Arizona State Route 202
State Route 202 or Loop 202 is a partial beltway looping around the eastern areas of the Phoenix metropolitan area in central Arizona. It traverses the eastern end of the city of Phoenix, in addition to the cities of Tempe, Mesa, Chandler, and Gilbert, and is a vital route in the metropolitan area freeway system. Loop 202 has three officially designated sections along its route; the Red Mountain Freeway, the SanTan Freeway, and the South Mountain Freeway, also known as the Ed Pastor Freeway. The Red Mountain Freeway runs from the Mini Stack Interchange with Interstate 10 and State Route 51 in Phoenix to the SuperRedTan Interchange with U.S. Route 60 in Mesa. The SanTan Freeway runs from there to an interchange with Interstate 10 in Chandler. The South Mountain Freeway, officially known as the Congressman Ed Pastor Freeway, runs from there to Interstate in western Phoenix.
Loop 202 was created after different sections of freeway within the Phoenix metro were given the designation, while the first section was designated in 1990. The SanTan Freeway was completed in 2006, while the Red Mountain Freeway section was completed in 2008. The Ed Pastor Freeway was officially opened on December 21, 2019.
Route description
Red Mountain Freeway
The first section of Loop 202 to open was the Red Mountain Freeway. It runs from the I-10/SR 51 Mini Stack interchange to US 60. It passes over the Salt River and through Tempe and Mesa en route, with an interchange with Loop 101 in Tempe. The final segment of the freeway from Power Road to University Drive opened on July 21, 2008. This opening marked the completion of the original Regional Freeway System as approved by Maricopa County voters in 1985 by Proposition 300.In 2006, this portion of Loop 202 was used to portray a Saudi Arabian superhighway in the 2007 film, The Kingdom. Filming also took place at Phoenix-Mesa Gateway Airport and the Arizona State University Polytechnic Campus. The city of Mesa received $40,000 for the use of the freeway from NBC Universal.
As of October 2012, HOV lanes on the Red Mountain section run from I-10/SR 51 to Gilbert Road. In 2015, the HOV lanes were extended from Gilbert Road to Broadway Road. HOV lanes are planned to extend to US 60 in Mesa, eventually tying into planned HOV lanes on the SanTan Freeway.
SanTan Freeway
Completed in 2006, the SanTan Freeway serves the southeast valley cities of Chandler, Gilbert, and Mesa. It provides access to Phoenix-Mesa Gateway Airport, the former Williams Air Force Base. Beginning at the SuperRedTan Interchange with US 60 in Mesa, the freeway runs south and turns westward in Gilbert near the airport. A few miles later the SanTan is running in Chandler, where it has a junction with Loop 101 in the vicinity of the Chandler Fashion Center. Following this interchange, the SanTan Freeway section of Loop 202 encounters its terminus at a stack interchange with I-10 near Ahwatukee.The SanTan section has HOV lanes between I-10 and Gilbert Road. Long-term plans call for HOV lanes to extend to US 60 and to the HOV lanes on the Red Mountain section.
Ed Pastor Freeway
The third segment of Loop 202, the South Mountain Freeway, officially known as the Ed Pastor Freeway, received final approval from the Federal Highway Administration on March 10, 2015, with construction completed at the end of 2019. The Ed Pastor Freeway has two distinct segments: the "eastern segment" that straddles the Ahwatukee-GRIC border and the "western segment" that parallels 59th Avenue through the southwest Phoenix community of Laveen. Together, these segments form a mile bypass around Downtown Phoenix, linking the metropolitan area's southwestern and southeastern suburbs. The freeway begins at the existing four-level symmetrical stack interchange between I-10 and the Santan Freeway on the Chandler-Ahwatukee border and terminates at I-10 and 59th Avenue west of Downtown Phoenix.A stretch of the freeway, from 40th Street to 17th Avenue, includes a wide bike path. The path is on the south side of the freeway and is also open to pedestrians. The path was included because the existing roadway had been a popular cycling route for years.
