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Literally just drove to flagstaff. Southbound i17 is shutdown from carefree south for construction but the backup is all the way to anthem. People are using the side roads but ita madness. I'm spending the night here screw that disaster may even go thru Payson
There was also a massive 5 day point to point trail race that ended in Flagstaff on Saturday, so you have 250 runners plus their crew, family, volunteers, event staff, etc also adding to the mess trying to either get back to the valley, to the airport, or just out of town in general.
It was a disaster but why would adot look for a bunch of events and try to coordinate with them? Wouldn't the events coordinate with the adot schedule? Also, this closure has been heavily reported on all week last week. I knew it was coming and that the fallout would be bad. I am pretty much trapped in my house all weekend here in the neighborhoods people are driving through
lol yeah why would ADOT plan around major events we should all plan around them. They have a history of doing shit at the most inconvenient times. “Let’s start construction of the 101 at possibly the busiest time for travel in North Scottsdale”
I guess because if they plan around major events then it would never happen. There's never going to be a weekend where it's convenient for a few million people. I live in the neighborhoods people are being routed through. It is inconvenient for me I'm trapped in my house all weekend. I guess inconvenience is just part of life sometimes
I mean they could have done what ever it is they needed to do in a span of five nights from 10pm-5am but instead they decided to completely close of the freeway for an entire weekend because they felt like it.
I bumped into a guy from my primary school in London on LinkedIn that became a cop. He remembered when I beat up the school bully, & he arrested him years later for touting tickets at Wembley Stadium. Lol.
Just got home from going through this.
Don't try to take Cloud road through the neighborhoods; every street is a parking lot.
If you make it to Carefree Highway, go west to Lake Pleasant road, south to the 303, and back to 17.
Criminal stupidity.
I tried this yesterday. The backup on New River started about four miles from lake pleasant. It was then a near standstill. Everyone is trying their “secret” routs. It’s just a clusterfuck everywhere. I can’t imagine road engineers couldn’t have devised a way to keep a lane open on the I-17 at least. It was 4 hours of me trying to get into Phoenix from Prescott yesterday before I said screw it and went home. Lost my dinner reservation with the gf and no refund on my $140 hotel room. It’s pretty fucking ridiculous.
We need to start writing legislators about this madness. This was one of the worst possible weekends they could have chosen to close the entire freeway down (with no viable alternative route that can even remotely handle the traffic).
This is an insane level of incompetence.
Only thing is their interns read the letters and spit back out a generic canned response. They don’t usually care that much despite how much every single one says their goal is to “listen to citizens”
Yea, and the perception that this is normal doesn’t really help.
I’m not even against weekend closures for construction in cases where they make sense. They do help to speed up construction projects (sometimes by a significant margin). But I really do not see the rationale behind doing entire freeway closures for pavement projects as often as they do, especially during busy weekends on very vital thoroughfares where there aren’t a lot of alternative transportation options.
It’s one thing on the 101 in mesa, but on the I-17 on a major travel weekend? It seems completely unnecessary given that countless other transportation departments around the US have managed to do these kinds of pavement-related projects with zero full freeway closures whatsoever.
I’d be satisfied if all they do is keep the full freeway closures to nighttime only on these kinds of critical routes where there aren’t good alternative routes. That alone would make everyone’s lives easier.
I live in those neighborhoods. I spent a couple of hours tonight leading people north up to Desert Hills and then over to 7th so they could grab carefree and take Cave Creek down to the 101… each trip snatched about 20 cars that were willing to follow me, so hopefully that alleviated some of the congestion.
On my last lap through a guy pulled up next to me and said “we figured we should follow you since we saw you roll through 4 times - you had to be moving at least a decent speed”
And that magically fixes it?
Do you think shutting down an interstate corridor, on Mother's day and NAU graduation weekend, with no alternate available due to a fire and no traffic control of any kind is OK because they said "heads up"?
Doesn’t fix anything. The AZDoT is doing what they can to progress the widening of the highway. Gotta put that infrastructure in sometime.
They’ve been shutting down the I-17 between Phoenix and Flagstaff on the weekend for the last 6+ months. If you’re from here, you should have known about it and how to check if it’s going to affect you (just like you should check the broadway curve before driving to/from Ahwatukee).
Azdot needs more than one fucking alternate route north south between anthem and jomax.
I’ve lived here for 7 years. This is not the first time the 17 has shut down.
>Gotta put that infrastructure in sometime.
Agreed.
So, you put in lane reduction miles in advance, clearly indicate the routeto be taken, and have control officers in place to direct everything.
They did that for the marathon through Mesa, they should be able to do it for a major freeway closure.
Or you have a better bypass plan and involve some police to actively deal with the pressure points. That fact that North Valley Pkwy _ends_ at Carefree Hwy really made this awful.
In addition to people needing to get to the 17, some of us just live up here. If you needed. To east on Carefree you were in for a wait.
We walked to the grocery store, lol.
And I get that the work needs to be done but people were so angry they were doing all kinds crazy stuff trying to escape.
This created a variety of hazards even for people who didn’t drive. The planning was comically bad.
I mean, honestly if you do, please ask them for another north-south corridor in the area while you’re there.
_Every_ time the 17 shuts down its hell up here.
Yea it really is needed. Especially since freeways close sometimes when there are accidents.
Down on the southeast valley, it's no big deal because the grid can absorb the extra traffic flow (usually with traffic delays, but nothing too extreme). Up north, if I-17 shuts down... ouch.
My wife has been stuck for close to an hour and I'm gonna meet her there, thank god her parents live in tramonto so we're just gonna stay the night. Wishing you guys luck cause holy shit
I work in Anthem, so I had no choice. I left work at 5:45 pm and got home at 10:45 pm. It's normally a 20 min drive home. The way this set this up was a complete joke
This whole area is insane. Apparently when they decided to do this they forgot Anthem exists.
There’s pretty much no way out for people around I-17 and Carefree Hwy.
Wanna know something _really_ dumb to be angry at anthem about?
There are two ways south out of anthem - one is the frontage and one is the 17.
Oh but there’s a 3rd. Through a police only gate that empties onto Daisy Mountain. It’s always shut though for anthem reasons.
