PHOENIX — The Arizona Department of Transportation is seeking public comment on a proposed bridge replacement project on Interstate 15 in the far northwest corner of the state that is part of a key economic trade corridor that runs from southern California through the Rocky Mountains to Canada.
The public comment period for the I-15 Virgin River Bridge No. 1 reconstruction project and every other project listed in the 2015-2019 Tentative Five-Year Transportation Facilities Construction Program is already underway. The Five-Year Program is updated every year and serves as a blueprint that details where, when and how regional, state and federal funding will be spent for projects over the next five years to improve the state’s transportation infrastructure. This includes highways, bridges, transit and aviation.
The 2015-2019 Tentative Five-Year Transportation Facilities Construction Program is now available for public review and comment. ADOT has developed a “how to read it” guide and welcomes feedback by email at [email protected].
The estimated $33 million design and rehabilitation project on Virgin River Bridge No. 1, approximately five miles east of Littlefield, Ariz., will include the replacement of the bridge’s superstructure – girders, deck and railings, as well as widening the roadway through the narrow passage of the environmentally sensitive area of the scenic Virgin River Gorge.
This month, ADOT began a $27 million project to replace Virgin River Bridge No. 6, marking the first of eight bridge rehabilitation projects that will ultimately need to be completed through the gorge.
Work is scheduled to begin on Virgin River Bridge No. 1 in fiscal year 2019 if the project is adopted in the final 2015-2019 Five-Year Program.
The State Transportation Board will consider all public comments received by May 20. Public hearings will be conducted on April 11 in Marana, Ariz., and May 9 in Flagstaff, Ariz., to allow for additional community input. The board is expected to adopt the final 2015-2019 Five-Year Program at the June 13 meeting in Willcox, Ariz.
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- ADOT: Virgin River Gorge bridge improvement schedule
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Hearings about these things need to be held in St. George, Utah and Clark County, Nevada, not in some far-off place in Arizona that is nowhere near the people who are mostly affected by construction in the Virgin River Gorge. Or Utah needs to take the Arizona Strip away from Arizona, since all of the residents there have connections with Utah. Politicians and bureaucrats in Phoenix don’t really care about the few Arizonans and the many Utahans and Nevadans who are affected up here north of the Grand Canyon.