PHOENIX – Drivers using Interstate 10 through west Phoenix should plan ahead to avoid two closures of the westbound lanes at 59th Avenue for initial work to build a flyover bridge that will eventually connect to the Loop 202 South Mountain Freeway, according to the Arizona Department of Transportation.

With heavy traffic and delays expected, ADOT recommends drivers allow extra travel time and consider alternate routes, such as the Loop 101 (Agua Fria Freeway) west of I-17, while the following closures are in place:

• Westbound I-10 closed at 59th Avenue from 10 p.m. Friday, June 23 to 5 a.m. Monday, June 26.
• Westbound I-10 closed at 59th Avenue from 10 p.m. Friday, July 7 to 5 a.m. Monday, July 10.

During the closures, westbound I-10 traffic will be detoured to the off- and on-ramps at 59th Avenue, but expect heavy traffic.

These closures are needed to set steel beams to temporarily support the concrete structure, also known as a straddle bent, for the future westbound I-10 connection to southbound Loop 202 South Mountain Freeway. The straddle bent is a multicolumn pier with an extra wide column spacing to straddle the I-10 lanes directly below the pier.

The 22-mile South Mountain Freeway, expected to open by late 2019, 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 on the South Mountain Freeway, visit SouthMountainFreeway.com.

Highway conditions are available via ADOT’s Traveler Information site at az511.gov or by calling 511.

PHOENIX – Less than six months after major construction began on the state’s largest single highway project ever, progress on the Loop 202 South Mountain Freeway has been swift.

In Ahwatukee Foothills, future interchanges are taking shape at 17th Avenue and 40th Street, with columns and abutments in place and crews scheduled to begin placing bridge girders next month. In Laveen, 72 large concrete piers form the start of two half-mile-long bridges that will carry traffic over the Salt River. In the West Valley, work continues to create an interchange with the I-10 Papago Freeway at 59th Avenue, including adding piers that will carry ramps.

This was the goal when the Arizona Department of Transportation greenlighted the state’s first highway public-private partnership to deliver a critically needed transportation project for Valley motorists in a shorter time frame.

Instead of building the final piece of the Loop 202 system as nine individual projects, as originally planned, the 22-mile corridor is being built as a single project. That will deliver the South Mountain Freeway by the end of 2019, at least three years sooner.

“This first-of-its-kind public-private partnership in Arizona will not only save taxpayers’ dollars by reducing the overall cost but enable ADOT to create a much-needed transportation link sooner,” ADOT Director John Halikowski said. “As a result, Valley motorists will reap the benefits when they have another option to travel between the East and West Valley, and traffic flow will improve overall on our regional transportation network.”

Under an innovative agreement announced in February 2016, Connect 202 Partners, a team consisting of Fluor Enterprises Inc., Granite Construction Co. and Ames Construction Inc., with Parsons Brinckerhoff Inc. as the lead designer, is responsible for the design and construction of the freeway corridor and for 30 years of maintenance following construction.

Using this delivery method, the developer can work in several areas of the freeway corridor at once. For instance, while some areas of the freeway are still under design, the developer can work in other areas that are ready for construction.

Instead of completing small portions of the freeway and opening them individually, the South Mountain Freeway will open in its entirety when finished, unlike many other ADOT projects. This allows Connect 202 Partners to build the freeway more efficiently and ensure the project remains on budget by not having to tie up resources, personnel and equipment as long.

The only area not under construction is the Center segment, between 51st Avenue and 32nd Lane, where work is scheduled to begin in mid-2018.

The 22-mile freeway will provide a long-planned direct link between the East Valley and West Valley and a much-needed alternative to Interstate 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.

Visit SouthMountainFreeway.com to stay informed on the South Mountain Freeway project and sign up for updates and weekly traffic alerts to receive notifications of upcoming restrictions and closures.

PHOENIX – Building a freeway requires moving a lot of dirt, particularly for the roadway surface, and to build bridge and wall foundations, embankments and connecting ramps.

