The U.S. Congress has designated a planned interstate highway that would link the Phoenix and Las Vegas metro areas as a "high priority" transportation corridor, the Arizona Department of Transportation announced last week.
Interstate 11 was included in the Fixing America's Surface Transportation Act, a five-year transportation bill approved by Congress. ADOT says the designation reinforces its vision for I-11, which would start in Nogales and run through the Tucson and Phoenix areas to Wickenburg. From there, it would generally follow the route of U.S. Route 93 to the Nevada state line before continuing northwest to Interstate 80 in the Reno area.
But the focus of the project, at least for Arizonans, has been a link between Phoenix and Las Vegas. Currently, U.S. 93, which narrows to two lanes in places, is the most direct route between the cities, but several fatal crashes have occurred there in recent years. ADOT did recently complete work to widen a 5-mile stretch of U.S. 93 outside Wickenburg to four lanes.
Late last year, the Arizona State Transportation board approved funding for an environmental study on a portion of the proposed I-11 freeway. Work on that three-year study is just beginning, ADOT said.
To learn more about the I-11 project, visit www.i11study.com.