Avra Valley and I-11 media coverage

Albert Lannon: Building Interstate 11 through Avra Valley would hurt people, wildlife 

 June 04, 2014 12:00 am By Albert Lannon Special to the Arizona Daily Star

A two-year planning process by the Arizona and Nevada departments of transportation to prepare for a future Interstate 11 “Canamex Highway” is ending. A May 21 stakeholders meeting in Tucson finalized a draft “business case” for the controversial multibillion-dollar highway.

Michael Kies, the Arizona department’s director of planning and programming, said that building I-11 between Las Vegas and Nogales, Arizona, would create “240,000 new high-paying, good benefits jobs” in the two states.

When asked the basis for the claim, Kies referred to the Corridor Justification Report posted on the department’s website. A review of those 285 pages showed that much data is based on “assumptions,” “projections,” “forecasts,” ”potential” and imagining. They may “over-estimate due to double-counting some factors.” All numbers and quotations I refer to are from ADOT.

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Interstate 11 discussions continue in Tucson

 Posted: Wednesday, June 4, 2014 4:00 am

Chris Flora, Desert Times

County officials are taking another look at a proposal that was disagreeable to the Board of Supervisors in 2007.

The potential construction of Interstate 11, a 56-mile stretch of highway that is aimed at connecting Avra Valley to Interstate 10, continues to be a topic of controversy – county officials saying it is necessary for economic growth, and area residents arguing it would impose on their way of living and impact environmentally-sensitive lands.

Those against the project have created a petition group called the Avra Valley Coalition, which finds itself in agreement with a 2007 Board of Supervisors resolution that opposed the construction on the grounds that environmental, historic, and archaeological impacts could not be adequately mitigated. The board’s resolution further called upon then-Governor Janet Napolitano’s office to undertake studies related to expanding capacity along Interstate 10 for multiple modes of travel, including passenger cars, freight, passenger rail, and bicycle.

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See also:
No Interstate 11 Highway Through the Avra Valley ! MoveOn.org petition

No Interstate 11 Freeway Through the Avra Valley, comments submitted to I-11 study