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San Tan Freeway (202) Opens in Gilbert!

Hello - we hope you are having a great weekend!

Good news for the SE Valley - tomorrow, the San Tan Freeway will open 12 more miles of road!  We are very excited, as we do quite a bit of business out in Queen Creek - this alleviates some of the congestion we sometimes hit on the I-60. 

Here is the article from www.azcentral.com:

 

Freeway segment a relief to GilberMike Walbert
The Arizona Republic
Jun. 11, 2006 12:00 AM

It's a 12-mile-long asphalt plug that fills in a major freeway gap in the Southeast Valley and has commuters salivating.

The final leg of the Santan Freeway, between Gilbert and Elliot roads, squares off with rush-hour traffic for the first time Monday morning.That portion of the freeway could be open as early as tonight, officials say.

The Santan's unveiling is the culmination of more than 20 years of planning to build a $174 million section of Loop 202 that slices through the once-sleepy hay town of Gilbert.
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"We're very excited about it," Gilbert Mayor Steve Berman said. "It gives us all this access to the center of the metro area."

While it's not a cure-all to the area's traffic crunch, the 25 miles of Santan Freeway between the Superstition Freeway in Mesa and Interstate 10 in Chandler will release a lot of tension on local streets, transportation officials say. The region faces daily congestion from a mishmash of Gilbert, Queen Creek, Pinal County and Mesa drivers converging on streets to gain freeway access, usually to U.S. 60 along Mesa and Tempe.

"It will have a very positive impact on the Southeast Valley," said Eric Anderson, transportation director for the Maricopa Association of Governments, a regional planning body.

A new freeway equals options and in the Southeast Valley, local officials and commuters have been starved for more choices.

"There's never enough freeway early enough," said Susan Cox, 61, of Queen Creek. "It always comes after the fact."

The freeway is expected to carry anywhere from 50,000 to 80,000 vehicles daily through Gilbert, Anderson said. That number is expected to grow to 120,000 to 140,000 once the remaining piece of Loop 202 - from Power Road to University Drive in north Mesa - is completed in 2008, Anderson said.

The freeway originally was programmed for a 2011 completion, but Gilbert officials worked to accelerate construction by five years.

Over the course of two years, construction crews built a six-lane freeway with 24 bridges; a handful of noise walls; 57,000 tons of rubberized asphalt; and excavated 3.5 million cubic yards of dirt.

It is the longest section of freeway to open in the Valley's history.

Jill Tranquill, 27, can see the freeway's noise walls from her Gilbert home's front porch near Higley and Ray roads, about 100 yards away. But the promise of a faster commute or a more convenient trip to visit relatives makes the freeway's arrival exciting, Tranquill said.

"I'm just happy," she said. "It will be quicker for me."

James Stanley takes the opposite morning commute, heading east for 45 minutes through Gilbert to his job as an air-traffic controller at Williams Gateway Airport in Mesa.

The Chandler resident lives near Alma School and Pecos roads, close to the freeway, but spends much of his commute on torn-up Gilbert roads.

"It's stop and go," he said. "There are a lot of four-way stops and street lights are hit and miss."

Stanley expects the freeway opening will shave at least 10 minutes from his commute one-way.

Current regional plans call for carpool lanes to be added between Dobson Road and Val Vista Drive in 2015, and east of Val Vista Drive in 2025.

"Financial resources are the reason HOV lanes were not part of the original design," said Jodi Sorrell, an Arizona Department of Transportation spokeswoman.

The real relief for commuters, Anderson said, arrives in two years when the entire Loop 202 is completed through the Southeast Valley.

"I think the long-term benefit, we'll really see that when the Red Mountain section opens north of U.S. 60," he said. "That'll provide another big relief for U.S. 60 traffic."
 
 
 
Sharon Kotula, ABR
Adam Tarr, ePRO
Your Phoenix Area Real Estate Source
RE/MAX Excalibur
Scottsdale, AZ
480-483-3333
info@weareazrealestate.com
www.WeAreAZRealEstate.com
 

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