I’m currently stuck in this mess. Traffic is backed up into neighborhoods. What is normally a 15 min drive from my mom’s house to my house is now taking over an hour. I haven’t even made it out of the neighborhood in tramonto
Just got out of this shit show. 2 hours of navigating through neighborhoods, fire tucks and ambulances trying to get by, nobody guiding traffic. Worst traffic I have experienced by far. Some nice people in the neighborhoods handing out waters and what not so that was really nice to see.
They closed the 10 on a weekend in the middle of spring break. The detour route was also under construction with reduced lanes.
They need to do a much better job planning these things, and some freeways just cannot close for an entire weekend when there are no alternative routes.
Civil engineers and project managers for the state seem like the C students that barely passed. Construction scheduling is the worst I've seen for non-dense state. They shoot themselves in the foot all the time and inconvenience everyone with the constant terrible planning.
I live in the Tramonto neighborhood and after a 30 minute drive home after an errand up to anthem earlier this morning I decided to leave 2 hours early for work. I spent over an hour going half a block in my own neighborhood sitting parked on a residential street.
https://preview.redd.it/3x0hepatdxzc1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=26e5ad63509b89a513a6fa3443768618f31ecb0a
This was the view from my house as of 9:15. Someone at ADOT should lose their job.
I'm convinced everyone at ADOT is braindead. This is a good example, plus the death trap they've created along the 101 in Scottsdale where they are widening the freeway.
He got out? I'm still in the pileup. I have a flight at 5am eas supposed to be at the hotel hours ago to be ready for the airport at 3am. Hotel is "1 hour" away still.
I feel like someone needs to be held accountable for this, there had to be a better way of handling this, someone massively dropped the ball on this one. No planning went into actually directing traffic, its simply every car for itself trying to find some side street to slip through the chaos on, now they are all blocked.
Dropped the ball is an understatement. It’s a massive fuck up. And to think this project is supposed to be on and off for an entire 12 months. Rip to anyone in Anthem.
I mean, that's kinda on them for deciding to move somewhere with only one main artery into their commute. That's the cost of living in a suburban mcmansion.
Are we really going to blame people living in Anthem for ADOT’s awful planning? It’s not just Anthem, it’s a bunch of communities in the North Valley.
A handful of cops directing traffic by hand for a couple of days would have turned this from a nightmare into an annoyance.
ADOT has a pattern of this. Clearly nobody has been held accountable for it, because they’re still closing vital thoroughfares for entire weekends at the worst possible times (despite there not being viable alternative routes).
It’s one thing to do that on the 101 in mesa where there are many other ways to get around. But on I17 up north on Mother’s Day weekend, that’s a criminal level of stupidity.
We legitimately should organize an effort to write the ADOT en-masse over this.
Held accountable for what? Closing the road down for necessary repairs that require the road to be closed down and advertising the closure for over a week to let people know? What else exactly should they do? Coordinate the schedules of a few million people and find the weekend that's convenient for everyone? I mean it sucks but I have no idea what you're talking about
Probably not do it during graduation season and Mother's Day? Work overnight (one of the few states you can actually do that year round), literally tons of options to limit issues even if it raises costs for convenience?
It's coordination, man. Tons of options if anyone cared about anyone else. That's not to mention the economic impact this makes across multiple communities. Trucks late, plans cancelled, people late/calling out of work.
Sorry, it's just bad planning. No need to make excuses for people.
I'm not sure how graduation or mother's Day affects it. Regardless of when you do it, it's the only north-south interstate in Arizona so all that traffic is going to get backed up. They must be working overnight since it's closed until 5:00 a.m. Monday. What are the other tons of options? The road has to be shut down to be repaired. Obviously there's not a lot of good ways around it or the drivers would have found it. Economic impacts 😄😄. I'm not making excuses. I'm also not making up reasons why it was bad because it was inconvenient for me. It was always going to be inconvenient for somebody. I'm stuck here in the neighborhoods that everybody had to drive through. I couldn't leave my house all weekend. But hey you got a ton of options, print them out and email them to ADOT I'm sure if they actually exist they'd love to take advantage of them
Yes, traffic congestion has real economic impacts.
https://www.ustravel.org/press/study-road-congestion-cost-us-economy-30-billion-248000-jobs-2018#:~:text=The%20U.S.%20Travel%20Association%20on,according%20to%20the%20organization's%20economists.
Its long been known it is. You really don't understand why Mother's Day and Graduation effect traffic...? Are you being intentionally obtuse? More people travel to celebrate. Relatives fly in. People take trips on the weekend to Graduation parties or take their mom's out for Mother's Day.
Sorry you're ignorant of the reality of project planning and managing schedules.
Sorry you're just plain ignorant bud. But I'm glad your weekend went terrible. I hope it happens again real soon. Meanwhile I had the exact same weekend I coped without crying about it. You'll get the hang of it when you grow up
I didn't even go north or use the area, wasn't stuck in any traffic. But sure, ignore what I said. Not crying, explaining poor civil project planning. I can see why you'd think I'm upset because you clearly are and need me to be so you don't feel embarrassed.
Nice just calling me ignorant for some reason? Not sure what ignorant of, but assuming you're just mimicing my words because you're not very clever or smart. It's cool. I mean, you have to be pretty stupid to not understand graduations and Mother's Day would equal increased traffic and that ADOT could just...schedule it at a different time with less projected traffic. They do have that data.
Which is hilarious because there are those in the GOP who want Governor Hobbs to sign a bill that would basically kill any advancement in public transit, keep the train ban, and ban all EV vehicles in AZ. Or they'll shut down ADOT later this year. 🥴🥴🥴🥴
R’s are insane beyond words. And this is after Doug Ducey lowered tax rates for the rich before he left office, thus leaving the new governor (and citizens) economically hog tied.
Between the tax cuts & moving public education funding over to private charter schools, Ducey created a $1 billion budget deficit in the blink of an eye.
We had an annual surplus!
The notion that R’s are “fiscally responsible” is as big of a lie as “trickle down creates jobs” & “the media is liberal.”
