Instead of just widening I-10 through downtown, Tucson and Pima County want ADOT to study putting it below ground level and underground, which would eliminate the bisecting of Rio Nuevo and give added real estate to the project:
I-10 tunnel Downtown proposed
Plan likely to delay widening bids, could add $100M to cost of project
By Rob O'Dell and Tim Ellis
ARIZONA DAILY STAR
12.27.2005
The city and county asked the state Tuesday to delay widening Interstate 10 through Tucson to give time to study putting the highway below ground level through downtown — which could add at least $100 million to the project.
Bids for widening the freeway, now estimated to cost $191 million, were scheduled to go out in December. But with the help of Gov. Janet Napolitano, the bid solicitation probably now won't go out until at least spring, or later.
That will give the city and county a chance to study how much it would cost and how long it would take to put the freeway below ground level through Downtown from roughly St. Mary's Road to 22nd Street, a part of which would be a tunnel.
A 2002 study indicated simply depressing that stretch of freeway, without making it a tunnel, could double the cost. That, coupled with the phenomenal inflation in road construction costs in over the past year, point to a cost increase in the $100 million range, although most officials said it's impossible to predict for sure until further studies are done.
Transportation activist and one-time Democratic City Council candidate Steve Farley confirmed $100 million is the figure he has heard from city officials with whom he discussed the project. Others privately acknowledged that amount has been discussed.
The possible redesign also clouds the future of the huge arch and suspension bridge planned as part of the University of Arizona's new Downtown science center, that was expected span the freeway, linking Rio Nuevo development west of the Santa Cruz River to Downtown.
City Councilman Jose Ibarra said the bridge "probably would not exist anymore" if the highway was lowered. County Administrator Chuck Huckelberry said that the depressed freeway may make the bridge "unnecessary." That's news to Alexis Faust, executive director of the University of Arizona's Flandrau Science Center, who said, "I don't see it how it affects us at all." She said the science center still needs to be connected over the Santa Cruz River, and if the highway was eliminated, the pedestrian bridge could have great views of parks and the buildings that are put in the highway's place.
The request to the state was laid out Tuesday in a memo signed by Tucson Mayor Bob Walkup, Ibarra, and Pima County Supervisors Sharon Bronson and Richard Elias. While the tunnel idea has been discussed before, Tucson City Manager Mike Hein said the city has a window of opportunity with the Rio Nuevo downtown redevelopment project and the widening of I-10 happening in concert. "I don't want to be in the position where in 10 years people look back and ask why didn't we look at this one more time," he said.
Jan Lesher, the head of the governor's Southern Arizona office, said that the governor, a Democrat who is up for re-election in 2006, asked that the project be delayed so a tunnel could be looked at. Dennis Alvarez, Tucson District Engineer for the Arizona Department of Transportation, said the bids will not go out until the study is done.
Lesher said the governor's office wants a study done quickly "to find out if this is even remotely possible." "We only get one bite at this apple," so it is critical that the right decision is made, Lesher said. Andrew Greenhill, Walkup's chief of staff, said Napolitano's support is very important, and said the governor has always been supportive of projects in Southern Arizona, one of the only strongly Democratic areas in the state.
Widening the freeway to eight lanes from West Prince Road to 29th Street was expected to start next year, and be done on an accelerated three-year schedule to minimize disruption, at the city's request.
Bob Brittain, vice president of HDR, the consulting firm that did the 2002 study, said the city called the firm recently and asked if it could do a feasibility study as inexpensively and quickly as possible. He said the firm hasn't been officially selected, and estimated a study will take "maybe two or three months." Under the concept described by Brittain, I-10 would go over St. Mary's, then just south of St. Mary's it would begin to cut into the ground. It would pass under Congress, under Clark Street, under Simpson Street and then it would rise above ground level and pass over 22nd Street.
An 800-foot section of the lowered roadway would be a tunnel, according to Brittain, from just south of Congress Street roughly to Mission Lane. Brittain said the city wanted as long a tunnel as possible, but said there is a long depressed section that doesn't have a top, "so you can still have the interchange at Congress."
Greg Shelko, director of the city's Rio Nuevo redevelopment project, said putting the highway underground would add real estate downtown and eliminate the barrier between the east and west sides of the city center. He likened the highway to "the Continental Divide."
Many officials, including Ibarra and Elias, who represent the area for the city and county, said connecting the West Side to Downtown was one of the key reasons to study a tunnel and a lowered freeway. "The West Side residents point to I-10 and say 'that's what cut us off from the rest of the city.' " Ibarra said. "This provides an opportunity to re-establish the synergy between the West Side and Downtown that existed before I-10 was built."
Lillian Lopez-Grant, who lives a few blocks west of I-10, said the West Side neighborhoods are very supportive. "That's what we wanted all along," said Grant, the president of the West Side Coalition, a group of five neighborhoods.
Maurice Destouet, senior vice president of the Riverpark Inn at I-10 and Clark Street, said he hadn't heard of the plan but likes it. "Anything that will require ADOT to rethink the effect of this freeway expansion, and particularly the closure of the Clark Street tunnel, and the noise problem, is good," he said.