By Peter Corbett / ADOT Communications

Arizona photographer James Cowlin went searching for landscapes to photograph a decade ago only to discover a passion for the terrain along US 89 looking through his windshield and viewfinder. Cowlin, 73, hit the road in 2007 to explore Route 89 from Mexico across Arizona all the way to the Canadian border.

He came home to Arizona with impressive images and became an advocate of the 2,000-mile highway, launching the US 89 Appreciation Society with a blog and website:

“It’s easy on the eyes,” he said of scenery along 89 that ranges from the Grand Canyon to Grand Tetons and five other national parks and a dozen national monuments.

National Geographic Traveler named US 89 one of its Top 10 Drivers’ Drives in the world in 2010. Cowlin and his wife Barbara, a painter, ventured on a handful of trips on 89, including a border to border to border journey over 32 days covering about 5,000 miles. They camped in a teardrop trailer.

“I love long road trips,” he said.

Cowlin has logged 25,000 miles on Route 89.

Home is now in Oracle, north of Tucson. Cowlin spent 35 years in Phoenix as a commercial photographer. The Cowlins live a few miles from State Route 77, previously designated as US 89.

Highway 89 is all over the map in Arizona.

There are five current sections of 89 with different highway designations – state, federal and alternate routes – SR 89, SR 89A, US 89, US 89A and SR 89S for a spur route. Interstate 19 replaced an original section of US 89 from the Mexican border at Nogales to Tucson.

“I call it the Main Street of Arizona,” Cowlin said of 89. “It connects all these towns across the state.”

US 89 was an early north-south route across Arizona in 1926 when a uniform highway numbering system was established. The Grand Canyon-Nogales Highway south of Tucson was US 380 and the road between Phoenix and Ash Fork was tagged US 280. Later they were renamed US 89 along with a new section from Flagstaff to Fredonia.

Long before interstates, 89 connected Nogales, Tucson, Florence, Mesa, Phoenix, Wickenburg, Congress, Yarnell, Prescott and Ash Fork. It then ran along Route 66 to Flagstaff before turning north to Cameron, Marble Canyon and Fredonia near the Utah border.

Arizona historian Marshall Trimble, who grew up in Ash Fork where 89 intersects with Route 66, recalled his first rough ride in a 1936 Ford on 89, also known then as the White Spar Highway to Prescott.

“Back then, Yarnell Hill was a real bucking bronco,” he said of the steep switchbacks up the Weaver Mountains. “Now it’s like a kid’s pony.”

SR 89 hasn’t changed much between Prescott and Ash Fork except for the road cut through Granite Dells north of Prescott is wider and Hell Canyon has been tamed, first with a 1954 bridge and new bridge last year. Plus, there’s far less traffic, Trimble said.

Interstate 17 and US 93 take much of the north-south traffic that formerly traveled on 89.

Cowlin said Route 89 allows for slower travel and sightseeing as an uncrowded two-lane highway that follows river valleys and the contours of the land.

“It’s kind of a natural road in that sense,” he said.

Cowlin said he discovered Route 89 while poring over maps looking for a landscape photo project to shoot and seeing a line of national parks stretching across the West from north to south.

“US 89 came to be by happenstance,” he said. “Nobody ever said let’s build a road from Glacier to Saguaro National Park. It just happened that way.”

The best time of year to travel the northern stretch of US 89 is mid- to late summer because some of the roads in Glacier National Park are snowbound well into June, Cowlin said.

“89 in Arizona and Utah you can do all year long, but spring or late fall are the best times.”

By Tom Herrmann / ADOT Communications

We’ve said it all along: Working for ADOT can be a real blast.

Widening, repairing or creating highways in Arizona can mean moving a lot of earth – sometimes through blasting. For example, it took 100,000 pounds of explosives to remove 125,000 cubic yards of dirt and rocks to widen US 60 between Oak Flat and Devils Canyon. You can see some of those explosives in use here:

Reopening US 89 after a landslide near Page required blasting as well. And ADOT's cameras where there to capture it:

Last week on SR 77 between Winkelman and Globe, as a crew blasted overhanging rock to reduce the risk of pieces falling onto the roadway below, an 18-foot-tall boulder fell 150 feet onto the highway surface. It took four hours longer than expected to reopen the highway because of the time required to break up this huge rock.

The image at right doesn't begin to do this rock justice, so click it if you want to see the boulder at full size.

Rocks often break at naturally occurring joints. Sometimes, those natural breaking spots are beneath the surface and provide us with a surprise. When crews set off explosive charges like this one, most of the rocks fall where we expect them to go. Sometimes, as on Nov. 30 near a place called Dripping Springs, they don’t.