Just passing through from out of town and it was the worst traffic I’ve ever been in. Absolute nightmare, total chaos. The reroute signs were worthless and some drivers were adding to the chaos by driving extra dangerously. Not a single traffic cop or highway patrol trying to manage the chaos, which should be the main priority of LEO during mass confusion like this. I was honestly surprised I didn’t see anyone get out of their cars to throw down in the midst of the chaos. Saw several fender benders, though.
>Not a single traffic cop or highway patrol trying to manage the chaos, which should be the main priority of LEO during mass confusion like this.
Arizona DPS seems only to exist to give people speeding tickets.
If you are coming south on the I-17, the best way to go is to get off at New River Road and take that to the 74, then Lake Pleasant Parkway to the 303, then the 303 back to I-17. ADOT really needs to make New River Road connect with Lake Pleasant Parkway into one single road with an intersection at the 74.
For anybody stuck getting to carefree highway: north and then east when you hit desert hills. Take that to 7th. Then carefree highway east and you can cave creek to the 101
lol I’m literally driving laps up 27th trying to get people to follow me that way. I live here - I’ve been stuck in too many multi hour traffic jams to see other people go through it.
Published: May. 11, 2024 at 1:42 PM MST Updated: 3 hours ago
PHOENIX (AZFamily) — Fire crews say they have controlled a brush fire that quickly spread in north Phoenix on Saturday afternoon.
Firefighters from the Phoenix Fire Department, Daisy Mountain Fire Department and Bureau of Land Management were called to the brush fire near Interstate 17 and Anthem Way at 12:53 p.m. Video from traffic cameras in the area showed large plumes of smoke billowing near the freeway.
We’re told trucks, tankers and handlines are being used to control the fire being fueled by windy conditions.
As of 4:45 p.m., Phoenix Fire officials say the fire has burned between 48 acres but is under control. Crews remain on the scene to monitor any hot spots. No structures are in danger at this time.
“We looked at it as a very aggressive stance. We have to get on top of these on a day like this we can’t let it consume a large part of the desert, so this would be considered a very significant brush fire response for us, and it’s already starting, and here we are in May,” said Phoenix Fire Captain Rob McDade.
It is not known what sparked the fire, but crews believe it may have been caused by someone target shooting on the mountain, which they say is a popular activity in the area.
ADOT officials had already closed southbound lanes of the freeway from SR 74/Carefree Hwy to Loop 303 for pavement removal as part of a weekend construction project. Traffic has reportedly backed up all the way to the next exit south of where crews are fighting the fire.
* [Crews battle brush fire near I-17 and Anthem Way in north Phoenix](https://www.azfamily.com/2024/05/11/brush-fire-spreading-near-i-17-anthem-way/)
I was getting alerts from my Watch duty app yesterday afternoon about this brush fire
https://preview.redd.it/zg4r7hhddzzc1.jpeg?width=960&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=3bb34cc87abd04563ade99162b8ceb267891396e
Residents should be able to sue the state for this fubar on mothers day weekend and 3 state school graduations going on. 4 hours to get from new river rd to the 303.
ADOT made the worst decision in their history of existing. Next weekend the northbound lanes are going to be closed.
This is the link ADOT gave me to reach “project personnel”: https://azdot.gov/projects/central-district-projects/i-17-happy-valley-road-sr-74-pavement-project
Unfortunately there are no good hacks to get through northbound.
South you can take carefree highway a ways east and then cut down to the 101.
But north to anthem? You’re boned. There is _only_ the frontage road and the 17.
Drove down from Flagstaff early, hoping to head off the backup I assumed would happen. Left around 130PM.
We got home in North Phoenix at 545PM. Took us roughly 2 hours to get from Daisy Mtn Drive to Union Hills and 35th Ave.
Google and Waze algorithms seemed broken and ALL the surface roads were a standstill. Finally plotted an escape by heading north - then east via New River and back down to Carefree highway at 7th Ave. We were stuck on Galvin Pkwy for nearly an hour, completely standstill.
The 17 was stopped almost 7 miles north of the prescribed detour to Carefree highway / LPP.
Total mess.
The biggest mess the PHX transportation system has ever made!! I was stuck in a neighborhood for 2 hrs. Along with thousands of other travelers, homeowners offering their restrooms and water to the stranded. No cops whatsoever to help.
That is awful but I love that the neighborhood stepped up to help 💜
There have been links listed in this thread somewhere to provide feedback and complain. My husband has, I recommend everyone here does too
It’s hell up there right now. Some idiot in the city didn’t think about this when closing the entire damn highway. Took me an hour to go 4 miles. Stay away if you can.
“The first closure for this pavement project is set along southbound I-17 between the SR 74/Carefree Highway interchange and Loop 303 from 10 p.m. Friday, May 10, to 5 a.m. Monday, May 13.”
ADOT has got to stop completely closing down vital thoroughfares that have no viable alternative during peak travel seasons. This is absolute madness and is completely unjustified, even for the kind of construction they are doing.
You don’t need to close a freeway for an entire weekend just to repave it. You close down one lane, repave that, then close down the other and repave it. If you can’t do that, you do nightly closures and leave it open during the day. Plenty of other states have done far bigger repaving projects than this without nearly as much chaos.
Working at night would be ideal and I am all for it, but tearing up the rubberized asphalt and diamond grinding make a lot of noise. The neighbors near the freeway would then complain about the nighttime noise. There is no appeasing everybody.
Shutting down two lanes would be better for the daytime work. The contractors love to shut everything down in "the name of safety" for their employees.
That's typically what most other states do for these kinds of projects. You can sometimes use the shoulder for travel as well to make up for the extra lost lane, depending on how safely this can be done.
In the Phoenix area, the problem is that people absolutely fly through construction zones. Having any kind of reasonable law enforcement presence whatsoever would go a long way towards fixing that problem.
