Freeway mixes creativity, engineering feats

by Art Thomason - Jul. 21, 2008 12:00 AM
The Arizona Republic

It's part beauty and part beltway.

The final section of Loop 202's Red Mountain Freeway, which opens today, is accentuated with decorative touches.

Some of the more obvious are textured, chestnut-colored, concrete noise-reduction walls and grayish-green granite compressed into metal forms shaped like giant yucca plants.

The freeway's most eye- popping feature is compelling views along its northbound lanes of Red Mountain, the freeway's namesake, as the road rises above University Drive.

The loop also is a testament to such engineering feats as mile-long bridges, the state's longest, that cross over the Salt River near Tempe Town Lake and an infrastructure, replete with retention basins, to withstand a 100-year flood, said Arizona Department of Transportation spokesman Doug Nintzel.

A rocky berm that rises along the southbound lanes hides the Central Arizona Project Canal from the view of motorists and is part of the flood-prevention infrastructure.

Nintzel said the freeway presented some of the most formidable engineering challenges in ADOT's history.