Most of the time, they make great video. Enjoy.

By Caroline Carpenter / ADOT Communications

An ADOT project creating two new bridges over the Little Colorado River, a wider roadway, a modern roundabout at the junction with State Route 64 and four new underpasses is now complete on US 89 in Cameron, 50 miles north of Flagstaff. Check out the upgrades in the Flickr album above!

The $36.7 million project increases safety with a wider highway, raised median and new lighting, while pedestrians gain mobility with new sidewalks and underpasses.

All of the work on the two-year project has been documented on the ADOT Flickr page. Find additional details on the project in our news release. 

By Caroline Carpenter / ADOT Communications

Today we’re taking you on a drive through Cameron on US 89 north of Flagstaff. The top half of this video takes you back to 2014, not long after ADOT started a $38 million improvement project. The bottom half shows the same route now that many of the upgrades are complete.

The project started with the removal and replacement of the US 89 Cameron Truss Bridge but expanded to include more than three miles of upgrades south of the bridge, which is near the State Route 64 junction about 50 miles north of Flagstaff.

As you can see, new features include two northbound lanes, two southbound lanes, a 16-foot wide raised median, sidewalks and a roundabout.

We’ve been documenting this project since it began. Below is a look at the latest photos, but the entire collection can be found on the ADOT Flickr page. The project should be complete by fall.

You’d think after 43 blog posts, 26 videos and hundreds of photographs, that we might be out of new things to say about the US 89 landslide repair project.

But we’re not!

Seven months after the road reopened to traffic, we have some more news to share...

The US 89 reconstruction project was honored recently by Engineering News-Record Southwest when the publication selected ADOT along with its contractors – FNF Construction for the construction work and AECOM for the design – for the 2015 Project of the Year in the highway/bridge category.

If you’ve been following along with us for the past couple of years, you know that after the February 2013 landslide forced the closure of US 89 south of Page, ADOT assembled a team of engineering experts to develop the long-term solution for restoring this vital route. The nine-month-long project, which started in July 2014 following extensive environmental and geotechnical work, removed about 1 million cubic yards of earth and rock to realign a 1,500-foot section of roadway and create a rock buttress to help stabilize the area.

You’ll also remember that while working on the long-term solution, ADOT paved Navajo Route 20, which was mostly a dirt and sandy road stretching from Bodaway-Gap to LeChee, to serve as the temporary US 89 route. This reduced the length of the original established detour route (US 160 and State Route 98) in half, and served as the short-term solution for motorists heading to and from Page until the US 89 reconstruction was finished.

More about the award

Engineering News Record is a construction and engineering publication that recognizes achievements in the industry. For nearly two decades, the publication has also been recognizing work done specifically in the southwest through a juried, regional Best Projects awards.

“This year, judges recognized the Arizona Department of Transportation and FNF Construction for the US 89 slide reconstruction with a Best Project award in the highway/bridge category,” ENR Southwest Regional Contributing Editor John Guzzon said. “Several factors drove the judges to select this project, including overcoming the geographic obstacles, build quality and speed-of-work. When a job includes 73 blasts, 47,000 loads, and hauling 1 million cubic yards of rock on narrow and steep haul roads in a slide area while recording zero OSHA reportable incidents, it makes judges sit up and take notice.”

We have good news for drivers up north – work on the new roundabout at US 89 and Haul Road in Page is complete!

This project not only included construction of the roundabout, but it added a new raised median, too. Crews also installed a new right-turn bay in the southeast section of the intersection, new sidewalks, ramps, signs and lighting. Roadway drainage improvements were also part of the work, which started in early summer.

About that roundabout
If you drive the new roundabout, one thing you might notice is its size – it measures about 200 feet in diameter.

The large roundabout design was chosen for the intersection to help accommodate a variety of vehicles that frequently travel in the area, including oversized houseboats.

A traditional signalized intersection was investigated as a possible option; however traditional traffic signals would hang too low, limiting the size and height of the vehicles that could travel through the intersection.

By building a roundabout, a variety of vehicles can be accommodated.

More on roundabouts
Modern roundabouts are designed to reduce crashes and improve traffic flow. You can learn more about why we build them in this blog post from last month.

And, if you need a refresher on how to drive a roundabout, check out this video on maneuvering modern roundabouts.

If you’re still looking for more, you can visit the roundabout page on our website for all the details, including information on yielding to pedestrians, choosing the proper lane and what to do if you encounter an emergency vehicle in a roundabout.

The last time we checked in on US 89 it was to tell you that the stretch of highway, about 25 miles south of Page, was open again after a 2013 landslide called for major repairs...

