Reflecting upon today’s Arizona Republic column, here is a story I’ve been sitting on all week:
Work is under way to build a bridge on Cotton Lane and expand the road from Maricopa County 85 to Estrella Parkway.
The project will produce a half-mile, six-lane bridge over the Gila River complete with bike lanes and sidewalks.
The Maricopa County Department of Transportation has partnered with Goodyear and developers to coordinate and pay for the $59 million project.
With Estrella Mountain Ranch and the planned King Ranch communities expanding or sprouting, the project becomes necessary to serve the area’s new residents, said Bill Hahn, a project manager with the county transportation department.
A six-lane bridge…
Lose the sidewalks and bike path and it could be converted to an eight-lane bridge…
This is not the emptiest land in Arizona, but it is close — for now. The trouble is, Estrella Mountain Ranch is maybe five percent built, with plans for 30,000 more homes. There are other huge projects planned for the immediate area, and The Sprawl Machine is going to start growing northward from Casa Grande and Gila Bend, as well.
I think this enormous bridge is de facto stake-driving for the unplanned, unannounced, unwhispered-about extension of the SR-303 Freeway south to the Interstate 8 Freeway.
I don’t even think it’s a horrible idea, stipulating that they’re going to build the Freeway anyway. Better to build the bridge right, even by sleight-of-hand, than to have to replace it later.
But: It’s sleazy to build a Freeway bridge without telling the tax-payers that they just signed up to build the whole Freeway.
And: The tax-payers shouldn’t build the damn Freeway in the first place…
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