San Luis receives state funding to widen major road
Legislature, ducey OK $33 million for project
SAN LUIS, Ariz. – Thanks to the state Legislature, San Luis expects to have almost all the funds it needs for a street widening project city officials say is critical in moving traffic between the east and west sides of town.
The state House of Representatives and Senate have approved $33 million in funding to widen of Cesar Chavez Boulevard to five lanes from Main Street east to Avenue E, where the road connects to State Highway 195.
The measure, which also has been signed by Gov. Doug Ducey, will not only ease the flow of traffic between the east and west sides of the city but will serve an expected surge in traffic once the number of car lanes at the downtown border crossing is doubled.
“That is great news,” San Luis Mayor Gerardo Sanchez said of the legislature’s approval of the funds. “That means we are closer to beginning construction of a project we have been working on for nearly two years but one we have been pursuing for more than nine.”
The project will give Cesar Chavez Boulevard, previously known as Juan Sanchez Boulevard, two lanes in each direction plus a center turn lane.
The allocation from the Legislature, said Sanchez, will cover nearly 90% of the cost of the project, with the city paying for the balance from its budget or from a grant.
“It is the major part of the money needed for the project,” he said. “We have already moved ahead on the design, all that is needed is to finance it. We have (done) the environmental impact study, which is something that takes a lot of time. We have been working on this in order to be ready when the funds were approved.”
Cesar Chavez serves as the only access for residents on the city’s east side who drive their children to and from eight elementary schools, or who want to visit businesses on the west side.
Apart from having only a single lane in each direction, the nearly five-mile stretch of Cesar Chavez Boulevard lacks sidewalks and bike lanes, creating risks for pedestrians and bicyclists. Sidewalks and bike lanes will be added to the roadway as part of the widening.
A little more than 2.8 million vehicles traveled
on Cesar Chavez Boulevard in 2021, according to estimates, and Sanchez predicts that number will grow dramatically in the coming years when the San Luis I port of entry downtown expands from eight to 16 lanes in a project funded by the federal government.
Many of the vehicles arriving through the border crossing from Mexico travel on the boulevard to its linkup with State Route
195, which leads to Yuma.
Sanchez said he hopes the widening work can begin by January.
He and San Luis City Councilman Matias Rosales recently appeared before appropriations committees of both houses of the Legislature to request funding for the road expansion. Sanchez said two of Yuma County’s state lawmakers, Sen. Lisa Otondo and Rep. Brian Fernandez, were key backers for the project.
“We greatly thank our representatives in the Legislature,”
the mayor said. “This has not been easy nor fast, but it is going to be of great benefit to our community and to the region.”
The funding comes on the heels of approval of funds to pave a dirt stretch of County 24th Street in San Luis, making it a second east-west thoroughfare. That project is being funded with a grant of a little more that $1.2 million from the Federal Highway Administration and will be overseen by the Arizona Department of Transportation.