOT's Twitter, Facebook and Instagram accounts to see what we have going on. 

By Caroline Carpenter / ADOT Communications

If you're still trying to brainstorm some ideas for art along the South Mountain Freeway, we have a series of videos to inspire you! These videos will take you along as the project progresses and detail how the 22-mile highway came to be.

Please visit azdot.gov/ADOTKids or use the hashtag #ADOTKids on ADOT's Twitter, Facebook and Instagram accounts to see what we have going on.

By Tom Herrmann / ADOT Communications

The next time you’re riding in the passenger seat or back seat down the Loop 202 South Mountain Freeway, or perhaps another freeway closer to you, take a few minutes to gaze out of the window. But don’t look at the mountains or a beautiful sunset. Instead, look at the colorful designs on the bridges, ramps and sound walls. Look at the plants too.

An ADOT team creates designs for a freeway based on either the history or the current use of the land. If you drive over the Salt River on the South Mountain Freeway, you can see images that look like waves of water passing over desert rocks. In the West Valley, the South Mountain Freeway designs are inspired by the area’s agricultural past. In Ahwatukee, the freeway's designs are inspired by Frank Lloyd Wright, one of the greatest architects in American history. He once worked in that area.

ADOT also decides which plants and other landscaping accents will help make a highway beautiful. 

The video at right shows you designs and the landscaping along the 22-mile South Mountain Freeway.

But what if those walls, bridges and ramps were blank? What would you draw on them? Would they be animals or saguaros? What plants and colored rock would be in the landscaping? This ADOT Kids activity asks you to make those choices and create your own freeway designs.

It isn't just the South Mountain Freeway with neat designs. The new State Route 87 interchange with Interstate 10 between Phoenix and Tucson has designs inspired by cotton grown in that area. In Tucson, sound walls at the new Ajo Way interchange with Interstate 19 have images of mountains and saguaros that speak to that area's landscape. If you need more inspiration, the slideshow at right has images of highway designs around the state. 

Not everyone is fortunate to have beautiful designs on walls and bridges. The first time my dad came to Arizona, he was surprised by images of desert plants on the sound walls that separate the freeway from buildings. Near his home in Ohio, freeway walls are just that: a gray concrete wall with no decoration.

Fortunately, in Arizona we use freeway designs to help tell the story of an area.

For a different perspective on the South Mountain Freeway's design, check out the video at right shot using our drone.

Print out the coloring sheet and draw your own freeway design!

Make a freeway beautiful using the coloring sheet linked here and posted at bottom right. Or draw your own from scratch. Add your own designs and colors. Pick and locate plants. Will you use decorative rock? All of the choices are up to you.

Here some interesting freeway fun facts ...

• The freeway looks like it’s all concrete, but it includes enough steel rebar weighing 40 million pounds. That's about the same as 3,100 elephants!
• To build the freeway, we moved enough dirt to fill State Farm Stadium, where the Arizona Cardinals play, six times!
• We moved more than 1,000 desert plants – saguaros, palo verde trees and more – out of the freeway route and replanted them when the work was finished. Here's a video of how we did that for a project along Loop 101 in Scottsdale. 
• Ever heard of a chuckwalla? They’re small lizards that lived on South Mountain. We moved about 120 of them to keep them safe during construction. Here's a video of the relocation.
• How did the jackrabbit cross the road? There are five crossings under the freeway where people and animals can get safety from one side of the road to the other.

If the FedEx delivery drivers think they spend a lot of time behind the wheel, they should talk to operations manager Kevin Hoffman.

Hoffman commutes every day from his home in Gilbert to the FedEx Ground center near 51st Avenue and Lower Buckeye Road, a drive of about 35 miles.

Count Hoffman among those happy that the Loop 202 South Mountain Freeway opened a little more than three months ago.

"I save about 20 minutes going home in the evening" by using the South Mountain Freeway instead of taking I-10 through downtown Phoenix and other busy freeways to get home. He also saves time on his drive to work each morning, he said.

FedEx is among several companies that have benefited from the new freeway, which gives drivers an option to avoid potential congestion in central Phoenix.

"All our Chandler and Casa Grande routes run this way now," he said. "It reduces travel time greatly instead of using Broadway to I-10 or taking 51st Street all the way down through the (Gila River Indian Community) reservation."

Bob Nally, president of Apache Equipment Rentals, 5757 W. Jefferson St., can see the South Mountain Freeway from his company’s front door. He also said having access to the freeway saves his transport drivers time on every trip, including those across the Salt River.

"Our transport drivers are appreciative of having the bridge as another way to cross the river," he said.

Kevin Danzeisen, general manager of Danzeisen Dairy, 6024 W. Southern Ave. in Laveen, said having a new and reliable route helps his company’s drivers a lot.

“It takes us just five minutes to get to the farm with the bridge,” Danzeisen said.

Although many people look at the freeway as providing an alternative route for drivers who need to travel from one side of the Valley to the other, Ed McDermott of FedEx says it has a proven to reduce commute that never leaves the West Valley.

“I can tell you my commute from Goodyear (to 51st Avenue) has dramatically improved,” he said. “I use the South Mountain Freeway rather than the surface streets every day.”

As your friend drives on the Loop 202 South Mountain Freeway in Ahwatukee – eyes on the road, drivers – sneak a peek off the south side of the road. What you see might at first look like a ribbon of dirt in the desert. But take a closer look and you’ll recognize what’s going on.

The shared-use path planned along the new freeway is taking shape.

The path, most of it on the former Pecos Road alignment, has been cleared and manicured. It will run 6 miles, from 40th Street on the east to 17th Avenue on the west, following the contour of the desert.

This spring, we expect to open a little more than half of the distance, from 17th Avenue to 24th Street. The remaining section, from 24th Street to 40th Street, will open this summer at the same time as the 32nd Street interchange. Construction on both the path and the 32nd Street interchange began shortly after the South Mountain Freeway opened Dec. 21.

The path is designed for use by walkers, bicycle riders and others. You can access the path at any interchange – 40th, 32nd or 24th Street, Desert Foothills Parkway and 17th Avenue – by following signs and crosswalks.

Although traffic has been using the South Mountain Freeway for two months now, we’re still putting the finishing touches in place. We’re completing landscaping, waiting for warmer temperatures to do some final paving and taking care of a few other things. We expect to have everything complete by this fall.

Designing a freeway includes quite a bit of thought about how it will look beyond the travel lanes. That's why we make sure Valley freeways have designs that reflect the history and natural beauty of the areas they pass through. 

The Loop 202 South Mountain Freeway is the latest reflection of that commitment. When designing the 22-mile freeway, ADOT took care in picking how sound walls, bridges and more would look, down to the lines, paint colors, landscaping and ground cover, including land-form graphics. 

As we shared last week, ADOT's designers drew inspiration from the work of modern architect Frank Lloyd Wright, architect, urban designer and artist Paolo Soleri, cholla cactuses, agriculture, the Salt River, South Mountain and more. You'll also see similar themes reflected in the choice of vegetation using, in some cases, native plants that were removed from the freeway's path, kept in temporary nurseries and replanted. 

ADOT developed these concepts, which were presented for public input, in collaboration with the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation and Cosanti Foundation.

“Design choices are an important part of providing quality freeways for today and for future generations,” said LeRoy Brady, ADOT’s chief landscape architect. “They enhance the experience of those who use the South Mountain Freeway.”

Next time you're heading down the South Mountain Freeway, we hope you'll take the time to appreciate how its design incorporates flavors from different areas along its path.