ADOT Upgrades S.R. 179 to Sedona

By Michele Van Haecke

Being built in two phases, the $70 million improvement project rebuilds a stretch of State Route 179 weaving through Sedona’s red rock country.

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Who can’t appreciate the special circumstances of a highway project through Sedona, that traffic-jammed tourist mecca celebrated as one of the world’s most beautiful places? Designers and builders taking on this daunting task would face not just cost, safety and heightened environmental sensitivity challenges, but also the logistical trial of constructing the project through pristine national forest, active commercial districts and an annual tourist traffic flow of two million people a year.

It’s no wonder ADOT went after as much input as possible when planning its State Route 179 project, a $70 million, two-pronged highway design and improvement effort encompassing nine miles between the Village of Oak Creek and the junction with highway 89A in Sedona.

Passing through one of the state’s most spectacular natural environments, the busy highway carries millions of people from I-17 to the city of Sedona each year, connecting the area’s business and residential sectors and passing through the Coconino National Forest.

Increasing population, tourism and other factors compromising safety have been driving improvement need for about a decade. ADOT began planning it about two years ago and immediately recognized it as unusual. “Sedona is a special area, a unique area for its scenic beauty,” says ADOT project manager Carl Burkhalter, P.E. “This road is more like a parkway because that’s what people wanted. They wanted a road that lets them enjoy this beautiful area. They didn’t want just to get from A to B as quickly as they can.”

A special site requires a special design approach. The one ADOT used is perhaps the most exciting innovation in a project with several. Called Needs Based Implementation Planning (NBIP), the process surpasses traditional contact-sensitive solutions by generating unusually high, on-going community involvement. Planning began with evaluating needs through technical analysis and collecting community feedback through intense outreach activities such as surveys, events, forums, newsletters and mass media campaigns. The process took 18 months to complete and stakeholders included the two communities, Coconino and Yavapai counties, National Forest Service, utility companies and the federal highway department.

The NBIP was awarded the State Planning Award for Best Public/Agency Participation Program by Arizona Planning Association. It was so successful, ADOT plans to use it for other projects with high community impact, Buckhalter says. “This amount of community involvement is new for ADOT but it’s now becoming more of a norm,” he says. “We built this road according to what the community actually said they wanted.”

The high level of sensitivity to community needs presents steep challenges to folks at Southwest Asphalt Paving, the project’s general contractor. Whether it’s construction of 11 roundabouts and a new bridge, burying 96-inch drainpipe in 24 feet of solid rock or attending frequent community-feedback events, the primary challenge is the same, says Mike Sick, Southwest Asphalt Paving co-project manager. “Just about any place you work nowadays in cities, you’re going to have traffic but in places like the Village of Oak Creek and Sedona, with all the tourists and everything, it’s a bit more complicated because you have a lot more traffic,” he says.

Sick is no stranger to intense, high-profile challenges. His experience includes construction of the Hoover Dam bypass and a rolled concrete dam to protect nuclear reactors at the Los Alamos National Laboratory.

To keep two lanes of traffic moving, his team has had to shore up rock, build around single-entry business driveways, work off-hours to avoid busy holidays and make precise use of ADOT lane rental incentives. They’ve laid about 5,000 tons of temporary asphalt and have had to work smack in the middle of live traffic. Detouring was ruled out early in the process, so they look forward to more of the same for the rest of the project, scheduled for completion in early 2009.

In addition to the tangible challenges, the project’s high level of community interaction has called for two project managers.

The worst is behind them, Sick says. “We were delayed on some portions of the job but other portions we were able to get done ahead of time, so we’re pretty close to where we should be,” he says. “Project two isn’t going to be as bad.”

Scheduled to break ground in November, project two will include its own challenges, such as construction of a pedestrian bridge parallel to a new auto bridge over Oak Creek. Sick and his team will have to build 80,000 sq ft of retaining wall to maintain a traffic corridor through the site. As with project one, roundabout construction will entail working inside of two lanes of live traffic, a situation that would rattle the nerves of less-confident men. “As a contractor, we like to accept difficult challenges,” Sick says. “We think we’ve performed the best as anybody up here on the job and as anybody who knows this types of work.”

Roundabouts were a key design element to come from the community-sensitive planning process. Project one, the segment through the Village of Oak Creek and Coconino National Forest to the south end of Sedona scheduled for completion in spring 2008, will include five. Project two, through Sedona to the highway 89A “Y” scheduled to begin this month, calls for six.

“Unusual? For Arizona, yes,” says Karen Urban, deputy group manager of transportation who serves as the project’s design manager for the Phoenix office of DMJM Harris, the New York-based engineering firm that designed the road. “Because they’re becoming more common in other parts of the United States, once they’re in place about six months, people get used to them.”

The community wanted roundabouts because of their proven effectiveness at reducing accidents, congestion and maintenance costs, according to ADOT.

The design team started with the community’s roundabout wish list, examined traffic flow at selected intersections and brought in engineering judgment staff to make the final call. In the end, this included one at the infamous Y where SR 179 meets highway 89A. Placing a roundabout at the busiest intersection in town was a tough call for the community, says Sedona Mayor Pud Colquitt. “There was always concern about a roundabout at the Y, I’m still concerned,” she says, adding that there’s no perfect solution for an intersection as busy as this one. “It’s going to be a test. It’s coming through some pristine, commercial area, but it all will make the road much, much safer.”

Colquitt says she and her neighbors are looking forward to the bike paths, walkways, landscaping and art that will make the new road as beautiful as its impressive surroundings. As for that, Burkhalter predicts the highway may give Sedona’s red-rock vistas a little competition. “When it’s all done, it’s going to be a world-class facility,” he says. “Engineers will come here to see the road, not just the rocks.”

Key Players

Owner: Arizona Dept. of Transportation
Contractor: Fisher Sand & Gravel dba Southwest Asphalt Paving
Engineer: DMJM Harris
Subcontractors: Vastco Inc.; Desierto Verde; D & R Steel; Oothoudt Brothers; Five G Inc.; TLL Electric; Royden Construction

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