US 60

Behind the scenes, bursts of progress at Pinto Creek Bridge project

Behind the scenes, bursts of progress at Pinto Creek Bridge project

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Behind the scenes, bursts of progress at Pinto Creek Bridge project

Behind the scenes, bursts of progress at Pinto Creek Bridge project

By Garin Groff / ADOT Communications
November 27, 2019

Driving along US 60 at Pinto Creek, motorists see heavy equipment carving a road out of the rocky terrain at what might seem like a slow pace.

But when the highway is closed to the public, progress comes in bursts.

Just take a look at how quickly explosives dislodge rock in this video captured by ADOT’s video team. The blasting is the most dramatic part of a two-year project to replace the Pinto Creek Bridge, which requires carving an access road into the canyon so crews construct bridge piers.

The blasting has been underway for several weeks, when crews close the highway twice a week between Superior and Miami to keep the public at a safe distance. Blasting will continue Tuesdays and Thursdays, from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m., into December.

The explosives are used on rock that’s too hard to be removed by earthmoving equipment. But construction also occurs on weekdays, when crews remove softer rock, continue building the access road and prepare for the next blasting operation.

Drivers in the area should expect lane restrictions and allow for extra travel time. Keep up to date on scheduled restrictions or closures at azdot.gov/PintoCreekBridge.

Twice-weekly closures begin Nov. 7 for US 60 Pinto Creek Bridge project

Twice-weekly closures begin Nov. 7 for US 60 Pinto Creek Bridge project

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Twice-weekly closures begin Nov. 7 for US 60 Pinto Creek Bridge project

Twice-weekly closures begin Nov. 7 for US 60 Pinto Creek Bridge project

November 5, 2019

PHOENIX – Motorists who travel on US 60 between Miami and Superior should plan ahead for about six weeks of twice-a-week daytime closures starting Thursday, Nov. 7, as rock blasting begins for the Pinto Creek Bridge replacement project.

The blasting will lead to closures of US 60 on Tuesdays and Thursdays between 9 a.m. and 1 p.m., a schedule the Arizona Department of Transportation designed to provide consistency for those who rely on this highway east of the Phoenix area.

During closures, motorists will use a detour on state routes 77 and 177 through Winkelman. That roughly 68-mile route includes a 10 percent grade and will significantly increase travel time. Drivers may want to plan trips before or after the full closures because of the potential for long delays.

Eastbound US 60 traffic will be redirected at State Route 177 in Superior, and westbound traffic will be redirected at the west end of Miami. Traffic will not be allowed to queue at the closure locations.

Motorists with destinations between SR 177 and Top-of-the-Word west of Pinto Creek or between Miami and Pinto Valley Mine Road east of Pinto Creek will be allowed to pass. No vehicles will be allowed between Top-of-the-World and Pinto Valley Mine Road.

Daily lane restrictions continue at the Pinto Creek Bridge on Mondays through Thursdays from 6:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Monday through Thursday and Fridays from 6:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. During those times, flaggers will direct traffic and drivers should plan extra travel time.

Drivers should proceed with caution, slow down and watch for construction personnel and equipment.

For more information, please visit azdot.gov/PintoCreekBridge.

Pinto Creek Bridge replacement project underway on US 60

Pinto Creek Bridge replacement project underway on US 60

I-17 101 traffic interchange

Pinto Creek Bridge replacement project underway on US 60

Pinto Creek Bridge replacement project underway on US 60

October 3, 2019

PHOENIX – An Arizona Department of Transportation project on US 60 east of the Phoenix area is replacing the 70-year-old bridge over Pinto Creek with a nearly 700-foot span designed to better accommodate personal and commercial travel for decades to come. 

Traffic restrictions are scheduled to begin Monday, Oct. 7, on US 60 between Miami and Superior as construction gets underway on the two-year, $22.7 million Pinto Creek Bridge project.

