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Proposed freeway maps online
Ahwatukee Foothills News Maps of the Loop 202 South Mountain Freeway alignment
are now online for those who missed last week's Arizona Department of
Transportation open house and wonder how the freeway could affect neighborhoods. The aerial photographs, at
www.southmountainfreeway.com, show the current, tentative route of the freeway
from Interstate 10 in Ahwatukee Foothills, west along Pecos Road, through South
Mountain Park to the westside of the Valley where there are five possible
alignments to reconnect the Loop 202 to I-10 between 51st Avenue and the Loop
101/I-10 interchange. Depending on which route is eventually selected, there
could be between 375 and 1,350 homes demolished 255 in Ahwatukee Foothills
alone to accommodate the entire route. The South Mountain Citizens Advisory Team, which will
help ADOT select the route for the freeway, meets next week to discuss the pros
and cons of the five possible alignments on the western leg of the freeway,
between 51st Avenue and the Loop 101 interchange. The meeting is open to the public and will be held on
the Gila River Indian Community at the Komatke Center in the Learning Center
Meeting Hall, 51st Avenue and St. Johns Road, just north of Pecos Road, from
5:30 to 8:30 p.m. Dec. 1. The current schedule calls for the advisory team to
recommend a route in the west early next year. The advisory team would then
recommend an eastern alignment, in Ahwatukee Foothills, late in 2006 or early in
2007. Between now and then it is possible that a decision to
not build the freeway could be made or the Gila River Indian Community could
give permission to build the freeway on tribal lands. But if neither of those options are chosen, the only
alternative is building where Pecos Road now is. In that case, the tentative
schedule calls for construction on the freeway to begin in 2009 with completion
in 2015. For information, visit www.southmountainfreeway.com.
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