The resurfacing of Vicksburg Road in La Paz County is part of a $330 million local highway bill that will pass the Arizona legislature. The bill, House Bill 2543, has already passed the House with bipartisan support and is currently being passed through the Senate.
“We are making progress,” said Duce Minor, La Paz District 2 District Supervisor.
If approved, the funds will become part of the state budget for fiscal years 2023-24.
The bill provides $5,597,442 to resurface Vicksburg Road in eastern La Paz County. The road connects his three major highways: Interstate 10, State Route 60, and State Route 72.
Minor and La Paz County Public Works Director Don Blaska said the road is handling more traffic than it was designed for.
Braska said the project will be a “mill and fill” on eight miles (8 miles) of Vicksburg Road. The road will be repaved. He said he has a $5.4 million estimate from Sunland Asphalt. The remaining state funds will be used as an emergency.
Sunland has done many street projects in the town of Parker.
Braska said this will be a county project. He added that it will be included in the county’s budget for 2023-24, but that is contingent on the county receiving funding from the state.
Braska said the project is expected to keep Vicksburg Road in shape for 10 to 15 years.
Minor said the La Paz County funding was proposed because he was a board member of the Western Arizona Council of Governments. It was through WACOG that Minor learned that the Rural Transportation Advocacy Council was planning to introduce funding for local highways. He was able to approve the addition of Vicksburg Road.
The county paved Vicksburg Road in the 1980s, but one of the unintended consequences was seeing more truck traffic than it was intended to handle. California State Route 72 and Vicksburg Road are now the main routes from southern Mojave County to Interstate 10 and to and from Phoenix. According to Braska, this traffic used to pass through SR 95, which he did through Quartzsite.
It also states that the SR 72 was not built for the traffic that currently uses it.
Minor said Vicksburg Road should not be a county road because it connects three major federal and state highways.
“It should really be a national highway,” he said.
Braska said he doesn’t know of any other county road connecting so many national and state roads.
One of the improvements the Arizona Department of Transportation made to Vicksburg Road was the installation of a traffic circle or “roundabout” at the intersection of Vicksburg Road and US Route 60 in 2011. intersection.
House Bill 2543 passed the House on March 8 by a vote of 50 to 8 and was turned over to the Senate. The Senate Transportation Technology Committee gave the bill a recommendation of “pass” by a vote of 5 to 1. All three of his Democrats on the committee and his two Republicans voted in favor of the bill. Only Sen. Anthony Kahn (R. 27th) voted against the bill, and Sen. Jake Hoffman (R. 15th) did not attend the meeting.
HB2543 was introduced by Rep. Tim Dunn (Republican, Yuma) on January 30, 2023 and has a total of 15 co-sponsors, including 11 Republicans and 4 Democrats. His two representatives from La Paz County, Rep. Leo Biasiucci (R. Lake Havasu City) and Rep. John Gillette (R. Kingman), are both co-sponsors of the bill.
The measure allocates approximately $330 million to certain rural road projects statewide, involving all counties except Maricopa and Pima counties. The bill includes projects in Lake Havasu City ($9,826,652 total), Kingman ($21,110,054), Bullhead City ($1,560,000), Colorado City ($1,200,000), Mojave County ($1,050,000), and La Paz County ($5,597,442).
Pioneer reporter Michael Zogg contributed to this article.