For the 22-mile Loop 202 South Mountain Freeway, the largest-ever highway project in Arizona, crews will haul and compact about 10 million cubic yards of earth, the equivalent of more than 800,000 truckloads and enough to fill University of Phoenix Stadium 13 times.

“One of the most important parts of freeway construction is building the foundation, which requires large amounts of dirt material,” said Rob Samour, ADOT’s senior deputy state engineer for major projects. “Compacting this amount of dirt takes time, but it’s essential to ensure we’ll have a stable roadway for decades to come.”

Some of this earthwork requires digging dirt out of areas such as the cross street at Desert Foothills Parkway to build an underpass or the existing I-10 (Papago Freeway) embankment to create access roads parallel to the freeway. Crews need to build up other sections, particularly where the freeway travels over local streets. During peak production, about 50,000 cubic yards of material will be moved daily for the project.

About a tenth of the dirt will be imported, including loads currently being hauled and delivered overnight along the Pecos Road corridor to avoid traffic backups during the day. Bulldozers, rollers, scrapers and other pieces of heavy equipment then move, build up and compact the dirt to create the highway’s foundation.

At a project location adjacent to the Salt River in Laveen, the Arizona Department of Transportation and Connect 202 Partners, the developer responsible for building the freeway, will use 1.1 million cubic yards of dirt to fill in a former sand and gravel pit.

Before any digging can start, crews typically wet dirt to make it easier to move and help with compaction and dust control. Compacting the soil creates a solid base for the roadway, and wetting the dirt in advance makes this step easier.

Crews will continue to place the dirt and compact it until they get it to the height needed for the future roadway.

Once the earthwork is finished, it will be time to pave.

When it opens by late 2019, the South Mountain Freeway will provide a long-planned direct link between the East Valley and West Valley and a much-needed alternative to Interstate 10 through downtown Phoenix as it runs east and west along Pecos Road and then north and south between 55th and 63rd avenues, connecting with I-10 on each end.

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.

PHOENIX – Much-needed traffic relief is in store for motorists in the southwest Valley when the Arizona Department of Transportation completes Loop 202 South Mountain Freeway bridges over the Salt River at 59th Avenue.

In February, Connect 202 Partners, the developer responsible for construction of the South Mountain Freeway, started work in the Laveen area on foundations for northbound and southbound spans that will open with the freeway by late 2019.

The Salt River bridges are two of 40 planned for the South Mountain Freeway, and they are by far the longest on the project at approximately 2,700 feet, or about a half-mile long. More importantly, the bridges will provide another all-weather link to and from Laveen when the Salt River flows while also reducing congestion at current crossings.

“Building another grade-separated crossing over the Salt River has been a critical transportation need in the growing Laveen area,” said Adam Brahm, the ADOT resident engineer who oversees construction from Lower Buckeye Road to 51st Avenue. “When nearby low-flow crossings over the Salt River have become impassable, it’s often created significant traffic delays in the area. The new Salt River bridges will make it easier for Laveen motorists to get where they need to go.”

The city of Phoenix’s 51st Avenue bridge is already heavily traveled and is the lone all-weather crossing over the Salt River between 35th Avenue and Avondale Boulevard, which is approximately 10 miles west of 35th Avenue. When low-flow crossings at 67th and 91st avenues are unavailable, the 51st Avenue bridge is the only available crossing in the area.

This occurred earlier this year when the Salt River Project released excess water from its two reservoirs due to heavy rain and early snowpack melting.

Progress on the bridge foundations along the Salt River has been swift. Large drill rigs have bored holes up to 100 feet deep and towering cranes have lifted steel bar cages weighing more than 14,000 pounds that will create bridge piers.

The remaining work will occur after ADOT receives permit approval from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which oversees construction in designated waterways.

The South Mountain Freeway will provide a long-planned direct link between the East Valley and West Valley and a much-needed alternative to Interstate 10 through downtown Phoenix as it runs east and west along Pecos Road and then north and south between 55th and 63rd avenues, connecting with I-10 on each end.

