Workers from the Arizona Department of Transportation work to install one of four signs signaling the future route of Interstate 11 in 2014./ADOT photo
The bill in the U.S. House could help with bus lines, pedestrian safety, and I-11
By Christopher Conover
The infrastructure bill pending in the U.S. House has $20 million in projects for Southern Arizona, said Rep. Raul Grijalva.
The proposed projects include a 15-mile north-south bus rapid transit corridor from the Tucson Mall area to Tucson International Airport, a pedestrian crossing on the Tohono O’odham Nation allowing people to get across I-19, and the extension of Drexel Road.
The bill also contains money for I-11, which would connect Phoenix and Las Vegas.
The half-dozen southern Arizona projects identified in the bill all have one thing in common.
“They’re shovel ready, they are ready to move forward. Planning and that have been done. Certainly, more engineering and specific work needs to be done obviously. But the essential planning for a shovel-ready project has been done so that expedites that process tremendously and also directs more of the funding into the actual implementation of these projects,” said Grijalva.
