Trying to navigate your way through a metropolitan area can be difficult, if you have ever traveled through the Phoenix area, you would agree. The creation of the South Mountain Freeway will relieve the traffic of those who wish to avoid the city of Phoenix while trying to travel from the East Valley to the West Valley by joining the Loop 202 Freeway to Interstate 10.

After originally approved by residents in Maricopa County back in 1985, the project was then approved again in 2004 and will finally be completed toward the end of 2019.The twenty-two-mile project is no easy task though considering that crews are literally building the South Mountain Freeway from scratch; to do so, dirt, and lots of it will need to be moved into the area as told in a recent interview by Arizona Department of Transportation’s Senior Deputy State Engineer Rob Samour.

Approximately 800,000 loads of dirt will be used to build the foundation of the South Mountain Freeway, which includes the straight aways, bridges, entrances and exits equaling approximately ten million yards of land that will be added to the area. Some of the construction project will also include the creation of cross streets at the Desert Foothills Parkway and even filling a gravel and sand pit by the Salt River, which in itself will take over one million yards of dirt. 

To put that into perspective, the University of Phoenix Stadium, home of the Arizona Cardinals could be filled up thirteen times with that amount of dirt; showing that this is a complex entity. As mentioned in the Arizona Department of Transportation’s Press Release a majority of the dirt movement will take place during the late night hours to prevent any further traffic issues in the area.