County plans partial closure of Canoa Road, I-19 interchange By Kathy Engle

Special to the Green Valley News

Pima County’s plans for the partial closure of the Canoa Road, Interstate 19 interchange, where a roundabout is being constructed on the west frontage road, will be presented Wednesday, Sept. 10, in Green Valley. The closure is tentatively projected to run from Oct. 1 through Nov. 15.

Steve Playford, project manager, will make the presentation to the Green Valley Community Coordinating Council’s Traffic & Arroyos Committee, during the meeting that starts at 9:30 a.m. in Suite 13, near the council offices in the Green Valley Mall. Since space is very limited in the meeting room, those who wish to attend are asked to call the GVCCC office at 648-1936.

Sandra Stone, chairman of the Traffic & Arroyos panel, said she plans to meet with representatives of the Arizona Department of Public Safety, the Pima County Sheriff’s Department and the Border Patrol as soon as full details are known, since the closure will pose some major inconveniences to area motorists and public safety personnel.

The Canoa interchange construction site now resembles a moonscape, dotted with construction crews, multiple warning signs, huge CATS in perpetual motion, and dozens of cylinder-shaped concrete drums, the latter slated for a flood control project.

Playford said the closing of the underpass at I-19 and Canoa Road is necessary to allow for safe installation of flood control and storm drainage improvements under I-19 at the interchange.

While he did not have all the details available, Playford said motorists who travel the west frontage road, such as those who regularly access it from Camino Encanto or Calle Tres or other streets that intersect with west frontage, will be most affected by the closure.

“These motorists will have to enter Interstate 19 at Continental, rather than Canoa,” he said.

It was unclear how motorists using the east frontage road for access to I-19 at Canoa would be affected and whether the detour on the west frontage road running south from Canoa will continue to remain open.

Playford said he is preparing graphics for presentation at Wednesday’s meeting and that the county will issue numerous safety advisories for the public once plans are finalized.

Stone said her committee is extremely concerned about the situation and will continue to monitor it closely.

Construction on the roundabout, a $4.1 million project funded from impact fees, got under way in May and is expected to be completed in June 2009 by Borderland Construction.

In conjunction with the project, and at its own cost, developer Fairfield Properties, LLC, is a building a new road, Canoa Ranch Drive, which will extend from the west frontage road interchange to Camino del Sol, allowing motorists access to Camino del Sol in Green Valley and the new residential and commercial development planned near the interchange, Stone said.

The roundabout is being constructed within the right-of-way properties of I-19 under the jurisdiction of the Arizona Department of Transportation.

The extension of Canoa Ranch Road to Camino del Sol required a traffic signal, according to federal and state highway safety standards, said Priscilla S. Cornelio, director, Pima County Department of Transportation.

“Unfortunately, there is not enough room to accommodate a signalized intersection incorporating both the on- and off-ramps and the frontage road within the existing right-of-way. The roundabout was selected as a suitable alternative,” she said.

Stone said the planning and design of the roundabout has been in progress for several years and that the T&A committee was impressed by the fact that traffic safety studies have shown that roundabouts are actually safer than signalized or stop sign interchanges.

She noted that a new book “Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do (And What It Says About Us)” by Tom Vanderbilt, favorably reviewed in the New York Times last month. notes that roundabouts are safer than intersections with traffic lights because they “require you to adjust your speed, to merge, in short, to pay attention. A study that followed 24 intersections that had been converted from signals or stop signs to roundabouts showed an almost 90 percent drop in fatal crashes after the change,” the review by Mary Roach, said.

Another roundabout at Canoa and I-19, this one on the east frontage road to facilitate its extension to Continental is also planned with construction slated to begin sometime in 2009.

The extension was one of the 1997 Pima County bond projects and is part of the Regional Transportation Plan approved by voters in May 2006.

Current construction cost estimate for the east side project is $14.1 million.

Kathy Engle is a freelance writer who lives in Amado. You can contact her at kdengle@earthlink.net.