Motorists should plan for lane restrictions and delays from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Wednesday, Oct. 7-9. The restrictions will allow crews to mobilize equipment and begin construction of an access road into Pinto Creek Canyon.

Additional restrictions and closures are tentatively scheduled to begin the week of Oct. 21. Lane restrictions are scheduled from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily, with full closures of US 60 scheduled from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Tuesdays and Thursdays. These restrictions and closures are expected to continue for about six to eight weeks.

During the full closures, which will allow crews to conduct blasting to move the highway about 30 feet to the north to align with the new bridge, motorists will detour on state routes 77 and 177 through Winkelman. This will add at least 45 minutes to the trip between the Globe area and Superior. Providing consistent days and times for these full closures is designed to help those relying on US 60 better schedule their travel between the Globe and Phoenix areas. 

Additional overnight closures are expected later in the project to place bridge girders and pour the concrete deck for the new bridge. Toward the end of the project, a five-day closure of US 60 will be required to finish realigning the highway with the new bridge.

The new bridge will be 695.5 feet length and supported by three piers. Being built adjacent to the current bridge, which will continue to be used during construction, it will have one lane of traffic in each direction and 8-foot-wide shoulders.

Once the bridge is completed, crews will dismantle the existing bridge, built in 1949 with an estimated lifespan of 50 years. While it remains safe for traffic, the existing bridge doesn’t meet current standards for bridge design used by ADOT, the Federal Highway Administration and the American Association of State Highway Transportation Officials.

For more information, please visit azdot.gov/PintoCreekBridge.

New signs on US 60 east of Valley honor Governor Rose Mofford

New signs on US 60 east of Valley honor Governor Rose Mofford

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New signs on US 60 east of Valley honor Governor Rose Mofford

New signs on US 60 east of Valley honor Governor Rose Mofford

By Steve Elliott / ADOT Communications
August 22, 2019

Signs installed by the Arizona Department of Transportation now mark two sections of US 60 between Globe and Apache Junction as Governor Rose Mofford Memorial Highway, carrying a designation recently approved by the Arizona State Board on Geographic and Historic Names.

The designation applies between mileposts 250 and 240.5, from Globe through Miami, and mileposts 200 through 214.5, from Apache Junction to just east of Florence Junction (State Route 79). Drivers in each direction of US 60 will see signs where each of the newly named stretches begins.

US 60 between mileposts 214.5 and 240.5 is already named Gila-Pinal Scenic Road.

Mofford, Arizona’s 18th governor and the first woman to serve in that post, was from Globe. In addition to serving as governor from 1988 to 1991, Mofford was Arizona’s secretary of state from 1977 to 1988.

The Arizona State Board on Geographic and Historic Names approved adding Mofford's name to the two US 60 stretches at its Jan. 22 meeting.

Other state highway stretches honoring individuals and groups include the Piestewa Freeway (State Route 51), Pearl Harbor Memorial Highway (Interstate 10), Buffalo Soldier Trail (State Route 90 in southeastern Arizona), Arizona Veterans Highway (Interstate 17), Purple Heart Trail (Interstate 40) and Veterans Memorial Highway (Interstate 15).

For more information on the Arizona State Board on Geographic and Historic Names, please visit the Arizona State Library, Archives and Public Records website at azlibrary.gov (Click About > Boards and  Commissions).

You can see lots of photos of these signs in this Flickr slideshow:

ADOT; Arizona Department of Transportation

Throwback Thursday: Claypool Tunnel

Throwback Thursday: Claypool Tunnel

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Throwback Thursday: Claypool Tunnel

Throwback Thursday: Claypool Tunnel

By David Rookhuyzen / ADOT Communications
July 18, 2019

Today we are throwing back to the original tunnel that used to help drivers cross between Superior and Miami.

The 300-foot Claypool Tunnel opened in 1926 as part of the 21-mile "million dollar highway" that was major undertaking for the relatively new Arizona Highway Department. We wrote more about the tunnel and the highway in another blog post recently.

