Road Closures

by Nick Coons
Feb 25, 2004

It's no surprise that Arizona

Arizona	(air-i'-ZON-u')
The State of Arizona comprises the extreme south-western portion of the United States. It is bounded on the north by Utah, on the east by New Mexico, on the south by Mexico, and on the west by California and Nevada.

is constantly under construction. With Phoenix being the fastest growing city in the country, new roads and freeways are popping up all over the place. Every weekend now there is a major road closure, or a freeway is taken down to a single lane. On my way out to the far east valley recently on US 60, I noticed the detour, or re-routing, of the freeway as construction crews were working on the overpass to the Loop 202.

And I even hear it on the news each week, "We're coming up to a weekend, so you know what that means -- road closures." With the hectic-like state of Monday through Friday, the weekends are my time to relax (sometimes). Often, this means leaving the valley for some quiet time or exploring. And with massive road closures, I can sometimes be set back over an hour before I even leave Phoenix.

I am all for rubberized asphalt. It makes the freeways much quieter both for surrounding residents as well as for drivers. It seems to be a much smoother, gentler, more enjoyable ride. And I don't really mind the valley's rapid growth, as long as we continue to expand outward instead of upward. But are the current road closure schedules the best we can do?

For now, it seems to be the case. Most major road closures occur from Friday at 9:00pm until Monday at 5:00am. This means that the freeways are usually available during rush hour traffic and regular business hours for that matter. Though with the number of tourist attractions that this state has to offer, quite a bit of traffic exists on the weekends, and it would seem important to find a way to allow that traffic to pass as normally as possible.

Unfortunately, I have no ties with those in control of traffic flow, so I don't have any special information that would allow me to form a solution to this dilemma. Which means that, at this point, I can only explain the problem without offering a possible concrete solution.