History
The highway originally was assigned many different route numbers along its path. The portion of the Red Mountain Freeway west of the Pima/Price Freeways was formerly known as the "East Papago Freeway," and it was initially designated SR 217. The remainder of the Red Mountain Freeway was to be SR 216. The San Tan Freeway was originally routed as SR 220. The Ed Pastor Freeway portion, formerly known as the "South Mountain Freeway," was initially supposed to be SR 218. The Loop 202 designation was first assigned on December 18, 1987, along the East Papago and Red Mountain Freeway corridors and the portion of the San Tan Freeway east of Price Road. At that time, the portion of Loop 202 west of Price Road was to become part of. But on July 19, 1991, the proposed South Mountain Freeway was renumbered as part of Loop 202.Controversy
The Ed Pastor Freeway remains the most controversial segment of Loop 202. Construction was delayed due to tension between three groups: regional transportation planners, who insisted that the freeway was necessary to ensure smooth traffic flow in the coming decades; residents of the adjacent Ahwatukee community, who would have lost 120 homes to eminent domain depending on the road's final alignment; and leaders and residents of the adjoining Gila River Indian Community, who have oscillated between opposing and supporting the freeway in recent years.The specific alignment of the freeway, initially referred to in 1983 as the "Southwest Loop Highway", was revised several times since 1985, when Maricopa County voters originally approved its construction as part of the regional highway network envisioned under Proposition 300. In 1988, the Maricopa Association of Governments, the region's transportation planning agency, suggested an alignment of the freeway's western segment along 55th Avenue and an alignment of the eastern segment along Pecos Road. A federal study in 2001 required ADOT to reexamine those suggestions, and the task of recommending the final alignment fell to a Citizen's Advisory Team formed in 2002. In April 2006, that panel released their final recommendations to route the western portion of the freeway four miles further west to connect with Loop 101, and to reject the proposed alignment of the eastern portion along Pecos Road, suggesting that the latter be built on Gila River Indian Community land instead. Two months later, ADOT overruled the panel's suggestion for the western segment and opted for the current 59th Avenue alignment instead.
In February 2012, a non-binding referendum was held in the Gila River Indian Community on whether the eastern portion of the freeway should be built on community land several miles south of Pecos Road. Options in the referendum were to build on community land, off community land, or not at all. The "no build" option won a plurality of votes, receiving 720 votes out of a total 1,481 cast. MAG sent out a press release soon after making it clear that construction of the freeway would move forward as planned along the Pecos Road alignment. Expecting this outcome, MAG and ADOT had previously shrunk the freeway's footprint from 10 lanes to eight to minimize its impact on Ahwatukee. Fearing the worst possible outcome of the freeway being built without exits onto community land, Gila River Indian Community residents quickly formulated plans for a new referendum that would exclude the "no build" option, leaving only "yes on Gila River or no on Gila River." The tribal government rejected this proposal in July 2013.
As late as September 2013, the freeway still faced active opposition. A non-profit group called the Gila River Alliance for a Clean Environment filed a civil-rights complaint with ADOT in July, claiming the freeway would disproportionately and adversely affect tribe members. A freeway opposition group called Protecting Arizona's Resources and Children planned an environmental lawsuit. And the Environmental Protection Agency in August 2013 raised several objections to the state's 12-year, $21 million draft environmental impact statement that had deemed construction of the freeway to be more beneficial to the environment, by improving traffic flow and thus reducing pollution, than building no freeway at all. The EPA claimed that the statement contained overly optimistic traffic projections, did not sufficiently address air quality concerns, and could harm neighboring communities and environmental resources.
By April 2017, ADOT had purchased, or 90% of the land needed for the freeway. While construction was underway in 2017 on both ends of the freeway segment, no work had occurred on a five-mile center segment adjacent to South Mountain until a final decision was made by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. A ruling was released in mid-2018 in the action brought by the Gila River Indian Community. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals rejected Gila River Indian Community's claims in December 2017.
Construction
In March 2015, the Federal Highway Administration issued a Record of Decision approving the project and selecting a build alternative. ADOT immediately thereafter commenced right-of-way acquisition and the procurement of final design and construction services in the form of a design-build-maintain contractor or "developer." The developer will have been selected at the end of 2015 and freeway construction will have begun in early 2016, with the Chandler Boulevard extension project to facilitate local access beginning in summer 2015. The freeway opened to traffic in late 2019 as originally planned with construction being finalized in early 2020. However, new lawsuits in June 2015 from the group Protecting Arizona's Resources and Children, the Sierra Club, and the Gila River Indian Community threatened to delay the freeway's construction.On August 26, 2015, ADOT started demolition of the first houses along the route for the South Mountain Freeway.
On February 27, 2016, the contract to design, build, and maintain the freeway was awarded to Connect 202 Partners, a joint venture led by Fluor Corporation, with Fluor, Granite Construction, Ames Construction, and Parsons Brinckerhoff being responsible for the final design and construction, and with Fluor and DBi Services, LLC being responsible for maintenance for 30 years.
The first phase of construction of the South Mountain Freeway began on September 19, 2016, with improvements to the I-10/Loop 202 interchange.
In early 2017, ADOT announced an updated design for the freeway, including Arizona's first diverging diamond interchanges at Desert Foothills Parkway and 17th Avenue; a reconfiguration near 51st Avenue that moved the freeway interchange to Estrella Drive in order to avoid a GRIC well; and a pedestrian bridge to connect the Del Rio subdivisions bisected by the freeway.