This photo of the tunnel was taken some time during the 1940s, so roughly 20 years (give or take) into the highway's operation. You'll notice a small plaque over the tunnel, though there's not enough resolution to read more than "Claypool Tunnel" on it.

The 1,200-foot Queen Creek Tunnel opened in 1952 and took the route of US 60 with it. But Claypool Tunnel was still active, just in a different way. During the cooler months it's a popular hiking destination in the Superior area. However, danger of falling rocks led to the tunnel itself being closed off earlier this year.

But if you have some time and feel like stretching your legs for a few miles, you can still get close enough to see this early feat of highway engineering for yourself.

Throwback Thursday: Zooming ahead on US 60

Throwback Thursday: Zooming ahead on US 60

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Throwback Thursday: Zooming ahead on US 60

Throwback Thursday: Zooming ahead on US 60

By David Rookhuyzen / ADOT Communications
July 11, 2019

Today we are throwing back to Feb. 11, 1983, and a milestone for US 60 (Superstition Freeway), a main link between the East Valley and Phoenix.

As you can clearly see in this photo, that's the day when the 2-mile segment between Gilbert Road and Val Vista Drive in Mesa officially opened. According to the March 1983 edition of Newsbeat, ADOT's employee newsletter at the time, about a hundred people attended the ribbon-cutting for this expansion of the freeway.

The Newsbeat article also tells us that the guy holding up the large "Accelerating Toward Completion..." sign is Larry Hecker, who was the chair of the State Transportation Board. The person holding the camera labeled "eyewitness news" is from KTVK/Channel 3. And the person in the Phoenix International Raceway official race car? Believe it or not, that's former Governor Bruce Babbitt behind the wheel.

Though it was without a doubt an exciting moment, the freeway had to come a long way before then and still had a long way to go after. The first part of the Superstition Freeway, then dubbed "AZ 360," had been completed between Interstate 10 and Mill Avenue in 1971. It would take four expansions and a decade to make it to Gilbert Road.

In 1991 the freeway would finally make it out to Apache Junction, where it hit US 60 coming from Superior. It was also around this time that the "AZ 360" label was discarded and US 60's official alignment moved to the Superstition Freeway instead of the Main Street/Apache Boulevard/Mill Avenue/Van Buren Street route it had traditionally taken through Mesa, Tempe and Phoenix.

But all that was still well in the future when this photo was taken, and for now we'll leave Governor Babbitt to his test drive of the Valley's newest freeway segment.

The mysterious disappearance of the Miami-Superior Highway plaque

The mysterious disappearance of the Miami-Superior Highway plaque

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The mysterious disappearance of the Miami-Superior Highway plaque

The mysterious disappearance of the Miami-Superior Highway plaque

June 4, 2019

By Laurie Merrill / ADOT Communications

This is a good old-fashioned whodunit, Arizona Department of Transportation-style.

It’s the mystery of the missing plaque that was soldered and hammered onto a boulder to commemorate the opening of the Miami-Superior Highway.

On April 29, 1922, the Arizona State Highway Department celebrated its most ambitious projects of the time: 21 miles of winding road through mountainous terrain previously only accessible by horse, stage or railroad.

Nicknamed “the million dollar highway” for its cost and built using labor from a prison camp created in Superior for the purpose, the road was replaced in 1952 with US 60.

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“Even between Globe and Miami, it was a winding road,” said Stanley Gibson, former Globe mayor and councilmember for 40 years. “It took about an hour to get from Globe and Superior.”  

Four years later, in 1926, blasting and drilling was completed on a 300-foot tunnel named for state senator W.D. Claypool. In 1952, it was replaced by the 1,200-foot Queen Creek Tunnel.

“After they built and widened this tunnel they installed a plaque,” said Richard Powers, former engineer-turned-historian of ADOT’s construction and maintenance district serving the Globe area.

