Tucson plans major transportation projects for 2026

The City of Tucson is scheduled to start work on a new 22nd Street bridge over the Union Pacific railroad tracks in Midtown and complete a Downtown tunnel under the UP tracks next year.

Other major 2026 projects include continuing work on Grant and Valencia roads and widening Houghton Road between 22nd Street and Irvington Road.

The city will also continue its work repaving residential and collector streets with bond dollars.

The 22nd Street bridge project, scheduled to begin sometime in the second half of 2026, will replace the current span that carries traffic over Aviation Parkway and the Union Pacific railroad tracks between Tucson Boulevard and Kino Parkway. The current bridge, dating to 1966, cannot support heavy vehicles such as buses, freight trucks and emergency vehicles. 

Transportation planners had hoped to start on the new bridge in 2025, but now say work will begin next year.

The bridge will expand the number of traffic lanes from two to three lanes and incorporate bike and pedestrian lanes as well as connections to the Aviation Bike Path. 

The project will require the closure of 22nd Street between Tucson and Kino for the duration of the construction.

The $158 million project, which has been in the planning stages since 2006, is partly funded by the RTA as well as a $25 million federal RAISE grant.

Several major projects will continue into the new year.

Work will continue on Grant Road between Swan Road and Sparkman Boulevard.

The $56 million project, which has an estimated completion date of fall 2026, will include landscaped medians, five-foot bike lanes, wide sidewalks, public art and new bus pullouts, along with other features.

The latest work is considered Phases 3 and 4 of the project to widen Grant Road to six lanes from Interstate 10 to Swan Road.

In phases 1 and 2, RTA funding paid for widening of Grant Road to six lanes between Park Avenue and Oracle Road.

Two more phases of the project, which would expand Grant Road to six lanes between Park and Sparkman, remain in the planning stages, with a $111 million rough estimate of the cost to acquire property and do the construction.

But funding for the project now relies on the willingness of voters to approve the RTA Next plan in March 2026. The $2.6 billion RTA Next proposal includes $87 million  to complete the Grant work.

More details on the Grant Road project here.

A smaller, $5 million Grant project will improve the corridor between Interstate 10 and Fairview Avenue is scheduled to begin in spring 2026.

The city expects to complete the Downtown Links project in early 2026. A section between Sixth Street and Broadway opened in 2023. The current work involves a new tunnel that will carry traffic on Sixth Street beneath the Union Pacific railroad tracks.

The $76 million project is the latest iteration of a plan to move traffic from the East Side to Interstate 10 via Aviation Parkway. Transportation planners have been working on some variation of the proposal since at least the early 1980s.

The city is also continuing work on Valencia Road between Kolb and Houghton roads. That $30 million project will expand Valencia to three lanes in each direction alongside bike and pedestrian lanes. 

Work began in fall of 2024 and is expected to be completed in the middle of 2026.

The city will continue working on Fifth Street between Wilmot Road and Country Club Road, with an anticipated completion sometime in 2027.

Ongoing work on Sixth Avenue between Los Reales Road and Valencia Road is expected to be finished sometime in early 2026.

The city plans to start widening Houghton Road to three lanes in each direction between 22nd Street and Irvington Road in late 2026.

The Transportation Department is scheduled to continue work on various collector and neighborhood streets, using sales tax dollars approved by voters.

Tucson voters first approved Proposition 101, a five-year half-cent per dollar sales tax for transportation, in 2017. In 2022, voters extended the half-cent sales tax for a decade via Proposition 411.

With the sales tax dollars, the city has resurfaced 830 lane miles of residential streets (or about 31 percent of city streets), with another 165 lanes miles under contract to be resurfaced. More than 27 miles of collector streets have also been resurfaced and 12 lane miles of new or upgraded bike lanes have been completed.

Find more details  on Prop 411 projects here.