Construction continues on more roads in Midtown Tucson

TUCSON, Ariz. (13 News) – Construction has begun on the City of Tucson’s 5-year Elm Street and Tucson Boulevard connection project.

This is happening on Elm Street between Campbell Avenue and Tucson Boulevard, and there is more construction on Tucson Boulevard between Grant Road and Sixth Street.

When it comes to which roads the city is working on, leaders first group all of Tucson’s city roads into three different categories.

There are collector streets, local streets and arterial roads.

• A collector street is one that carries traffic from neighborhoods to major roads—think Tucson Boulevard, for example.
• Elm Street is an example of a neighborhood street.
• Busy roads like Speedway and Broadway are arterial roads.

A lot of work goes into projects like these and the city starts by rating each of the city’s streets on a scale from very good to very poor. To put this into perspective, 70% of the city’s neighborhood streets are in the very poor category, so this is a huge task for road maintenance crews.

The city is tackling those streets at the bottom of the list and the work will be done over the next five years.

Most of the work will involve resurfacing and installing new sidewalks in areas that need improvements. Contractors are working on sidewalks and new ADA-approved ramps to make crossing the street easier. This is the first step of the project and must be done before crews can resurface the road.

The money will be $15 million each year for the next five years. Of that funding, $11 million will come from the Road User Revenue Fund. The remainder will come from the city of Tucson’s general fund, bringing the total to about $75 million a year.

“When you look at our streets, when they’re in bad condition, they cost all of us money; they cost drivers money in repairs and damage to the streets,” said Proposition 411 Program Director James DeGrood. “Frankly, they don’t reflect well on us as a community when they’re in bad condition. We’re doing what we can to rebuild a lot of them.”

The plan is to repave Elm Street during the first week of November and close to one-way traffic during that time. Tucson Boulevard will see those improvements next, and all paving on both streets should be finished around Thanksgiving.

Subscribe to 13 News on YouTube

Follow 13 News on Facebook

Copyright 2024 13 News. All rights reserved.