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Traffic Bottlenecks

Traffic Bottlenecks > Combating Bottlenecks

Combating Bottlenecks

Arizona

"Widening the gate" at Grand Canyon National Park, and improving a poor weaving area elsewhere.

Background: The first project is on National Park property. The second is on US 60.

Bottleneck Projects: 1. South Entrance to the Grand Canyon National Park - The majority of people who visit the Grand Canyon National Park enter through the South Entrance. This gate has long had serious congestion problems and could at times, during major national holidays, see traffic back up for as much as two miles. The FHWA discussed this bottleneck with a National Park Transportation Scholar working with the Grand Canyon looking at this very issue. They were already in the process of increasing pay booth capacity, adding additional lanes at the booth and increasing storage when we last discussed this topic. They are also looking at some other innovative ideas involving the way people pay to enter the park, such as having people pay remotely prior to arriving at the gate. At this point most of the physical improvements such as the added booths, lanes and storage capacity are complete. 2. Phoenix - US60WB in this transition takes 3 lanes and feeds them onto I-10. Two of these lanes are then dropped. This project would take one of the two lanes that is dropped and extend it out to the SR-143 exit, which is about 1 mile downstream. This project is anticipated to be advertised in December of this year with construction to begin early next year. It is thought that this improvement will reduce the weaving in the transition section and reduce the congestion experienced.