Today, we’ve got another US 89 project to tell you about and while it might not be as dramatic as the landslide fix, it’s definitely going to bring about an improved driving experience for motorists in the area.

Right now, crews are working on improvements to an eight-mile segment of US 89, about 30 miles south of Page (milepost 510 to 517).

The project includes construction of new passing lanes for both north- and southbound travel (milepost 514 to 515), shoulder widening, resurfacing the pavement and reinforcing bank protection at Tanner Wash.

Select image to view larger version.

The project will extend the life expectancy of the roadway and improve traffic flow. Work is expected to wrap up by the end of this year.

What drivers need to know
Both north- and southbound lanes will be open for travel during the project, except when crews are resurfacing the pavement.

While roadway resurfacing is underway, one lane of travel will be closed. Travel for both north- and southbound travel will be accommodated with a pilot car escort through the project area; delays can be expected during this part of project construction.

By Doug Pacey
ADOT Office of Public Information

Something didn’t seem right to Thelma Begay.

Peering south toward the Glen Canyon Bridge from the Arizona Department of Transportation’s Equipment Services shop as a thunderstorm pummeled Page Friday afternoon, the account technician saw a line of traffic in both directions stopped on the bridge. She called over Shop Supervisor Scott Kennedy to take a look.

Kennedy, a 23-year resident of Page, knew something was wrong.

“Cars stopping on the bridge like that never happens, so I told her let’s drive down and see what’s going on,” Kennedy said. “Best case, it’s nothing. Worst case, we’ll see what we can do to help.”

That decision sent Page’s Equipment Services shop on a wet and muddy adventure that saved motorists from potential headaches and kept weekend getaway plans on schedule.

Kennedy and Begay hopped in one truck, while Equipment Repair Lead Technician Dustin Allen and Equipment Repair Technician Elias Tsinigine rode in another. When the two trucks made the three-quarter-mile jaunt down the hill on US 89 to the bridge, they encountered a river of mud and bowling ball-size rocks flowing across the highway at the entrance to the Glen Canyon Dam Visitor Center. Traffic heading in both directions was stop and go, and a Department of Public Safety officer was in the middle of the mudflow, directing vehicles.

Kennedy spoke to the officer and asked if ADOT had been notified. The officer said he had called in the incident, but ADOT’s Page Maintenance crews had not yet arrived to begin clearing the highway or take over traffic control.

“I told him we’d get the ball rolling,” Kennedy said.

He quickly learned that Page Maintenance crews were responding, but they were coming from the other side of the bridge and were stuck in the backup they’d been called on to clear. At ADOT, maintenance crews respond to traffic incidents for a variety of reasons, including when roadways need to be cleared of debris, when immediate roadway repairs are necessary and when DPS requests traffic control. Equipment Services is responsible for maintaining ADOT’s fleet of vehicles and its workers are rarely asked to report to an incident scene.

“The shops know when to look out for one another,” said Devin Darlek, equipment services administrator. “There have been many instances where the maintenance crews help out our shop personnel. To see it live, it’s like watching a great team playing on the field.”

By now, it was close to 1 p.m. and Kennedy knew something had to be done quickly.

“It’s a Friday afternoon,” he explained. “Everyone is coming to Lake Powell, people are towing boats, motorhomes are out there, lots of foreign tourists. It was going to be a mess.”

To Kennedy, the only option was for Equipment Services, which maintains and repairs ADOT vehicles, to step out of its comfort zone and clear US 89. On the foursome’s mind was the recent 25-month closure of US 89 south of Page because of a massive landslide.

“All four of us are cognizant of what it means to have the major route in or out of town cut off,” said Kennedy. “This was smaller, but we were definitely thinking about that.”

So, Kennedy directed Allen to drive a front-loader to the scene and clear large debris, while he and Tsinigine helped direct traffic to ensure Allen had enough space to operate. Begay stayed in a truck because the crew did not have enough orange safety vests for all to be working on the highway. The cleanup effort took about 20 minutes and traffic began flowing at a steady pace in both directions almost immediately.

“Dusty got the majority of the debris cleared,” Kennedy said. “It quit raining hard and that slowed the debris flow. Maintenance showed up and thanked us and they took over doing the dirty work of cleaning up all the muck.”

By 3:20 p.m., the highway had fully reopened, providing travelers easy passage to Lake Powell and the Glen Canyon National Recreation Area and points beyond.

Kennedy praised his co-workers for reacting quickly to a situation that called for action beyond their job descriptions, calling it a “whole team effort.”

“It was just common sense,” Kennedy said. “Felt to me like the right thing to do.”