I have had a lot of people call me and ask about the new Interstate 11. More than two years ago, Arizona and Nevada set out on a study to
determine the possibilities and benefits of developing a new interstate
corridor to connect Phoenix and Las Vegas, while extending south to
Mexico and north through Nevada, potentially reaching as far as Canada.
The
goal of the study was not just to find a way to directly connect these
two major metropolitan areas by building a new highway, but to develop a
plan and the necessary infrastructure to position the two states for
broader success in the global marketplace.
The Interstate 11 and
Intermountain West Corridor Study is now complete and points to the
need for a new multimodal freight corridor and a manufacturing belt that
will drive trade, commerce, job growth and economic development for the
two states and facilitate strong connections to other major regional
markets. The State Transportation Board has reviewed and accepted the
recommendations documented in the Corridor Concept Report, the final
element in this initial two-year feasibility study. This report, along
with all the study’s documents and information, can be found at
i11study.com.
The
recommended I-11 corridor would likely follow US 93 from Las Vegas, and bypass Boulder City with the new freeway being built that is proposed to be finished by 2018 to the Hoover Dam
Bypass Bridge. It would then travel along the existing Highway 93 through White Hills, Dolan Springs and then into Kingman. From here is where it gets tricky. Right now when you come into Kingman you hit a bottleneck when 93 comes into town and reaches I-40. The "gasoline alley" of town sometimes backs up for miles over Coyote pass with traffic trying to get onto I-40 which is controlled by two traffic lights. ADOT has looked at 4 different plans to see how to alleviate traffic here with some sort of bypass. One would go through a series of homes, the other planned routes could damage natural desert, breathtaking scenery of tufa stone cliffs or destroy the very history of town, where Kingman started at Camp Beale Springs. Once this is figured out the freeway will continue along the existing I-40 and Highway 93 south to Wickenburg, running west of the Phoenix
metropolitan area, and then generally following I-10 and I-19 through
southern Arizona to the Mexican border. I-11 is envisioned as a
continuous high-capacity trade corridor extending from Nogales to Las
Vegas and potentially north toward Canada that will support a high
proportion of large-scale manufacturing operations located throughout
the corridor with a major focus on reliable movement of freight traffic.
As a multimodal corridor, it also has the potential to include freight
and passenger rail, energy transmission and other high-tech facilities.
There
is currently no schedule or funding to build Interstate 11. The next
phase of the study process — the environmental impact statement — is
also not funded.
For more information about the Interstate 11 study, visit
i11study.com.
