[Skip to Content]
What is your “Big Idea” for the future of Phoenix?
Share
Don't Build the Loop 202
488
75
86
Reviewed Ideas
Forwarded to PlanPHX Leadership Committee and appropriate city department

Dumping more money into highways in our relatively uncongested city is a waste of scarce resources.

Loop 202 also promotes more sprawl, which further stresses the environmental and financial condition of our city.

Loop 202 also threatens Laveen's agricultural land uses and character.

Loop 202 also threatens South Mountain.

This 17-mile extension of Loop 202 is estimated to cost $2.6 billion. That's $153 million/mile. Imagine if all that money went to other projects instead:
~That could build both the Metro light rail's West Extension -AND- its South Central Extension.
~That could build *protected* bike lanes on EVERY street in Phoenix. (Note that Phoenix is 520 square miles!)
~That could buy a steak from Durants for every Phoenician, every week for a year.

So just say no to more highways, and say yes to better uses for that money.

86 Comments
  • Walt G

    by Walt G Loop 202 promotes regional travel--Ahwatukee/Chandler to downtown Phoenix and northwest to southeast between Chandler/Ahwatukee and Laveen/Avondale. What's needed is shorter home to work trips by locating employment centers in Ahwatukee (abandoned golf course), in Laveen and utilitzing proposed employment centers in West Phoenix (I-10 @ 27th Ave. & 99th Ave.). With objective of shorter home-to-work trips, a parkway could be built along the south leg, and increase to a freeway in Laveen, but veer west at S.R. 30 (to Buckeye) with legs to I-10 at existing interchanges and a leg to Loop 101 interchange. This would facilate employment centers in Laveen for shorter home-to-work trips

    Jul 10, 2013 at 1:17 AM  
  • comment icon

    by Louis L1 The 202 should have been completed long ago! The shortsighted and selfish interests who have stalled the project are the ones to blame for the increased costs. If you built or bought along the corridor that was established and publicized in 1985, then shame on you! You refused to listen to and accept the facts. The rest of Maricopa county should not have to pay for your ignorance. The 202 will relieve congestion on the I-10 and open both the lower west side and the southeast valley to future economic development. Phoenix already has severe traffic problems, and none of us will be the last persons to move to the Valley of the Sun. The time to deal with it is now!

    May 08, 2013 at 12:36 PM  
  • Lisa P3

    by Lisa P3 Actually, building more roads and freeways doesn't relieve congestion; it creates more congestion.

    May 23, 2013 at 12:35 PM  
  • comment icon

    by Lauren A3 South Mountain could easily be saved by listing it on the National Register as a Landmark.
    The AZDOT South Mountain Draft Environmental Impact Statement is now available at some libraries or at this website: https://www.azdot.gov/SouthMountainFreeway

    Apr 26, 2013 at 10:41 AM  
  • VonGoblin

    by VonGoblin It's difficult for me to understand why we need to promote further sprawl. Building the loop will just ensure more of the same when what we really need to do is improve our current built environment. We already have street after street in Central Phoenix riddled with cracks and holes that are especially uncomfortable when one is on a bicycle.

    Apr 23, 2013 at 12:02 PM  
  • comment icon

    by Lauren A3 Here is a link to a study the Sierra Club did on the health hazards of highways.
    http://www.sierraclub.org/sprawl/report04_highwayhealth/

    Apr 16, 2013 at 10:34 AM  
  • comment icon

    by Lauren A3 The 202--or any more freeways that put more cars and trucks on the road--is also going to cause long term respiratory problems for our children (especially those in Ahwatukee). Studies have been published by the Sierra Club (2004) and "The Lancet" (2007 - UK's premier medical research journal although the study was on USA children) that discuss health hazards. "The concentrations of several pollutants are raised near major freeways. Daytime concentrations of black carbon, ultrafine particulate, and other exhaust pollutants have reported to be high...within 500m of a freeway..." Our children are already suffering. Need we make it worse?

    Mar 05, 2013 at 11:15 AM  
  • Bob D3

    by Bob D3 Studies on health effects of living near a freeway
    Tufts University: http://now.tufts.edu/articles/big-road-blues-pollution-highways
    EPA http://www.epa.gov/airscience/air-highwayresearch.htm
    Southern California Particle Center and Supersite http://www.scpcs.ucla.edu/news/Freeway.pdf
    American Lung Association http://www.stateoftheair.org/
    USC/EC Berkeley http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi/10.1371/journal.pone.0009096
    ETC...