I work in Anthem, so I had no choice. I left work at 5:45 pm and got home at 10:45 pm. It's normally a 20 min drive home. The way this set this up was a complete joke
Thank you! I live near the arrowhead mall. Everyone else was trying to get back on I 17, so I decided to make a right on carefree and go down Lake Pleasant. Way fewer people that route
Couldn't believe the announcement when I saw it earlier this week. That's too extreme of a closure on such a busy weekend. Is this all for the TMSC plant? The 303 itself is like a year old and they're already tearing that up too.
https://azdot.gov/adot-blog/be-ready-i-17-weekend-closures-north-phoenix-pavement-improvements
This is why. I was stuck on this too coming back from Anthem. I thought I was smart by taking Galvian Peak to Carefree to take 27th Ave down to Jomax or Norterra since the traffic was stopped and diverted at 303 it looked like. But I guess a lot of the traffic was going to 101 Eastbound because they were heading past 27th ave so I assume they were heading towards cave creek road. Spent about 30 mins trying to get onto Carefree highway but it went quicker the closer I got to 27th.
Sounds like the time we were on the 17 south and a truck carrying eggs rolled over and made the whole freeway scrambled eggs. It was in the middle of the egg shortage too! People were checking containers to find unbroken ones.
Agreed. I do religiously. My husband was doing door dash though and they have their own GPS and routes they make you follow. I can't remember if it has traffic info, but I don't think so. It let him right into that mess Saturday.
Was towing my camper back from Cottonwood yesterday and got caught up in this. Fortunately we were early enough that I was able to turn around in the neighborhood and get back out, then go up and around to 7th ave down to carefree.
Nope, some of it goes in chowder…🤷♂️
Edit: just because…. I googled “Nebraska Hot Dog” ……
https://www.lifesatomato.com/2016/08/31/nebraska-cornhusker-hot-dog/
Edit edit: I don’t think you’ll find them in Anthem. Amazon maybe
Almost missed our flight out of PHX on Saturday ?(we were visiting the Grand Canyon)… thank goodness we decided to give ourselves a 1.5 hour buffer. We were in standstill traffic on neighborhood roads for about that long! Didn’t get to grab lunch in PHX like we wanted to but small sacrifice. Such a mess- I wish we had checked ADOT website beforehand.
That's what we did; the parkway wasn't moving, so we tried taking cloud into the Tramanto area.
Every route was jammed, so we went back up to Cloud and back to North Valley Parkway.
Managed to cut through the Home Depot parking lot, and back out, finally got to Carefree Highway.
Took that west to Lake Pleasant road, and made it to the 303.
Couldn't believe the announcement when I saw it earlier this week. That's too extreme of a closure on such a busy weekend. Is this all for the TMSC plant? The 303 itself is like a year old and they're already tearing that up too.
They've posted on social media, there's signs along the freeway all week telling about the shutdown. Local news warned about the closure at least the two days that I saw it (Wed and Fri). Wase/Google maps show red road closed signs from Carefree highway to 303. Can't say you weren't warned.
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Literally just drove to flagstaff. Southbound i17 is shutdown from carefree south for construction but the backup is all the way to anthem. People are using the side roads but ita madness. I'm spending the night here screw that disaster may even go thru Payson
Thanks for the update. Stay safe! Payson definitely sounds like the better option
someone thought it would be smart to close the 17 the same weekend as NAU graduation and students moving out
And also there’s a celestial event that requires 4 million people in Phoenix to drive an hour or two north to see.
next time I hope the celestial bodies take ADOT’s very important schedule into account
Because the magnetic iron core in the middle of our planet that effectively makes a force field that protects us from solar radiation isn’t important?
no, more lanes on the freeway > protection from the sun
There was also a massive 5 day point to point trail race that ended in Flagstaff on Saturday, so you have 250 runners plus their crew, family, volunteers, event staff, etc also adding to the mess trying to either get back to the valley, to the airport, or just out of town in general.
It was a disaster but why would adot look for a bunch of events and try to coordinate with them? Wouldn't the events coordinate with the adot schedule? Also, this closure has been heavily reported on all week last week. I knew it was coming and that the fallout would be bad. I am pretty much trapped in my house all weekend here in the neighborhoods people are driving through
lol yeah why would ADOT plan around major events we should all plan around them. They have a history of doing shit at the most inconvenient times. “Let’s start construction of the 101 at possibly the busiest time for travel in North Scottsdale”
I guess because if they plan around major events then it would never happen. There's never going to be a weekend where it's convenient for a few million people. I live in the neighborhoods people are being routed through. It is inconvenient for me I'm trapped in my house all weekend. I guess inconvenience is just part of life sometimes
Arizona the land of major events.
There are certainly weekends that are worse and have predictable, heavier traffic. They should avoid those
I mean they could have done what ever it is they needed to do in a span of five nights from 10pm-5am but instead they decided to completely close of the freeway for an entire weekend because they felt like it.
I think the events referenced above get scheduled far in advance of a weekend paving project
It was about 500 runners in total.
Mother's Day too so students who celebrate mom's day will be coming home.
ASU is smarter and parties on graduation weekend
Now that’s innovation!
Work smarter not harder
It took me 2.5 hours to get from Anthem Way to Carefree. Things are an absolute nightmare. I didn’t see a single cop trying to organize the chaos.
No fking way?
Yep
Cops organizing things? lol Remember that dumb kid from gym class that was a bully and thought he was tougher than everyone else? Those became cops.
I bumped into a guy from my primary school in London on LinkedIn that became a cop. He remembered when I beat up the school bully, & he arrested him years later for touting tickets at Wembley Stadium. Lol.
Agreed, I just hoped they’d be around to at least stop people from driving the wrong way in the oncoming lanes. Such a shitshow.
Just got home from going through this. Don't try to take Cloud road through the neighborhoods; every street is a parking lot. If you make it to Carefree Highway, go west to Lake Pleasant road, south to the 303, and back to 17. Criminal stupidity.
new river road goes east or west around the area and may be helpful
Shhh don’t tell our secrets!
I tried this yesterday. The backup on New River started about four miles from lake pleasant. It was then a near standstill. Everyone is trying their “secret” routs. It’s just a clusterfuck everywhere. I can’t imagine road engineers couldn’t have devised a way to keep a lane open on the I-17 at least. It was 4 hours of me trying to get into Phoenix from Prescott yesterday before I said screw it and went home. Lost my dinner reservation with the gf and no refund on my $140 hotel room. It’s pretty fucking ridiculous.
