By Sean Holstege | The Arizona Republic
For 30 years, the public has heard the same thing about the proposed South Mountain Freeway.
Confined by geography, the 22-mile reliever for Interstate 10 has to clip a part of South Mountain Park or else it cannot be built.
But that wasn’t always so.
There is a deeper history, mostly unknown to the voters paying for the $2 billion highway with sales taxes. It’s a story of options ignored or never envisioned, of missed communications and opportunities.
A key opportunity to avoid ongoing controversy came and went 15 years ago. In 1998, the tribal government of the Gila River Indian Community approved a route on tribal land when it adopted the Gila Borderlands Regional Planning Study, documents obtained by The Arizona Republic show.
The plan called for a route on communal and privately held allotted land about a half-mile south of the northern edge of the Gila River Reservation in that area. The route would have been halfway between the state’s current preferred Pecos Road alignment and the one now favored by tribal landholders.
Three years later the state moved on, without considering it, or other options that would save dozens of Ahwatukee Foothills homes from demolition and avoid carving into a mountain that is sacred to many tribal members.
Also: Mesa, state work works to complete first leg of Gateway Freeway
