The Arizona Department of Transportation (ADOT) has reached the halfway point of a $24.4 million project to rebuild the I-10/Houghton Road interchange.
Crews will pour the concrete bridge deck on the new Houghton Road structure at I-10 this week. The concrete pour will allow drivers to see the bridge’s final driving surface come into view.
This summer, traffic on Houghton Road will move from the existing two-lane bridge to the new six-lane structure. Motorists will cross I-10 in a temporary lane configuration for several months while crews demolish the old bridge and complete building new ramps on the east side of the interchange.
The project, which began in August 2020, is scheduled to be complete by the end of 2021. It will feature southern Arizona’s first diverging diamond interchange, a significant change from the existing diamond interchange.
When the diverging diamond configuration is in place, traffic on Houghton Road will make a temporary shift to the left side of Houghton Road while crossing I-10. This allows for left turns onto the entrance ramps without waiting at an additional traffic signal. ADOT says this design promotes safety because drivers turning left do not cross traffic while entering the on-ramp.
More than 115 diverging diamond interchanges are in use in the U.S. Arizona’s first full diverging diamond interchange opened in late 2020 at I-17 and Happy Valley Road in Phoenix.
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SOURCE: Arizona DOT