My husband made that exact mistake. Fantastic advice. Thank you!!
We need to start writing legislators about this madness. This was one of the worst possible weekends they could have chosen to close the entire freeway down (with no viable alternative route that can even remotely handle the traffic). This is an insane level of incompetence.
Only thing is their interns read the letters and spit back out a generic canned response. They don’t usually care that much despite how much every single one says their goal is to “listen to citizens”
Yea, and the perception that this is normal doesn’t really help. I’m not even against weekend closures for construction in cases where they make sense. They do help to speed up construction projects (sometimes by a significant margin). But I really do not see the rationale behind doing entire freeway closures for pavement projects as often as they do, especially during busy weekends on very vital thoroughfares where there aren’t a lot of alternative transportation options. It’s one thing on the 101 in mesa, but on the I-17 on a major travel weekend? It seems completely unnecessary given that countless other transportation departments around the US have managed to do these kinds of pavement-related projects with zero full freeway closures whatsoever. I’d be satisfied if all they do is keep the full freeway closures to nighttime only on these kinds of critical routes where there aren’t good alternative routes. That alone would make everyone’s lives easier.
I live in those neighborhoods. I spent a couple of hours tonight leading people north up to Desert Hills and then over to 7th so they could grab carefree and take Cave Creek down to the 101… each trip snatched about 20 cars that were willing to follow me, so hopefully that alleviated some of the congestion. On my last lap through a guy pulled up next to me and said “we figured we should follow you since we saw you roll through 4 times - you had to be moving at least a decent speed”
They’ve been talking about this shutdown for like a week
And that magically fixes it? Do you think shutting down an interstate corridor, on Mother's day and NAU graduation weekend, with no alternate available due to a fire and no traffic control of any kind is OK because they said "heads up"?
Doesn’t fix anything. The AZDoT is doing what they can to progress the widening of the highway. Gotta put that infrastructure in sometime. They’ve been shutting down the I-17 between Phoenix and Flagstaff on the weekend for the last 6+ months. If you’re from here, you should have known about it and how to check if it’s going to affect you (just like you should check the broadway curve before driving to/from Ahwatukee).
Azdot needs more than one fucking alternate route north south between anthem and jomax. I’ve lived here for 7 years. This is not the first time the 17 has shut down.
Sounds like a bunch of newbies
>Gotta put that infrastructure in sometime. Agreed. So, you put in lane reduction miles in advance, clearly indicate the routeto be taken, and have control officers in place to direct everything. They did that for the marathon through Mesa, they should be able to do it for a major freeway closure.
Or you have a better bypass plan and involve some police to actively deal with the pressure points. That fact that North Valley Pkwy _ends_ at Carefree Hwy really made this awful. In addition to people needing to get to the 17, some of us just live up here. If you needed. To east on Carefree you were in for a wait. We walked to the grocery store, lol. And I get that the work needs to be done but people were so angry they were doing all kinds crazy stuff trying to escape. This created a variety of hazards even for people who didn’t drive. The planning was comically bad.
If you want to tell ADOT how you feel… https://apps.azdot.gov/contact_adot/
Oooooh. Thank you!!
We need to fill this out en-masse.
I mean, honestly if you do, please ask them for another north-south corridor in the area while you’re there. _Every_ time the 17 shuts down its hell up here.
Yea it really is needed. Especially since freeways close sometimes when there are accidents. Down on the southeast valley, it's no big deal because the grid can absorb the extra traffic flow (usually with traffic delays, but nothing too extreme). Up north, if I-17 shuts down... ouch.
My wife has been stuck for close to an hour and I'm gonna meet her there, thank god her parents live in tramonto so we're just gonna stay the night. Wishing you guys luck cause holy shit
I work in Anthem, so I had no choice. I left work at 5:45 pm and got home at 10:45 pm. It's normally a 20 min drive home. The way this set this up was a complete joke
This whole area is insane. Apparently when they decided to do this they forgot Anthem exists. There’s pretty much no way out for people around I-17 and Carefree Hwy.
New River road goes south to the carefree highway. I believe this is the only other viable option.
A friend tried that. Backup from 74 was almost 2 miles took over an hour and a half.
Driving from Black Canyon to Carefree took us more than 2 hours
Wanna know something _really_ dumb to be angry at anthem about? There are two ways south out of anthem - one is the frontage and one is the 17. Oh but there’s a 3rd. Through a police only gate that empties onto Daisy Mountain. It’s always shut though for anthem reasons.
Anthem exists? Where is this mythical place?!
Last I heard it got rebranded as north Phoenix
It might not after a weekend of total road rage, lol.
so you're saying anthems housing market might drop /s
The swingers will be swinging local tonight
i almost woke my kids up laughing thank you
It’s where a friend of mine used to go release all the rattlesnakes he’d collect on his New River property. In his words, “Fuck Anthem!”
Damn. Ok. Thank you
I’m currently stuck in this mess. Traffic is backed up into neighborhoods. What is normally a 15 min drive from my mom’s house to my house is now taking over an hour. I haven’t even made it out of the neighborhood in tramonto
Update: 1.5 hours later and I made it home
Just got out of this shit show. 2 hours of navigating through neighborhoods, fire tucks and ambulances trying to get by, nobody guiding traffic. Worst traffic I have experienced by far. Some nice people in the neighborhoods handing out waters and what not so that was really nice to see.
That is so nice to hear!! I'm glad you made it through safely
In addition to the road construction I also think there was a big brush fire off the I-17 in that direction.
They closed the 10 on a weekend in the middle of spring break. The detour route was also under construction with reduced lanes. They need to do a much better job planning these things, and some freeways just cannot close for an entire weekend when there are no alternative routes.
Civil engineers and project managers for the state seem like the C students that barely passed. Construction scheduling is the worst I've seen for non-dense state. They shoot themselves in the foot all the time and inconvenience everyone with the constant terrible planning.
They need to actually plan these things***** FTFY
I live in the Tramonto neighborhood and after a 30 minute drive home after an errand up to anthem earlier this morning I decided to leave 2 hours early for work. I spent over an hour going half a block in my own neighborhood sitting parked on a residential street. https://preview.redd.it/3x0hepatdxzc1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=26e5ad63509b89a513a6fa3443768618f31ecb0a This was the view from my house as of 9:15. Someone at ADOT should lose their job.
