New 22nd Street bridge among Tucson’s major transportation projects in 2025

The city of Tucson will start work on a new 22nd Street bridge over the Union Pacific railroad tracks and complete a Downtown tunnel under the UP tracks next year.

Other major 2025 projects include continuing work on Grant and Valencia roads as well as repaving residential roads, according to Tucson Transportation Department spokesman Michael Graham.

The 22nd Street bridge project, scheduled to begin sometime after the middle of 2025, 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, built in 1966, cannot support heavy vehicles such as buses, 18-semi-trailer trucks and emergency vehicles.

The new 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 $111 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 through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Act.

Several major projects will continue into the new year.

Work will continue on Grant Road between Swan Road and Sparkman Boulevard. The $63.3 million project, which has an estimated completion date of autumn 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 Avenue and Sparkman Boulevard, remain in the planning stages, with a $100 million rough estimate of cost, evenly split between acquiring property and construction.

Find more details on the Grant Road project here.

The city expects to complete the Downtown Links project in the middle of 2025. 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 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, when Arizona Department of Transportation planners proposed building a highway through the historic El Presidio neighborhood.

The city is also continuing work on Valencia Road between Kolb and Houghton roads. That $29 million project will expand Valencia to three lanes in each direction alongside bike and pedestrian lanes.

Work began last month and is expected to be completed in the middle of 2026.

The Transportation Department is scheduled to work on several East Side collector streets, including 29th Street from Kolb Road to Avenida Guillermo, Prudence Road from 22nd Street to 29th Street, Kenyon Drive from Pantano Road to Camino Seco and Sarnoff Drive from Broadway to Pantano Parkway. The city will also be repaving nearby residential streets in the Rolling Rocks neighborhood.

A section of Stella Road between Wilmot Road and Camino Seco is under design.

The collector streets that were completed in in 2024 include Old Spanish Trail, between Broadway and Harrison Road; Greasewood Road between Ironwood Hill Drive and Speedway Boulevard; Starr Pass Boulevard between Lost Starr Drive to Tohono Ridge Place; Players Club Drive between Starr Pass Boulevard and Anklam Road; and Elm Street between Campbell Avenue and Tucson Boulevard. The city plans to wrap Tucson between 22nd and Grant before the end of 2024.

 Work will continue next year on neighborhood streets through the Tucson Delivers Better Streets program, funded through. Prop 411. In May 2022, voters approved a 10-year half-cent sales tax to pay for road repair.

Among the projects on tap for next year: Swan Way (near Grant Road and Rosemont Boulevard), Hearthstone Hills (near Harrison Road and Stella Road), Groves Lincoln Park (near Kolb Road and Escalante) and Los Ranchitos (near Valencia Road and Park Avenue).

Prop 411 will also pay for surface treatment work citywide.

In 2024, Prop 411 paid for repaving projects in neighborhoods including Julia Keen (near 22nd Street and Country Club Road), Winterhaven (near Fort Lowell Road and Tucson Boulevard), Terra del Sol (near 22nd Street and Wilmot Road) and Amphi (near Stone Avenue and Prince Road).

Find more details on Prop 411 here.