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.

PHOENIX – At the Loop 202 South Mountain Freeway’s future interchange at 17th Avenue, patterned walls being assembled in Lego-like fashion offer a glimpse of a construction technique that’s essential to completing the project by late 2019.

These mechanically stabilized earth walls, commonly referred to as MSE walls, are concrete panels as large as 5-by-10 feet that fit into place. They are part of a system, used on Arizona Department of Transportation projects since the 1970s, using the walls and steel reinforcing straps to construct the retaining walls under bridges.

Altogether, approximately 600,000 square feet of MSE walls will be installed for the project, more surface area than the retractable roof at University of Phoenix Stadium.

“MSE walls are an essential element of highway design, as they can be constructed efficiently in confined spaces with minimal use of heavy equipment,” said Julie Gadsby, an ADOT assistant district engineer on the South Mountain Freeway team.

The concrete panels are manufactured off-site and delivered to construction areas, where they are carefully assembled much like a jigsaw puzzle. The panels have various shapes and sizes and will also feature the aesthetic patterns selected for sections of the freeway. The walls going up at 17th Avenue feature desert plants and simple shapes based on the forms of native cholla and ocotillo

cactuses in the Ahwatukee Foothills area.

As each wall goes up, steel straps are connected to each panel and planted in the earth behind the wall, securing both the soil and the panel.

ADOT and Connect 202 Partners, the developer responsible for building the South Mountain Freeway, expect to complete MSE walls at the 17th Avenue interchange this month. MSE wall construction is scheduled to start soon at the 24th and 40th street bridges. The walls will be painted during the final stages of the project.

The South Mountain Freeway will provide a long-planned direct link between the East Valley and West Valley and a much-needed alternative to Interstate 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.

PHOENIX – A stretch of northbound 59th Avenue approaching Interstate 10 will be closed for several days starting Wednesday, May 3, for the relocation of a city of Phoenix sewer line. The work is part of the Arizona Department of Transportation’s project to build the Loop 202 South Mountain Freeway.

Northbound 59th Avenue will be closed between Roosevelt Street and I-10 (Papago Freeway) from 5:30 a.m. Wednesday to 5 a.m. Monday, May 8.

Motorists should consider 51st or 67th avenues and Van Buren Street as alternate routes while northbound 59th Avenue is closed.

Connect 202 Partners, the developer responsible for building the South Mountain Freeway, will relocate the 27-inch sewer line stretching the length of nearly six football fields. Crews will first remove the asphalt along the northbound lanes before digging a new 20- to 25-foot-deep trench and installing the pipe in segments.

Daily work hours will be 5:30 a.m. to 7:30 p.m.

The 22-mile South Mountain Freeway, expected to open by late 2019, will provide a long-planned direct link between the East Valley and West Valley and a much-needed alternative to Interstate 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.

PHOENIX – With a 100-ton crane standing adjacent to Interstate 10 near 59th Avenue and an oversized drill rig parked nearby in the median, work is getting underway to construct piers supporting the flyover ramps for the Loop 202 South Mountain Freeway interchange at I-10 in the West Valley.

A series of closures of westbound I-10 between 51st and 67th avenues are needed during the next few weeks to move this equipment to begin work on structures that will carry traffic over I-10 when the South Mountain Freeway opens by late 2019.

The first closure will last for approximately three hours between 11 p.m. Tuesday, April 18, and 5 a.m. Wednesday, April 19, when westbound traffic will exit and re-enter I-10 via ramps at 59th Avenue. Drivers should allow extra travel time.

There will be limited closures for the next few weeks as the equipment is moved from one location to another to drill deep foundations for the flyover ramp piers.

Over the next two years, crews from Connect 202 Partners, developer of the South Mountain Freeway project, will drill 43 shafts for the piers, using an auger to carve out 10-foot-diameter holes up to 100 feet deep. A crane will plant rebar cages in the holes, which will be filled with concrete.

