YMPO takes closer look at Hwy. 95
Could more lanes be in route’s future?
The executive board of the Yuma Metropolitan Planning Organization discussed the importance of Highway 95 as the county’s only direct link to Interstate 10, and is exploring the possibility of asking the state to declare it part of the Canamex network of northsouth highways connecting Canada, the U.S. and Mexico.
Guidelines call for all Canamex roads to be at least four lanes wide, so 95’s inclusion would create additional pressure to widen the road from its current two lanes between Yuma and Quartzsite to four.
This would create a faster, safer route for commercial and private traffic to reach Interstate 10, which connects Phoenix to the east to Los Angeles and the Pacific Coast on the west.
YMPO Board Chairman Gary Knight, deputy mayor of the city of Yuma, said such a designation, and the wider road to go with it, would be especially good for drawing truck traffic from Mexico through San Luis.
“We have the Highway 195 and the state-of-the-art
commercial port of entry in San Luis, and it just seems that we’re really missing something by only being able to connect that port to an east-west corridor (Interstate 8) when we do have 95 to connect at least initially, to Interstate 10, which is a very prominent commercial corridor, eastwest to Long Beach and the shipping yards.”
He said officials from the county and other YMPO cities have all agreed with him that widening Highway 95 would benefit the whole region.
YMPO Executive Director Paul Ward said he’d help gather more information about the idea from the city and the county, “so it doesn’t come across, frankly, as just, isn’t this a good idea? I think the whole idea is, this is the major corridor for the whole of Yuma County, and it’s incumbent on the YMPO as a whole to support this particular effort,” he said.
There will be presentations on the issue, and possibly a vote on a resolution to support the designation, at the next YMPO board meeting, to be held April 27 at Yuma City Hall.
The “high priority” Canamex corridor was established by Congress back in 1995, designating a route running from border to border through Arizona, Nevada, Utah, Idaho and Montana. The Arizona portion has from the beginning concentrated on connecting Las Vegas in the north to Phoenix and Tucson to the international crossing in Nogales, following Highway 93 to Interstates 10 and 19.
Arizona and Nevada have done several widening projects along Highway 93 to speed connections between Vegas and Arizona, according to an Arizona Department of Transportation report released in January. That section of road was designated as a future “I-11” connecting the two metro areas in 2012.
Since then the state has been studying and seeking funding for the “I-11 Intermountain West Corridor,” again running through Phoenix, Tucson and Nogales. Yuma County leaders had hoped to have Highway 95 included in that study, providing a route which would bring Yuma and the border ports of San Luis into the corridor. It meets I-10 just 12 miles west of where Highway 93 begins, running to Wickenburg before heading north to Las Vegas.
But Highway 95 was not named as a Level 1 or 2 alternative for the corridor, according to the ADOT report.