The State Transportation Board has approved its 2025-29 five-year construction program, emphasizing pavement and bridge improvements and expanding several highways.

In Maricopa County, the program features approximately $2 billion in construction projects planned in conjunction with the Maricopa Association of Governments. The projects include:

• Widening Interstate 10 between Phoenix and Casa Grande. The I-10 Wild Horse Pass Corridor will have four projects, including the construction of the I-10 bridges over the Gila River that began this spring.
• Extending Loop 303 between Van Buren Street and Maricopa County 85.
• Providing new HOV ramp connections between I-10 and Loop 101.
• Reconstructing the intersection of Grand Avenue, 35th Avenue and Indian School Road to separate traffic.

The overall $8.2 billion program “puts a major emphasis on improving highway pavement and bridge infrastructure throughout greater Arizona, which encompasses areas outside of Maricopa and Pima counties,” according to a release from the Arizona Department of Transportation.

The plan provides more than $2.5 billion for “high-priority improvements” during the next five years, an average investment of $500 million per year “to preserve, rehabilitate and replace pavement and bridges,” the release stated. 

The program calls for a total of $800 million over five years for projects that transportation officials said will improve highway safety and efficiency, such as intersection improvements, smart technology, freight mobility and signs signals and lighting.

It also allocates $780 million for projects that widen highways or improve interchanges across greater Arizona, including:

• Widening and improving US 93 between Wickenburg and I-40 in Kingman, including expanding three segments of the highway from two to four lanes. The US 93 improvements include the ongoing widening project near Wickenburg, along with new projects near Cane Springs, Vista Royale and Big Jim Wash.
• Widening the last two-lane section of State Route 260 in the Lion Springs area between Payson and Heber-Overgaard. This will complete a four-lane divided highway along the entire SR 260 corridor.
• Constructing a new I-40 interchange at Rancho Santa Fe Parkway in Kingman.

We’d like to invite our readers to submit their civil comments on this issue. Email AZOpinions@iniusa.org.