HikeArizona.COM

Looks like the final steps to start construction are being pushed through. Makes me sad, how about you?


Recent news => http://www.ahwatukee.com/news/article_9 ... f887a.html and http://www.azcentral.com/community/ahwa ... ck_check=1 and http://www.azcentral.com/community/ahwa ... ement.html

Yes it does! : :SB: :tt: !

Team 202 here. The new freeway should cut down on I-10 traffic downtown. This could help decrease air pollution in the valley. That's good for all of us. Also it'll give west-siders like me easier access to the trails south of South Mountain.

Makes me sad as well, rip out 200+ homes to build a road. This thing belongs out in Rainbow Valley west of Estrella Mtns.

I heard years ago that Mayor Drinkwater said they would not tear down homes to build the 101, and he made it so. Wish we had that kind of spirit here.

Sredfield wrote:I heard years ago that Mayor Drinkwater said they would not tear down homes to build the 101, and he made it so.

The story goes a bit deeper.
Scottsdale & ADOT DID purchase homes all along the 101 alignment (+/- McDowell/Thomas area, etc.) with intentions of demolishing them. They had been negotiating in bad faith with the natives, and so the natives blocked the NB lane of Pima Rd. with concrete barricades one night without warning. (Pima Rd. is the boundary, with the NB lane being on native land & the SB lane in S-dale)
All butt-hurt, Scottsdale & ADOT acted foot-loose-and-fancy-free with our $ (imagine that) and decided to buy all the homes along the west side of Pima Rd. so that the freeway could be built completely on S-dale land.
So, they bought up all the homes at the going rate; but then, as our gub'ment ain't that bright,after a cooling-off period of about a year they decided to offer the natives a respectable amount for their land and the freeway was built using their land.
So - you can imagine what happened when about a hundred homes (which had all been vacant for a year and were all relatively adjacent) went on the market all at once - yep - S-dale & ADOT received about 50-cents-on-the-dollar. Of course that doesn't include all the graft, as the homes were all listed by the same agent, etc, etc. etc.

And after that they just built the bridges and no freeway!

I like the 202 and think it should have been built 15 years ago. I also have very little sympathy for property owners who built homes along the route. It's been in the master plan and on maps since the 80s. Building there was a risk taken in hopes it wouldn't be built. The risk always included the likelihood it WOULD be built.

As for hiking, it doesn't eliminate any trails. While we all prefer peace and solitude, it's an urban park. Urban parks are surrounded by roads, freeways, homes, industrial warehouses, etc. It's nice that the mountain is a preserved island in the middle of it all.

@chumley
Kind of like all the idiots that bought houses out by Luke AFB and are now trying to stop the introduction of the F-35 JSF because they are too loud.

From what I see, the freeway will be about a half mile away from the National trail at the closest point. Further away from the Bursera trail, etc. http://www.smfonlinehearing.com/maps/ A bypass of downtown Phx will ease congestion and make access to the south side of South Mountain easier for Dave1. Maybe Joe will even visit.

Terrible. If you want to reduce air pollution and traffic, build more bike lanes and makes public transportation (perhaps create a subway system) and build up- not out. More freeways and lanes equate to more cars on the road. As soon as the oil runs low or when some oil rich country decides not to sell cheap oil to us like they did in the 70s, we are screwed. But instead of hearing from me, hear it from the folks who've done the research:

http://www.amazon.com/Traffic-Drive-Wha ... affic+cars

http://www.endofsuburbia.com

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=joobOHZnxok

My biggest concern is that by isolating the mountain from the rest of the desert to the south you've created (as others noted) an island. Newly isolated islands suffer localized extinctions pretty quickly after becoming insular. Faunal diversity is reduced. Larger islands suffer fewer extinctions than small ones, so that stands as a positive. Essentially the number and type of animals you see on the trail will go down relatively quickly after the freeway is built and will continue to decline slowly after that until such time that the local populations reach equilibrium. That is not a guess - it is a guarantee.

It's 10 miles from the downtown of the 5th largest city in America. It's awesome that there's any preserved land at all. It could be a solid block of mountain homes, streets, and trash.

In an ideal world we would all live in high rise apartments that take up 5 square miles and go to work a block away and the rest of the valley would be natural desert inhabited by a few hohokam, a bunch of snakes, hares, and coyotes (the four-legged kind). But we don't live in an ideal world. We live in a world that must balance a lot of interests. There are no perfect solutions.

I, for one, am glad that Dobbins, et al, had the idea in the first place (1922-ish) - pretty forward thinking if you ask me. It may have been the best $17,000 ever spent in this town.