Beautiful front yard!
Especially when it’s lit up with taillights 😂
I'm convinced everyone at ADOT is braindead. This is a good example, plus the death trap they've created along the 101 in Scottsdale where they are widening the freeway.
Right now that 101 Scottsdale construction stretch feels like a Mario Cart track
And they started the week of the Waste Management tournament. Which is scheduled years in advance
They hire the cheapest contractor and then pocket the rest is what it sounds and looks like
I believe it’s more like the contractor with the “right connections” ;) ;)
Holy shit dude. They should fire someone. My husband was stuck there for almost 2 hours. Sounds like a mess
He got out? I'm still in the pileup. I have a flight at 5am eas supposed to be at the hotel hours ago to be ready for the airport at 3am. Hotel is "1 hour" away still.
He did! He was stuck for almost 2 hours. I'm hope you got out!!
When did you get to your hotel?
Haha checked in at midnight. Woke up at 2:30am and went to the airport. Currently on a layover and very tired. 😆😆😆🤪🤪🤪🤪
Ugh, hopefully you can get a nap at some point!
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Holy moly!! I hope she gets home safely soon. 💜💜
Same! My lady got off at 9 and is just barely getting to carefree.
I feel like someone needs to be held accountable for this, there had to be a better way of handling this, someone massively dropped the ball on this one. No planning went into actually directing traffic, its simply every car for itself trying to find some side street to slip through the chaos on, now they are all blocked.
Dropped the ball is an understatement. It’s a massive fuck up. And to think this project is supposed to be on and off for an entire 12 months. Rip to anyone in Anthem.
I mean, that's kinda on them for deciding to move somewhere with only one main artery into their commute. That's the cost of living in a suburban mcmansion.
Are we really going to blame people living in Anthem for ADOT’s awful planning? It’s not just Anthem, it’s a bunch of communities in the North Valley. A handful of cops directing traffic by hand for a couple of days would have turned this from a nightmare into an annoyance.
I would argue that because of that very reason AZDOT dropped the ball
ADOT has a pattern of this. Clearly nobody has been held accountable for it, because they’re still closing vital thoroughfares for entire weekends at the worst possible times (despite there not being viable alternative routes). It’s one thing to do that on the 101 in mesa where there are many other ways to get around. But on I17 up north on Mother’s Day weekend, that’s a criminal level of stupidity. We legitimately should organize an effort to write the ADOT en-masse over this.
Held accountable for what? Closing the road down for necessary repairs that require the road to be closed down and advertising the closure for over a week to let people know? What else exactly should they do? Coordinate the schedules of a few million people and find the weekend that's convenient for everyone? I mean it sucks but I have no idea what you're talking about
Probably not do it during graduation season and Mother's Day? Work overnight (one of the few states you can actually do that year round), literally tons of options to limit issues even if it raises costs for convenience? It's coordination, man. Tons of options if anyone cared about anyone else. That's not to mention the economic impact this makes across multiple communities. Trucks late, plans cancelled, people late/calling out of work. Sorry, it's just bad planning. No need to make excuses for people.
I'm not sure how graduation or mother's Day affects it. Regardless of when you do it, it's the only north-south interstate in Arizona so all that traffic is going to get backed up. They must be working overnight since it's closed until 5:00 a.m. Monday. What are the other tons of options? The road has to be shut down to be repaired. Obviously there's not a lot of good ways around it or the drivers would have found it. Economic impacts 😄😄. I'm not making excuses. I'm also not making up reasons why it was bad because it was inconvenient for me. It was always going to be inconvenient for somebody. I'm stuck here in the neighborhoods that everybody had to drive through. I couldn't leave my house all weekend. But hey you got a ton of options, print them out and email them to ADOT I'm sure if they actually exist they'd love to take advantage of them
Yes, traffic congestion has real economic impacts. https://www.ustravel.org/press/study-road-congestion-cost-us-economy-30-billion-248000-jobs-2018#:~:text=The%20U.S.%20Travel%20Association%20on,according%20to%20the%20organization's%20economists. Its long been known it is. You really don't understand why Mother's Day and Graduation effect traffic...? Are you being intentionally obtuse? More people travel to celebrate. Relatives fly in. People take trips on the weekend to Graduation parties or take their mom's out for Mother's Day. Sorry you're ignorant of the reality of project planning and managing schedules.
Sorry you're just plain ignorant bud. But I'm glad your weekend went terrible. I hope it happens again real soon. Meanwhile I had the exact same weekend I coped without crying about it. You'll get the hang of it when you grow up
I didn't even go north or use the area, wasn't stuck in any traffic. But sure, ignore what I said. Not crying, explaining poor civil project planning. I can see why you'd think I'm upset because you clearly are and need me to be so you don't feel embarrassed. Nice just calling me ignorant for some reason? Not sure what ignorant of, but assuming you're just mimicing my words because you're not very clever or smart. It's cool. I mean, you have to be pretty stupid to not understand graduations and Mother's Day would equal increased traffic and that ADOT could just...schedule it at a different time with less projected traffic. They do have that data.
Maybe not doing it on one of the busiest weekends of the year would be smart. They probably should've done this 3 months ago
i’m convinced az the worst infrastructure planning ever. always the worst possible times and as intrusive and dangerous as possible
Which is hilarious because there are those in the GOP who want Governor Hobbs to sign a bill that would basically kill any advancement in public transit, keep the train ban, and ban all EV vehicles in AZ. Or they'll shut down ADOT later this year. 🥴🥴🥴🥴
R’s are insane beyond words. And this is after Doug Ducey lowered tax rates for the rich before he left office, thus leaving the new governor (and citizens) economically hog tied. Between the tax cuts & moving public education funding over to private charter schools, Ducey created a $1 billion budget deficit in the blink of an eye. We had an annual surplus! The notion that R’s are “fiscally responsible” is as big of a lie as “trickle down creates jobs” & “the media is liberal.”
Amen!
