'Wide load' trucks for U.S. 70 bridge travel through Tucson this week | News

Arizona Department of Transportation is giving Tucson motorists a ‘heads up’ for oversize load trucks on I-10,  this week.

Beginning July 12, there will be a series of wide-load trucks traveling through Tucson, on their way to deliver girders for a new bridge at US 70 in Graham County.

There will be about 120 concrete girders delivered for the new bridge in Bylas.  This bridge will be constructed over the Gila River in Graham County, about one mile west of Bylas on the San Carlos Apache Reservation, and is being built by the Arizona Department of Transportation.  This new 15-span bridge will replace the old one built in 1957.

Delivery of the 120 precast concrete girders will take about 15 weeknights, with the first deliveries leaving the Phoenix casting facility sometime after midnight on July 12.  Eight trucks are expected to depart in 15 to 30 minute intervals.  The trucks measuring 190-feet long, 10-feet wide and 14-feet tall will carry only one girder at a time and will be escorted along the following route:

• Depart central Phoenix and enter southbound Interstate 17
• Merge onto Interstate 10 and continuing eastbound through Phoenix and Tucson
• Exit I-10 to northbound US 191
• Exit US 191 to westbound US 70 in Safford before reaching the final destination near the community of Bylas.

ADOT is anticipating no deliveries on weekends and all deliveries should arrive at the construction site early in the morning hours.

Motorists are advised, when traveling on the route posted above, to be alert for slow-moving oversized loads and are asked to drive with caution.

When complete the $12.7 million project will feature wider travel lanes, emergency shoulders and a pedestrian walkway. The bridge should be completed by spring 2013, when the older bridge will be demolished.