Road closures, reductions expected during Tempe street improvement project
TEMPE, AZ (AZFamily) — The City of Tempe started its city-wide street improvement project and is warning drivers of road closures and lane reductions in the near future.
This $135 million project is set to improve many of the city’s arterial and neighborhood streets. Although this may cause some challenges for drivers for a while, Councilmember Nikki Amber said this is a top priority for residents.
“The long-term gain absolutely makes up for the short-term problems,” Amberg said. “It was going to take a long time to get a lot of these neighborhoods redone, and knocking on doors, all of the emails we were getting, probably the number one complaint we were getting was the roads.”
This project comes after residents voted in November to use their taxpayer dollars to accelerate all of the city’s road projects.
Amberg said the City canvassed neighborhood and arterial streets and learned many roads were rated with poor quality through its Pavement Quality Index. Knowing this will cause many people to adjust their commutes, Amberg said it’s worth it to improve driving and safety.
“They went to all of the neighborhoods, they went to the main arterial streets, and they ranked all of the streets in terms of how bad they were,” Amberg said. “We’re actually starting with the neighborhoods and the arterial streets that are the worst in terms of the pavement quality index, and we’re going to make your way back to the roads that are the best.”
The ballot measure created a four-year plan that shows when and where crews will work on roads.
The project will require some streets to undergo minimal work, but other streets will get more extensive work, like milling the top layer of the roads in order to repave them.
This interactive map shows streets that will be worked on.
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