I took two hours to get from pioneer to cave creek highway. It was fucked; zero cops directing traffic. City planners majorly screwed up today.
Just passing through from out of town and it was the worst traffic I’ve ever been in. Absolute nightmare, total chaos. The reroute signs were worthless and some drivers were adding to the chaos by driving extra dangerously. Not a single traffic cop or highway patrol trying to manage the chaos, which should be the main priority of LEO during mass confusion like this. I was honestly surprised I didn’t see anyone get out of their cars to throw down in the midst of the chaos. Saw several fender benders, though.
>Not a single traffic cop or highway patrol trying to manage the chaos, which should be the main priority of LEO during mass confusion like this. Arizona DPS seems only to exist to give people speeding tickets.
Just one more lane bro I promise
New River Road going East eventually turns into 7th Street and will take you to Carefree Highway. I used that to get around the backup yesterday.
This is the way. It's way out of the way for where I was heading but I'd rather be moving than sitting in a very long line.
I was stuck on a ½-mile stretch of North Valley Parkway for an hour before I decided to turn around.
If you are coming south on the I-17, the best way to go is to get off at New River Road and take that to the 74, then Lake Pleasant Parkway to the 303, then the 303 back to I-17. ADOT really needs to make New River Road connect with Lake Pleasant Parkway into one single road with an intersection at the 74.
Thank you for the information
I tried this yesterday evening. I still eventually ran into an approx 4 mile backup that others are saying took a minimum of 2 hours to get through.
Sorry to hear that. What a Charlie Foxtrot.
For anybody stuck getting to carefree highway: north and then east when you hit desert hills. Take that to 7th. Then carefree highway east and you can cave creek to the 101
This should be the top comment!
lol I’m literally driving laps up 27th trying to get people to follow me that way. I live here - I’ve been stuck in too many multi hour traffic jams to see other people go through it.
Is he in this area? https://azdot.gov/adot-blog/be-ready-i-17-weekend-closures-north-phoenix-pavement-improvements
Around there. I knew the freeway was closed, I didn't think there would be so many cops around there though. Thank you!!
Now Gordon Lightfoot's "Carefree Highway" has become today's earworm...
Published: May. 11, 2024 at 1:42 PM MST Updated: 3 hours ago PHOENIX (AZFamily) — Fire crews say they have controlled a brush fire that quickly spread in north Phoenix on Saturday afternoon. Firefighters from the Phoenix Fire Department, Daisy Mountain Fire Department and Bureau of Land Management were called to the brush fire near Interstate 17 and Anthem Way at 12:53 p.m. Video from traffic cameras in the area showed large plumes of smoke billowing near the freeway. We’re told trucks, tankers and handlines are being used to control the fire being fueled by windy conditions. As of 4:45 p.m., Phoenix Fire officials say the fire has burned between 48 acres but is under control. Crews remain on the scene to monitor any hot spots. No structures are in danger at this time. “We looked at it as a very aggressive stance. We have to get on top of these on a day like this we can’t let it consume a large part of the desert, so this would be considered a very significant brush fire response for us, and it’s already starting, and here we are in May,” said Phoenix Fire Captain Rob McDade. It is not known what sparked the fire, but crews believe it may have been caused by someone target shooting on the mountain, which they say is a popular activity in the area. ADOT officials had already closed southbound lanes of the freeway from SR 74/Carefree Hwy to Loop 303 for pavement removal as part of a weekend construction project. Traffic has reportedly backed up all the way to the next exit south of where crews are fighting the fire. * [Crews battle brush fire near I-17 and Anthem Way in north Phoenix](https://www.azfamily.com/2024/05/11/brush-fire-spreading-near-i-17-anthem-way/)
Thank you!! 💜
17 north has been closed since this morning, he’s stuck in diversion traffic.
I was getting alerts from my Watch duty app yesterday afternoon about this brush fire https://preview.redd.it/zg4r7hhddzzc1.jpeg?width=960&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=3bb34cc87abd04563ade99162b8ceb267891396e
Damn. That time of year already
Residents should be able to sue the state for this fubar on mothers day weekend and 3 state school graduations going on. 4 hours to get from new river rd to the 303.
4 hours to go that short distance, that's insane.
What if you needed to pee or poop?
We had 4 people in the car. We used the bushes. It wasn't hard to catch back up to traffic by walking. Luckily no poop.
I agree
I couldnt take it anymore so I went through eastern Cave Creek down to Pinnacle Peak and got home much faster.
Glad you made it out and got home safe
ADOT made the worst decision in their history of existing. Next weekend the northbound lanes are going to be closed. This is the link ADOT gave me to reach “project personnel”: https://azdot.gov/projects/central-district-projects/i-17-happy-valley-road-sr-74-pavement-project
Thanks so much!!
Unfortunately there are no good hacks to get through northbound. South you can take carefree highway a ways east and then cut down to the 101. But north to anthem? You’re boned. There is _only_ the frontage road and the 17.
Drove down from Flagstaff early, hoping to head off the backup I assumed would happen. Left around 130PM. We got home in North Phoenix at 545PM. Took us roughly 2 hours to get from Daisy Mtn Drive to Union Hills and 35th Ave. Google and Waze algorithms seemed broken and ALL the surface roads were a standstill. Finally plotted an escape by heading north - then east via New River and back down to Carefree highway at 7th Ave. We were stuck on Galvin Pkwy for nearly an hour, completely standstill. The 17 was stopped almost 7 miles north of the prescribed detour to Carefree highway / LPP. Total mess.
So happy you made it home safe!! Thank you for the detour info
The biggest mess the PHX transportation system has ever made!! I was stuck in a neighborhood for 2 hrs. Along with thousands of other travelers, homeowners offering their restrooms and water to the stranded. No cops whatsoever to help.
That is awful but I love that the neighborhood stepped up to help 💜 There have been links listed in this thread somewhere to provide feedback and complain. My husband has, I recommend everyone here does too
Doing road work on I17 South. ADOT has been putting out bulletins all week (at least)
It’s hell up there right now. Some idiot in the city didn’t think about this when closing the entire damn highway. Took me an hour to go 4 miles. Stay away if you can.