Six community forums provide opportunity to comment on proposed freeway

PHOENIX — A series of six community forums will be conducted by the Arizona Department of Transportation beginning June 4 to provide additional opportunities for members of the public to comment on the Draft Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed South Mountain Freeway. While these forums are not formal public hearings and will not include presentations, they will allow members of the public to view the study video, talk with technical experts about the draft environmental impact statement and provide comments to a court reporter.

Forums will be held:
June 4, 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. at Sunridge Elementary School – Cafetorium, 6244 W. Roosevelt St. in Phoenix.
June 18, 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. at The Foothills Golf Club – Saguaro Room, 2201 E. Clubhouse Drive in Phoenix.
June 22, 9 a.m. to noon at the Komatke Boys and Girls Club, 5047 W. Pecos Road on the Gila River Indian Community.
June 25, 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Windmill Suites – Arizona Ballroom, 3535 W. Chandler Blvd. in Chandler.
July 9, 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. at the Laveen Education Center – Boardroom, 5001 W. Dobbins Road in Laveen.
July 11, 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Hilton Garden Inn Phoenix/Avondale – Ballroom, 11460 W. Hilton Way in Avondale.

The project’s study team will incorporate input gained from comments to produce the final environmental impact statement, which will have a 60-day public review period. A record of decision is expected in 2014.

Those with comments about the proposed South Mountain Freeway don’t need to wait until a community forum – comments are currently being accepted through July 24, via these channels:
Providing input by email at projects@azdot.gov
Submitting online comments at http://www.azdot.gov/SouthMountainFreeway
Calling 602.712.7006
By mail to the South Mountain Study Team, 1655 W. Jackson St. MD 126F, Phoenix, AZ 85007

For more information on the draft environmental impact statement or the community forums for the South Mountain Freeway, please visit http://www.azdot.gov/SouthMountainFreeway.

Progress is inevitable, but I question how much worth this freeway will provide. It seems like all it would do is divert traffic from the Maricopa Fwy to the Papago Fwy. However, I'm sure it would help spur development of the Estrella and Laveen areas. I'm too lazy to look, but I'm also sure that the homebuilder associations are all for this project. Kind of like how the same organizations were gung-ho in favor of constructing an interstate that would bypass Tucson that was sold as a way to keep trucks off of I-10 through Tucson. These proposed freeways have been sold as a means to relieve traffic congestion, but don't think for a second that they won't breed more development. That may be good for metropolitan Phoenix, it may be bad depending upon one's point of view. However, the people of Maricopa County have a choice to make whether to fund this 202 extension, and I hope they vote for what's best for the Valley. Most of 'em won't vote anyways, and the decision is probably already cast in stone, but it's still nice to think we have a choice. I'm neither a resident of Maricopa County (I was for 30 years) or an idealist, but this freeway will cost a lot of money. If it's worth it, go for it. If not, then don't.

The problem I see is that it creates a new choke point on I-10, rather than joining in at an existing choke point. Seems to me that would cause I-10 travel to be even slower ...

kingsnake wrote:The problem I see is that it creates a new choke point on I-10, rather than joining in at an existing choke point. Seems to me that would cause I-10 travel to be even slower ...

It will if they don't build the ramps wide enough to accommodate rush hour traffic. The 51/101 interchange feels like Los Angeles when the rush hour traffic hits and everyone is stopped. It seems like ADOT designs them to be obsolete by the time they build them.

No surprise there. When I moved Arizona to Green Bay in 1990, Green Bay had more freeways than Phoenix (including a perimeter loop), a city even then 10x it's size.

I'm ok with it. In my lifetime I've seen I-10 get completed through Phoenix. 40 yrs ago it didn't go through. I've seen the 51 and the 101 and 202 get built. Every one of them cost us some housing, some natural areas, a lot of dollars. But it didn't take long before people dug the idea of driving from LA to Texas withOUT having to get off and drive on city streets in Phoenix. And getting to the west end of town from the east or north end of town no longer means a several hour drive on Bell Rd or similar.

The alternative seems to be we live in a place like NYCity, with everything built straight UP. New York. You know that place where people complain that things they want to get to are "20 blocks away". I always laugh at that east coast sense of distance when compared to our huge expanses here in the wild west.

There are two humans living on my one acre. If we were in West Hollywood, it would be 28 humans. I'll take a little freeway incursion, especially the way it's done here in AZ, over having 26 additional room mates any day..


Sgt Lumpy

This could be cool:

South Mountain Freeway bike lane proposed

http://www.azcentral.com/story/travel/l ... /28895353/

I like the bike path idea. Just last weekend I was reminded of the great path that follows I-70 between Breckenridge and Vail (with sections even farther west). As the route goes over Vail Pass, it's a beautiful paved path meandering in the valley between the east and westbound sections of the interstate. I don't know if there's a bike speed limit or not, but you could get some impressive speed on the downhills! photo
I think it would be great to see something similar on the SoMo202.