[oliveurban]

Improved Grand Avenue is reopening
Underpass to ease traffic at city center

Louie Villalobos
The Arizona Republic
Jul. 7, 2006

A Thursday morning ribbon-cutting ceremony made it official. Grand Avenue is once again open for business in Glendale.

The $26 million project to install an overpass and trim Grand Avenue to four fast-moving lanes has been completed. Officials at the ceremony said that starting Monday, motorists making their way through Glendale can expect a smoother commute with fewer traffic lights.

Specifically, the 59th Avenue and Glendale Avenue intersection, which had been crossed by Grand Avenue, is now an overpass. That eliminated the traffic lights on Grand at that intersection.

Glendale Mayor Elaine Scruggs said the project will also make driving on Grand safer and more environmentally friendly. Before the improvements, Scruggs said, the six-lane road was known for constant stop-and-go traffic that flooded the air with exhaust fumes.

"Grand Avenue had become an air-quality nightmare," she said. "All the intersections had wait times greater than twice the length of any other signals in Maricopa County."

A look on a regional map reveals Grand Avenue is the only major roadway that connects the Northwest Valley to downtown Phoenix. In the process, it cuts through five West Valley cities or communities.

That makes it one of the most important roadways in a region that is outpacing the rest of the Valley in residential growth, according to recently released U.S. census figures.

Improvements like the Glendale project are trying to upgrade Grand Avenue to an expressway with limited traffic signals.

"All that translates to more mobility," Glendale Transportation Director Jamsheed Mehta said. "People live in one city and work in another one. You can't expect them to travel long distances on streets with signal lights."

So Thursday's ribbon-cutting had an importance that goes far beyond ceremony, officials said. It marks the first of several planned improvements for the road as it travels farther west.

There are plans to widen Grand between 83rd and 99th avenues, then again from 99th Avenue to the Loop 303 in separate projects. Those are scheduled to happen through 2009.

In Glendale, Grand Avenue had the capacity to move 30,000 vehicles a day before the renovations. With them in place, it will handle up to 60,000, Mehta said.

If the renovations attract the amount of motorists Mehta believes they will, that capacity could be reached soon.

If cities and the Arizona Department of Transportation fail to give commuters the attention, Mehta said, residential roads will continue to see cut-though traffic. He said a motorist driving from Surprise to Phoenix can take only so many delays related to traffic lights.

"Some of them have been on the roads for many miles and have discovered a short cut through a residential area," he said.