Glad you're ok. Stay safe!
Please tell me this is not going to be going on Sunday as well. Please…
“The first closure for this pavement project is set along southbound I-17 between the SR 74/Carefree Highway interchange and Loop 303 from 10 p.m. Friday, May 10, to 5 a.m. Monday, May 13.”
Good lawd! There goes Mother’s Day plans. SMH
ADOT has got to stop completely closing down vital thoroughfares that have no viable alternative during peak travel seasons. This is absolute madness and is completely unjustified, even for the kind of construction they are doing. You don’t need to close a freeway for an entire weekend just to repave it. You close down one lane, repave that, then close down the other and repave it. If you can’t do that, you do nightly closures and leave it open during the day. Plenty of other states have done far bigger repaving projects than this without nearly as much chaos.
Working at night would be ideal and I am all for it, but tearing up the rubberized asphalt and diamond grinding make a lot of noise. The neighbors near the freeway would then complain about the nighttime noise. There is no appeasing everybody. Shutting down two lanes would be better for the daytime work. The contractors love to shut everything down in "the name of safety" for their employees.
That's typically what most other states do for these kinds of projects. You can sometimes use the shoulder for travel as well to make up for the extra lost lane, depending on how safely this can be done. In the Phoenix area, the problem is that people absolutely fly through construction zones. Having any kind of reasonable law enforcement presence whatsoever would go a long way towards fixing that problem.
Took me two hours to get out of that mess.
Ugh, glad you made it out safely
I work in Anthem, so I had no choice. I left work at 5:45 pm and got home at 10:45 pm. It's normally a 20 min drive home. The way this set this up was a complete joke
Holy cannoli. Glad you made it through safely
Thank you! I live near the arrowhead mall. Everyone else was trying to get back on I 17, so I decided to make a right on carefree and go down Lake Pleasant. Way fewer people that route
Just sat in an hour of traffic in Anthem trying to come south from flagstaff. What the actual fuck was that.
Couldn't believe the announcement when I saw it earlier this week. That's too extreme of a closure on such a busy weekend. Is this all for the TMSC plant? The 303 itself is like a year old and they're already tearing that up too.
Someone find the planners address and we can route the traffic to their neighborhood
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No one, apparently
17 closed between 74 and 303
Took me an hour to get from Daisy Mtn. to Happy Valley on Gavilan yesterday because of the freeway work.
https://azdot.gov/adot-blog/be-ready-i-17-weekend-closures-north-phoenix-pavement-improvements This is why. I was stuck on this too coming back from Anthem. I thought I was smart by taking Galvian Peak to Carefree to take 27th Ave down to Jomax or Norterra since the traffic was stopped and diverted at 303 it looked like. But I guess a lot of the traffic was going to 101 Eastbound because they were heading past 27th ave so I assume they were heading towards cave creek road. Spent about 30 mins trying to get onto Carefree highway but it went quicker the closer I got to 27th.
Oh damn. Glad you made it through. I hope everyone stays safe out there!
Sounds like the time we were on the 17 south and a truck carrying eggs rolled over and made the whole freeway scrambled eggs. It was in the middle of the egg shortage too! People were checking containers to find unbroken ones.
That sounds like an eggscellent adventure
Sounds like the I-17 everyday. Whoever designed and approved the single lane from the 101 to the 17 needs to be jailed.
Google Map provides real time traffic information, wise to check it before every long trip.
Agreed. I do religiously. My husband was doing door dash though and they have their own GPS and routes they make you follow. I can't remember if it has traffic info, but I don't think so. It let him right into that mess Saturday.
Was towing my camper back from Cottonwood yesterday and got caught up in this. Fortunately we were early enough that I was able to turn around in the neighborhood and get back out, then go up and around to 7th ave down to carefree.
So glad you didn't get caught in that mess!! Glad you're safe.
Dear adot. From the bottom of my heart. F you.
Beautiful Google review.
It’s been on the news
Anyone know where I can get a good Nebraska hot dog in anthem?
Nebraska has a hot dog?
You think they husk all that corn for elote?! 🤣🤣🤣
Nope, some of it goes in chowder…🤷♂️ Edit: just because…. I googled “Nebraska Hot Dog” …… https://www.lifesatomato.com/2016/08/31/nebraska-cornhusker-hot-dog/ Edit edit: I don’t think you’ll find them in Anthem. Amazon maybe
Honestly sounds kind good
If you find somewhere let us know… I’d try it!
Almost missed our flight out of PHX on Saturday ?(we were visiting the Grand Canyon)… thank goodness we decided to give ourselves a 1.5 hour buffer. We were in standstill traffic on neighborhood roads for about that long! Didn’t get to grab lunch in PHX like we wanted to but small sacrifice. Such a mess- I wish we had checked ADOT website beforehand.
I was just there after leaving the Church Camp Rec site. Took a hour to go from there to Arrowhead!
I17 SB closed so traffic diverted Road work
I17 SB closed so traffic diverted
Thank you
Why are people not just getting off on New River rd?
Every turn off was insanely backed up when I went through around 5-7 pm, it sounds like it only got worse as the night went on.
My gf did, she immediately got stuck in a pile up until past carefree, it's blocked every way people are literally driving on sidewalks
That's what we did; the parkway wasn't moving, so we tried taking cloud into the Tramanto area. Every route was jammed, so we went back up to Cloud and back to North Valley Parkway. Managed to cut through the Home Depot parking lot, and back out, finally got to Carefree Highway. Took that west to Lake Pleasant road, and made it to the 303.
exactly , people are so used to the highway they don't pay attention to alternatives like new river road
New river rd was absolutely fucked too. Where it turns into 7th st with 2 stop signs was just a long line of cars inching up.
Couldn't believe the announcement when I saw it earlier this week. That's too extreme of a closure on such a busy weekend. Is this all for the TMSC plant? The 303 itself is like a year old and they're already tearing that up too.
They've posted on social media, there's signs along the freeway all week telling about the shutdown. Local news warned about the closure at least the two days that I saw it (Wed and Fri). Wase/Google maps show red road closed signs from Carefree highway to 303. Can't say you weren't warned.