Maricopa’s future: City council takes peek into transportation crystal ball

It’s a fairly safe assumption that by the time the year 2040 hits, Maricopa and its surrounding areas won’t resemble much of what it looks like now. That thought was demonstrated in a unique fashion at the last meeting of the Maricopa City Council on Aug. 16. An increased populace in Maricopa will undoubtedly need a more efficient way of navigating through traffic in the future, especially in the area where the Maricopa-Casa Grande Highway, White & Parker Road and Farrell Road intersect at and near the Union Pacific Railroad tracks. A proposed grade separation in this area would conceivably accommodate the operational characteristics, safety and multi-modal requirements of future traffic. When initially brought before the council on Dec. 21, 2010, eight alternative plans were presented. The most recent presentation, by development services director Brent Billingsley and Elijah Williams of EPS Group, Inc., narrowed the scope to focus specifically on three of those alternatives. Alternative No. 3 involves connecting Farrell Road to Maricopa-Casa Grande Highway with a White & Parker grade separation; Alternative No. 6 would connect Farrell to Maricopa-Casa Grande Highway via ramps, and Alternative No. 8 includes standard intersections with a realignment of Maricopa-Casa Grande Highway (re-routing it away from the railroad tracks).

Click here to view this article from its source.