In addition to the traffic interchange, improvements at the western end of the South Mountain Freeway include widening I-10 from 43rd to 75th avenues with merge lanes in each direction and adding two-mile-long access roads to improve traffic flow between 51st and 67th avenues. The new access roads will carry two lanes of traffic in each direction parallel to I-10.

The South Mountain Freeway will provide a long-planned direct link between the East Valley and West Valley and a much-needed alternative to Interstate 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.

PHOENIX – Slow down.

The Arizona Department of Transportation is sending that message to motorists traveling on a stretch of Pecos Road reconfigured for Loop 202 South Mountain Freeway construction.

ADOT and Connect 202 Partners, the developer building the South Mountain Freeway, have installed speed-monitoring equipment and signs showing motorists both how fast they are going and the reduced speed limit of 40 mph. The digital signs flash repeatedly when motorists travel more than 5 mph above the speed limit.

“Pecos Road is a local road, not a freeway, and construction is occurring on the other side of the concrete barricades,” said Rob Samour, ADOT’s senior deputy state engineer for major projects. “Motorists have a responsibility to slow down and obey the reduced speed limit.”

ADOT and Connect 202 Partners continue to monitor Pecos Road traffic and make refinements to ensure the safety of workers and motorists, including applying a new thermal reflective paint on the lane stripes and additional raised pavement markers to enhance visibility, along with additional signage and installing lane separator posts as needed to guide traffic.

On April 3, Pecos Road traffic between 24th and 40th streets shifted to an alignment that maintains two travel lanes in each direction with construction underway in Ahwatukee. The former eastbound lanes have been widened to accommodate traffic in both directions, with a double yellow line between.

By late May, Pecos Road between Desert Foothills Parkway and 24th Street will shift to this alignment.

Scheduled to open in late 2019, the South Mountain Freeway will provide a long-planned direct link between the East Valley and West Valley and a much-needed alternative to Interstate 10 through downtown Phoenix. Approved by Maricopa County voters in 1985 and again in 2004 as part of a comprehensive regional transportation plan, it will complete the Loop 202 and Loop 101 freeway system.

To stay informed about the South Mountain Freeway project and sign up for updates and weekly traffic alerts, please visit SouthMountainFreeway.com.

PHOENIX – While the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has scheduled a public hearing on an Arizona Department of Transportation permit application for Loop 202 South Mountain Freeway work in areas deemed waterways, the project remains on track for completion in late 2019.

ADOT’s project team will move forward with other construction while the May 9 hearing is pending.

Any work occurring in a designated waterway that falls under the jurisdiction of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Environmental Protection Agency requires what is known as a Section 404 Clean Water Act permit. Along the 22-mile South Mountain Freeway corridor, these areas, including the Salt River, various washes and a conveyance channel in Laveen, are being been roped off and identified by signs saying “Waters of the United States.”

After ADOT submitted its permit application in 2016, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers held a public review period that ended on Feb. 7. One comment, from the Gila River Indian Community, requested a public hearing.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Regulatory Program, which evaluates permit applications for most construction projects occurring around lakes, rivers, streams and other areas deemed Waters of the United States, has the discretion to hold or not hold a public hearing when it receives such a request.    

ADOT has worked closely with stakeholders to plan a South Mountain Freeway that not only meets strict environmental standards but also addresses one of the most critical transportation needs in the Valley: an east-west alternative to Interstate 10 through downtown Phoenix.

A 13-year analysis by ADOT and the Federal Highway Administration, the most extensive environmental review of any highway project to date in Arizona, took into account more than 8,000 formal comments from the public before the project received federal approval in 2015. That includes developing a comprehensive Environmental Impact Statement that complies with federal law and follows best practices for transportation projects.

The hearing, which is open to all, is scheduled for 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. Tuesday, May 9, at the Boys and Girls Club of the East Valley, Gila River Branch-Komatke, 5047 W. Pecos Road in Laveen.

For more information on the public hearing and permit application, please visit spl.usace.army.mil and search for South Mountain Freeway SR 202L.