Maricopa’s future (maybe) interstate hits detour in Pima County

Pima County leaders loathe the Arizona Department of Transportation’s proposed Interstate 11 corridor running west of Tucson and up into western Pinal County.

But economic development supporters in Maricopa welcome the project with open arms.

The Pima County Board of Supervisors rejected ADOT’s proposed highway route in their jurisdiction as bad for every saguaro-studded wildlife preserve west of Tucson, including the delicate wilds of Saguaro National Park West.

Pima supervisors unanimously shot down the county’s I-11 segment June 18, imploring Gov. Katie Hobbs to withdraw the corridor option from further consideration.

They said the highway route through Avra Valley “would put a huge gash through the Sonoran Desert, add hordes of nice pollution-spewing cars and trucks, proposed thirsty and energy-consuming new commercial and residential development while destroying wildlife habitat and severing wildlife movement corridors.”

Former Maricopa Mayor Christian Price, chairman of ADOT’s Interstate 11 Coalition, said the Pima supervisors’ action was “not good news but not bad news.”

Price said it’s all a part of the vetting process for the highway project planned from Nogales to Las Vegas, intended to pull commercial traffic off crash-prone I-10.

Pima County elected officials said they prefer an alternative route close to and added to Interstates 10 and 19.

“What they did was send a resolution to ADOT saying, ‘We all agree that we don’t like this,’” Price said.

The move does not kill the Pima County stretch of the project, which as planned would enter Pinal County southwest of Casa Grande and sweep north from Interstate 8, skirting Maricopa’s western reaches. It would cut through farmland south of Maricopa and west up through the middle of Hidden Valley.

“The whole premise of Interstate 11 is to move goods and supplies up from Mexico north,” Price said.   “Nevada is really making headway of expanding their portion of I-11. They’re in the planning stages as to how does it make it all the way through” to Arizona’s northwest border, he said. Ultimately, Price said, Pima County leaders will have to make a final decision on the I-1 alternative route and present it to the U.S. Department of Transportation for final review and approval. Price, as the City of Maricopa’s chief economic development officer, sees I-11’s future proximity to the city as an economic boon, albeit at least a decade into the future. The project has already been on the table for 10 years, but the public scoping process on many highway projects is often a bureaucratic slog.

“The whole premise of Interstate 11 is to move goods and supplies up from Mexico north,” Price said.

“Nevada is really making headway of expanding their portion of I-11. They’re in the planning stages as to how does it make it all the way through” to Arizona’s northwest border, he said.

Ultimately, Price said, Pima County leaders will have to make a final decision on the I-1 alternative route and present it to the U.S. Department of Transportation for final review and approval.

Price, as the City of Maricopa’s chief economic development officer, sees I-11’s future proximity to the city as an economic boon, albeit at least a decade into the future.

The project has already been on the table for 10 years, but the public scoping process on many highway projects is often a bureaucratic slog.

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