    Mar 05, 2013 at 12:01 PM  
  • comment icon

    by Morgan M1 Not building the 202, agreeing with everyone else, this would create more urban sprawl, more pollution, more spending time in your car. We need to get people to use their cars less and using more of public transportation. Like using at money and put it into spreading more of the light rail.

    Feb 19, 2013 at 8:16 PM  
  • Bob D3

    by Bob D3 Where can we find the political will to stop building new freeways [Loop 303] and to stop extending existing freeways [this thread]?

    Feb 20, 2013 at 7:38 AM  
  • Sean S7

    by Sean S7 I wonder if our elected officials are paying attention to the comparative popularity between this idea and the associated counter-idea.

    Feb 13, 2013 at 10:36 AM  
  • Nicole R11

    by Nicole R11 Where freeways are built, then homes are built. Freeways encourage a vivacious appetite for more more more. The people who moved out to west Ahwatukee, moved there knowing their freeway situation.

    Jan 07, 2013 at 12:44 PM  
  • comment icon

    by Louis L1 None of us will be the last people to move to Maricopa County. We can plan for it with an adequate transportation system, or we can turn into Los Angeles.

    May 08, 2013 at 12:49 PM  
  • Bob D3

    by Bob D3 This project made it onto the 50 worst transportation projects in the United States:
    http://content.sierraclub.org/beyondoil/content/smart-choices-less-traffic

    Dec 19, 2012 at 2:52 PM  
  • David B45

    by David B45 I saw that. This wording describes all the reasons not to build this road, regardless of alignment:


    "The project, as proposed, would cut through the western portion of South Mountain Park, encourage long commutes between the eastern and western portions of the metro area, and exacerbate urban sprawl. Many communities in the area do not support this project, including members of the Gila River Indian Community, which voted in 2012 against allowing the freeway to run through their lands and disrupt sacred places. Many of the affected mountains in the South Mountain Range are sacred homelands of the O’odham people. Furthermore, the project will cut through a critical wildlife corridor connecting South Mountain Park to the Estrella Mountains, limiting connectivity for mountain lions, coyotes, javelina, reptiles, roadrunners, and other desert animals."

    Dec 19, 2012 at 4:15 PM  
  • comment icon

    by Haley R I agree with this idea 100%!!!! Phoenix DOES NOT need more freeways, it needs a much better bicycle/pedestrian infrastructure so we can encourage people to use that INSTEAD of their cars for local business/transport. Cars, in general as they are currently mostly running on gasoline, are a rather filthy, destructive, non-sustainable invention. However, Bicycles and Public Transportation are, independently and inter-dependently, a fabulous, comfortable way to get around the whole city, and I highly encourage the city to expand their minds and capacities for IMPROVING this system, rather than WASTING tons of money on a useless freeway system that destroys indigenous communities, and adds to the already deteriorating air quality in Phoenix. PLEASE SAY NO TO THE 202!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    Dec 17, 2012 at 10:58 AM  
  • comment icon

    by kharla S I agree with you, there are a lot of other things that the money could be used for,like helping imancated childern or helping homless shelters.

    Nov 17, 2012 at 2:57 PM  
  • comment icon

    by Eugene H I would have moved the 202 to the West to connect near 303. My reasoning is based on our international treaty that is going to allow foreign truckers to use our highways to go to Canada. I was at my wife's office, a foriegn trucker had been stopped for something by a motorcycle police. This trucker driver's experience was so low that the motorcycle policeman MOVED THE TRUCK FOR HIM! Hazardous material in foreign trucks going through our area. No interest in that at all. Let them bypass the center of the city.

    Oct 11, 2012 at 8:39 PM  
  • Patrick B4

    by Patrick B4 Eugene: For all the reasons you've mentioned, wouldn't you prefer the route recommended by the CANAMEX task force and MAG in 2001? http://www.azmag.gov/Documents/pdf/cms.resource/FinalCANAMEXResolution_670.pdf

    Oct 13, 2012 at 9:33 PM  
  • comment icon

    by Eugene H Patrick: No matter what the intented route is to be the first thought should be my concern with is the safety of United States Citizens who live along the potential routes of international traffic and the United States Citizen drivers who are on the same routes!

    Oct 13, 2012 at 6:21 PM  
Page

Idea Collaboration by  MindMixer