A portion of U.S. Highway 93 in Arizona is being widened as part of a long-term project on the road linking Las Vegas and Phoenix.
The nearly $81 million project to bring four miles of U.S. 93 between Wikieup and Interstate 40 from two lanes to four lanes is beginning, the Arizona Department of Transportation announced Thursday.
Work on the project is expected to wrap up some time in 2027, but the transportation department notes impacts to motorists will be limited, since the majority of the work is occurring just off U.S. 93. Over the next few weeks crews will be clearing space next to U.S. 93 to set a work zone up.
The project includes building two new bridges over Crane Springs Wash and demolishing the existing bridge near milepost 109.
Crews are constructing two new bridges over Cane Springs Wash and removing the existing bridge at milepost 109. Drainage and sediment-control facilities will be improved and the intersection turnout at Upper Trout Road will be reconstructed, as well.
The work is part of a multiyear plan to make U.S. 93 a four-lane divided highway between Wickenburg and Hoover Dam.
The transportation department recently received a $26 million grant that will allow them to extend the length of a previously planned widening project by 1.27 miles between Wickenburg Ranch Way and just northwest of state Route 89, to add another 4.5 miles of four-lane divided highway. This portion of U.S. 93 will connect with a project completed in last year that widened 5 miles of U.S. 93 in Wickenburg.
Last year also saw the start of a $106 million project to improve the interchange connecting U.S. 93 and I-40 in Kingman, Arizona. Once completed, that project will eliminate delays that often occur there for passenger and truck traffic on the main route between Las Vegas and Arizona.
Next year, the department plans to start a project to add passing lanes on U.S. 93 between mileposts 171.5-173 and 175.5-177.
Another nearly five-mile portion of U.S. 93 near Big Jim wash will be is set to be widened in 2027 and 2028.
Since 1999 ADOT has completed 20 projects to modernize U.S. 93 and I-40, according to ADOT spokesman Garin Groff.
Interstate 11
U.S. 93 and the I-140 are considered part of the future Interstate 11 corridor, where the state, plans at some point in the future, to further upgrade the highways, to create I-11 in the state.
In 2018 the first 15 miles of I-11 opened in Nevada, with efforts underway to add new signage along U.S. Highway 95 in the Las Vegas Valley, which will lead to the freeway officially being designated I-11.
There is no funding available to Arizona to build I-11 and there’s no timetable to when that work could potentially begin. Funding is available for ADOT to conduct a Tier 2 environmental and engineering study between Buckeye and Wickenburg, that would establish a 400-foot-wide alignment, but there is no start date for when that could begin, Groff said.
Contact Mick Akers at makers@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-2920. Follow @mickakers on X.