Ah, the missing plaque. It proclaimed that the Miami-Superior Highway, 21 miles long, cost $1 million and was constructed between 1919 and 1922. It named Gov. Thomas Campbell and Engineer Thomas Maddock and listed other dignitaries and construction officials, including Claypool, who represented Gila County.

“In 2014, I decided to stop and take a picture of it,” said Gibson, a lifelong Globe resident who, with his wife Janet, ran Gibson’s clothing store on Broad. “Two months later, it was gone.

“I don’t know if it’s been melted down or if someone has it in their house.”

Blog-2019-0604-archive-photo-tunnel

Powers, district engineer in what was then ADOT's Globe District from 1993 to 2007, said removing the plaque wouldn't have been easy or quick.

“It got stolen, and it was anchored and bolted onto solid rock,” Powers said. “They had to chisel at it for weeks or months to get it out of there.”

Today the old Miami-Superior Highway is a hiking trail. Powers, who has authored books and articles about Arizona highway history and gives talks on the subject, recently led an informative hike along the mine-owned land and discussed wildlife and minerology.

“The old culverts and bridges are there,” Powers said. “It’s a 2- to 3-mile hike to (the Claypool) tunnel.”

What became of the plaque may be never be known, but its historical value may be revived, Powers said. He said the Gila County Historical Museum has determined to commission a replica from a picture of the sign.

VIDEO: Coalition of national agencies honors ADOT for US 60 safety project

VIDEO: Coalition of national agencies honors ADOT for US 60 safety project

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VIDEO: Coalition of national agencies honors ADOT for US 60 safety project

VIDEO: Coalition of national agencies honors ADOT for US 60 safety project

February 11, 2019

By Doug Nintzel / ADOT Communications

It wasn’t the Oscars, and, more importantly, it was about highway safety. As the video above shows, ADOT was in the spotlight at a recent ceremony in Washington D.C., when a national group honored one of the agency’s creative safety solutions.

The National Operations Center of Excellence presented its Best Transportation Systems Management and Operations (TSMO) Project Award to ADOT’s US 60 Superstition Freeway Improvement Project in Tempe. Representatives of ADOT’s own Transportation Systems Management and Operations division were on hand to accept the honor.

For the Superstition Freeway project, an ADOT team evaluated a section of westbound US 60 between Mill Avenue and the I-10 interchange where a concerning number of crashes, most of them minor, had resulted backups during busy periods.

In collaboration with the city of Tempe and the Arizona Department of Public Safety, ADOT adjusted lane striping and installed new signs along that stretch of westbound US 60 in summer 2018. The result: improved traffic flow in the left lanes, leading to a significant reduction in crashes. The video features an ADOT engineer who worked on this project explaining its effects.

The National Operations Center of Excellence serves as a nationwide resource for the Transportation Systems Management and Operations community. Its partners include the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials, the Intelligent Transportation Society of America and Institute of Transportation Engineers. The Federal Highway Administration also supports the effort.

ADOT’s Interstate 17 Wrong-Way Vehicle Alert System being tested in Phoenix also received a national runner-up award in the competition.

Huzzah! ADOT engineers help reduce US 60 delays from Renaissance Festival

Huzzah! ADOT engineers help reduce US 60 delays from Renaissance Festival

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Huzzah! ADOT engineers help reduce US 60 delays from Renaissance Festival

Huzzah! ADOT engineers help reduce US 60 delays from Renaissance Festival

February 8, 2019

By Garin Groff / ADOT Communications

The Renaissance is known for its advances in science, art and culture, among its many historic accomplishments.

So with an annual festival celebrating the Renaissance drawing heavy traffic along US 60 near Gold Canyon, ADOT has turned to the very modern science of traffic engineering to help reduce delays not only for attendees but for residents and visitors heading to and from areas east of the venue.

These improvements, introduced last year, are returning when the Arizona Renaissance Festival kicks off its 2019 run on Saturday.

