Daily Archives: January 16, 2016

Contractor selected for project to relieve congestion at US 60 and Bell Road

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PHOENIX — With a contractor selected, the Arizona Department of Transportation is moving forward with a $41.9 million project to relieve traffic congestion at US 60/Grand Avenue and Bell Road in Surprise.

On Friday, the Arizona State Transportation Board approved Coffman Specialties Inc.’s proposal to design and build a Bell Road bridge, creating an interchange that will allow continuous traffic flow on Grand Avenue. The project is part of the Maricopa Association of Governments’ Regional Transportation Plan.

Construction on Grand Avenue is scheduled to begin in late January and will continue through March. In April, Bell Road will be closed at Grand Avenue for six to eight months to accommodate construction of a bridge over Grand and the adjacent BNSF Railway tracks.

“A condensed schedule not only avoids having construction continue through the holiday shopping season and next year’s spring training but provides for the safety of workers and motorists,” said Dallas Hammit, ADOT’s state engineer and deputy director for transportation.

Grand Avenue will remain open during the project.

ADOT and Coffman Specialties will continue working with local leaders to minimize impacts by conducting business outreach, communicating with residents and implementing a comprehensive access plan that includes signage to assist motorists and businesses.

“This project is so very important to the city of Surprise, as it will provide much-needed traffic relief at the county’s third-busiest intersection and enhance the aesthetics at a signature gateway into our beautiful city,” City Manager Bob Wingenroth said. “I applaud our partners at ADOT in working in concert with city staff to ensure a construction plan that protects local business access throughout the work, and I encourage people to continue to support these businesses during the condensed construction schedule.”

Women in Wildland Fire boot camp opening soon

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The USDA Forest Service Southwestern Region is seeking a small group of career focused women to be on-call Wildland Fire Fighters for the 2016 fire season. These on-call positions will provide support to wildland fire operations over the summer when needed and can help pave the way for future employment and career advancement inside of the Forest Service.

If you are selected for this opportunity, your first assignment will be a Women in Fire Boot Camp. The Boot Camp will provide comprehensive, formal physical wildland fire training and orientation. Upon successfully completing this training each person will receive a Wildland Fire Fighter certification and protective gear.

If you or someone you know may be interested in this opportunity, please carefully review the attached documents for additional information and instructions. The application deadline is Feb. 5, 2016.

The Arizona contact for the Women in Wildland Fire Boot Camp is:

Cory Ball
(928) 477-5024
cjball@fs.fed.us

ADOT projects invest in US 60 corridor east of the Phoenix area

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PHOENIX — Several projects that are underway or planned during 2016 will significantly upgrade US 60 from Superior to Globe.

In all, the Arizona Department of Transportation has committed nearly $50 million to projects in the corridor, including the addition of a passing lane and wider shoulders as the highway climbs east from Superior, five miles of new divided highway, rockfall mitigation, bridge work and drainage improvements.

As progress continues, including an upcoming project to replace lighting in the Queen Creek Tunnel, motorists traveling between Superior and Globe should plan ahead and be prepared for intermittent closures.

Two improvement projects are currently underway, and a third will start later this month:

A project started in August 2015 is adding a two-mile westbound passing lane between mileposts 231 and 233, widening the shoulder in Devil’s Canyon (mileposts 233-234), improving a bridge at Waterfall Canyon (milepost 229) and making drainage improvements west of Miami (milepost 242). Blasting operations for this project have required occasional closures, usually lasting up to 90 minutes, and these are expected to be needed through the end of April with crews more than halfway through excavating 108,000 cubic yards of earth.

ADOT is widening five miles of US 60 just west of and through Superior, a project that when completed in 2017 will convert the last two-lane stretch between Phoenix and Superior to four-lane divided highway. This work will require some traffic restrictions later this year.

This month, ADOT will add LED lighting to improve visibility in the quarter-mile-long Queen Creek Tunnel, which was built in 1952, as well as new conduit and wiring.

In 2015, ADOT completed a rockfall-mitigation project along mileposts 228-229, where crews removed loose boulders along a rocky and steep section of highway adjacent to the Queen Creek Tunnel.

Visitor center hosts “Kaibab National Forest, A Historic Snap Shot” display

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WILLIAMS — The Williams Visitor Center is hosting a showing of historical images, maps and documents of the Kaibab National Forest from the late 1880s to 1960 as part of the “Kaibab National Forest, A Historic Snap Shot” visual display, which will be available for public viewing through this summer.

This photo and map display represents the historic evolution of public land from the early Grand Canyon Forest Reserve to the Grand Canyon Monument, the Tusayan National Forest, and then eventually the Kaibab National Forest. The photos, which were taken on both sides of the Grand Canyon, are a representative sample of historic activities and places on the national forest. The maps show a stark contrast in boundaries from the early forest reserve to the 1949 version of the Kaibab National Forest. Display visitors will also note additional changes in forest boundaries even after 1949.

“The historic development of the Kaibab National Forest has played a significant role in the overall history of the City of Williams and our surrounding communities. But few have looked at local history from the perspective of the Forest Service,” said Margaret Hangan, heritage program manager for the Kaibab National Forest. “Therefore, the emphasis of this display is to show how the identity and function of the Kaibab National Forest have shaped our region using the forest’s own historic photos and maps to tell the story.”

In 2009, the Kaibab National Forest and Williams Public Library formed a partnership to preserve historic images and documents of the City of Williams and the surrounding area. To date there are more than 2,464 photos, documents and oral histories in the collection, and new collections are always being identified. The collection boasts items representing iconic places and themes such as “the Mother Road” Route 66, cattle and sheep ranching, logging and the timber industry, railroads and more. In 2012, 127 of the collection’s images were posted online as part of the Arizona Memory Project.

The collection, which is entirely digital, is stored on a computer dedicated to the project at the Williams library and is made available to the public free of charge. The purpose of the project is to preserve these precious treasures of the past and to make them available to the public for historic research. Hangan and Williams Public Library director Andrea Dunn have led the multi-year effort to create what is now an indispensable resource for learning about the history of the local area.

The Williams Visitor Center is located at 200 W. Railroad Ave. in Williams.