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For over two years, cones have reduced traffic in both directions to one lane along a mile-stretch of 48th Street from Baseline Road south to South Pointe Parkway in Ahwatukee and could remain in place until early next year.
For over two years, cones have reduced traffic in both directions to one lane along a mile-stretch of 48th Street from Baseline Road south to South Pointe Parkway in Ahwatukee and could remain in place until early next year.
As street projects go, it seemed a relatively straightforward effort.
But three years after it began, the widening and upgrade of about a mile stretch of 48th Street from Baseline Road south to South Pointe Parkway continues holding motorists hostage to a gauntlet of traffic cones that force them into a meandering path along one lane in each direction.
When it was first announced in 2019 that the project would begin the following year, a one-time Phoenix Street Transportation Department representative didn’t expect it to last more 200 days, though construction ultimately didn’t begin until fall 2021.
In 2021, that time estimate was more than doubled to 450 days.
Earlier this year, the project was projected to be completed by June.
Now, 48th Street won’t be liberated until sometime earlier next year, Phoenix Street Transportation spokesman Gregg Bach told the Ahwatukee Foothills News last week.
The project’s final has also risen with the time estimates for its completion.
First estimated at $5 million, City Council in 2021 approved $6.3 million for it. It was later increased to $10.9 million.
It likely will go up again, Bach said.
With $7.8 million of that $10.9 million already spent, he said, “The city’s project management team is negotiating the final cost of the remaining work needed to complete the project.
“The utility conflicts and issues with the rocky terrain resulted in work that was outside the project’s original scope,” he explained, “meaning additional cost negotiating and time was needed to complete the additional scope.”
Those “utility conflicts” and “rocky terrain” are at the heart of a project that has afflicted a popular alternative route to I-10 for countless Ahwatukee motorists and made access and egress a challenge for hundreds of people who work at various businesses along both sides of the street.
Through no fault of its own – except for maybe a city employee or two who worked decades ago – the Street Transportation Department had no clue what FNF Construction Inc. and its subcontractors would encounter when it began work.
The west side of 48th Street wasn’t even a city street.
It was a private road that became a public thoroughfare through an agreement the city negotiated with the Pointe South Mountain Business Park Association and Chalres Schwab & Co.
Despite that agreement, the city also had to negotiate rights of way with utility companies needed to achieve its grand vision of a bike lane, a sidewalk that complied with the American Disabilities Act, and a widened west side of the road that met city standards that are far higher than those for a private roadway.
The project also called for street lighting, curbs and stormwater drain catch basins on the west side. Portions of the east side also needed to be improved.
But what lurked beneath the surface has made the project last almost as long as the Arizona Department of Transportation’s 11-mile Broadway Curve Improvement Project.
In planning the project, city engineers had relied on documents showing the location cable, gas, fiberoptic, telephone, electric, water and sewer lines that turned out to be inaccurate.
“The original roadway and right-of-way were not well documented,” one Street Transportation Department representative explained several years ago. “The project team and contractor encountered many unforeseen utility conflicts.”
Those “conflicts” basically pitted man and machine against boulders and deeply embedded rock that “affected the excavation and realignment of the new storm drain,” the department official said.
Indeed, when crews were digging to install the storm drain, they hit solid rock.
While crews would normally pull out the dynamite in situations like this, they discovered a 42-inch water line and 36-inch sewer main prevented them from blasting.
The resulting disruptions from all these unexpected and prolonged challenges has prompted some complaints from motorists.
In written comments to ADOT in connection with the completely unrelated proposal to ease the logjam along Baseline Road between Priest Drive and 48th Street, some people vented about the 48th Street project.
“Why is the project on 48th and Baseline taking so damn long?” asked one disgruntled motorist.
Another wrote last year, “48th street has been torn-up for 2 years, and is used as a detour, which makes the route very time-consuming to the degree of a typical 20 minute commute to over an hour when used as an alternate to a freeway closure.”
Another complained, “The interchange is fine at Baseline and I-10 except for panhandlers. Traffic is far worse at the Baseline and 48th St. intersection. There is no reason to disrupt traffic for years with unnecessary construction.”
Still another wrote, “Whoever decided to approve construction on Baseline Road and 48th while at the same time making improvements on the Broadway Curve needs to have their head examined.”
While some frequent users of that stretch of 48th Street complain they rarely see workers even present during normal work hours, Bach said there is enough work still to be done to warrant an extension of the project into sometime in 2025.
“Work that remains includes, landscaping and restoration of adjacent properties that were impacted by construction,” he said.
Also needed to be done, he said, is “reconstructing the Kinder Morgan (El Paso Natural Gas) entrance near the Highland Canal to improve visibility and safety of the traveling public with ingress and egress of large vehicles, a final asphalt overlay and completion of some minor concrete work.”
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