The most noticeable improvement helps address eastbound traffic as people head to the festival in the morning. Traffic backups on eastbound US 60 have reached up to 11 miles in recent years. Thanks to some traffic-management changes made in partnership with festival organizers, the queue shrank to less than 3 miles last year.

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This benefit results from two changes where US 60 reaches the festival gates, said Tony Abbo, an ADOT traffic engineer who oversaw the effort.

The festival added a small section of asphalt at the west gate so vehicles could turn into the facility more efficiently. Also, a crossover was added in the median at the eastern gate so westbound drivers had a direct turn into the event grounds. Previously, delays were exacerbated by those drivers making U-turns to merge with eastbound traffic.

The improvement won’t just benefit Renaissance Festival attendees. Based on last year's travel time studies, drivers who were just passing through the area toward places like Superior or Globe saw delays drop to about 8 minutes compared with other non-event weekends.

ADOT monitored and fine-tuned throughout last year’s event with help from a drone.

Our engineers will continue monitoring traffic until the event ends March 31 to determine if further improvements can be made this year or in the future.

2019 will be busy year for ADOT in southern Arizona

2019 will be busy year for ADOT in southern Arizona

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2019 will be busy year for ADOT in southern Arizona

2019 will be busy year for ADOT in southern Arizona

January 28, 2019

PHOENIX ‒ Widening the last two stretches of Interstate 10 between Casa Grande and Tucson that remain two lanes in each direction. Opening a modern Ina Road traffic interchange with Interstate 10 in Marana. Launching a major upgrade to State Route 189, the 3.75-mile Nogales highway essential to trade with Mexico.

These are just some of the Arizona Department of Transportation projects finishing or starting in 2019 that are designed to make travel safer and more efficient in southern Arizona.

Four major projects that received a great deal of attention in 2018 are scheduled for completion this year:

  • ina-ew-aerial-1-28-19
    A new I-10 interchange is on track to open this spring carrying Ina Road traffic over the Union Pacific Railroad tracks and greatly improving mobility and safety in a growing area northwest of Tucson. This $128 million project also is widening Ina Road to two lanes in each direction from I-10 west over new bridges crossing the Santa Cruz River, with full project completion expected this summer.
  • Crews will finish widening 4 miles of I-10 in Casa Grande between Earley Road and Interstate 8. This $43 million project, scheduled for completion by late summer, includes replacing the original bridges over Jimmie Kerr Boulevard to accommodate three lanes in each direction.
  • Between Eloy and Picacho, crews are scheduled to complete a $72 million project widening 4 miles of I-10 to three lanes in each direction by creating new travel lanes. The improvements include a new State Route 87 interchange and a first-of-its-kind dust detection zone on 10 miles of I-10 to provide drivers with crucial safety information during dust storms. Completion is scheduled for late summer.
  • A $55 million overpass that will carry State Route 347 traffic over the Union Pacific Railroad tracks in Maricopa is scheduled for completion by the end of 2019.

Design work is set to begin by June on the largest project of 2019: a $134 million upgrade of State Route 189, which connects the Mariposa Port of Entry with Interstate 19 in Nogales and carries a large share of produce entering the United States. Planned upgrades include flyover ramps to make a smoother transition between SR 189 and I-19 and a bridge over Frank Reed Road that will improve safety near Nogales High School. The two-year project is expected to be completed in 2021.

In Tucson, construction is scheduled begin this summer on a new interchange at I-10 at Ruthrauff Road. The $101 million, two-year project will be similar to interchange improvements at Ina and Prince roads.

Other major projects expected to begin in 2019 include replacing the 70-year-old Pinto Creek Bridge on US 60 east of Superior and repaving a 7-mile section of State Route 95 north of Parker. Bidding for the Pinto Creek work will take place early this year, while paving on SR 95 began earlier this month and is expected to continue until fall.

For more information on these projects, please visit azdot.gov/projects.