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It’s been a decades-long process, but construction of Downtown Links is now — relatively speaking — on the horizon.
Project manager Sherry Martin of the Tucson Transportation Department said the city has already put out a request for qualifications for a company to oversee construction. A request for construction bids will likely come toward the end of the year, and actual dirt-turning “would theoretically be three months after that,” Martin said.
At the end of the estimated two-year construction time for the third and final phase of the roughly $96 million, RTA-funded project, a new four-lane road will take drivers from the Barraza-Aviation Parkway near the snake bridge to Interstate 10 and bypass the often-congested downtown area. There will also be new multi-use paths, upgraded railroad crossings and improved drainage infrastructure, which could make submerged cars in the downtown underpasses during the monsoon a thing of the past.
