YOUR OPINION MATTERS: City of Tucson asks for input on changed plans for 22nd Street Bridge project

TUCSON, Ariz. (KGUN) — The 22nd street bridge has been around for decades, and many people use it not just to drive around, but also to walk and ride bikes on.

Kelley Badeau lives in Armory Park and often bikes over the bridge to get to where she needs to be.

Up until recently, the City of Tucson’s Department of Transportation and Mobility was considering plans to make a pathway for pedestrians and bicyclists that went directly through the middle of the bridge.

“You would have to cross three lanes of traffic and then go over the bridge and then cross three lanes of traffic again, which seems kind of crazy,” Badeau said.

On Monday, the City revealed plans that would instead put a pathway on either side of the bridge for pedestrians and bicyclists but would widen it to six feet and it would be protected by raised concrete barriers.

“I like that they’re replacing the bridge and maybe making it have more access because like I said it does seem like it’s a bottleneck for traffic,” Badeau said.

As for traffic, the City said they will be widening the bridge from two lanes in each direction to three lanes in each direction.

Christian Martinez works at Nico’s Mexican Food right next to the bridge and said in order to get back to the west side of town, he has to drive east over the bridge and make a U turn. That turn gets him back onto the bridge so that he can make it back over towards the west side.

“And we have to go to some back streets and it’s a little more complicated because it’s really dark and it’s really alone at night,” Martinez said.

While he doesn’t use the bridge all that much anymore to get to work, he used to drive on it all the time when he was a chauffeur. He said the lanes on the bridge itself are too small and should be bigger.

“Make a shoulder so there’s an emergency exit,” he said.

The City of Tucson said they’re planning on having 2 foot shoulders on the inside of the bridge and 3 foot shoulders on the outside. The lanes for drivers will be 11 feet.

The project is going to be funded by an RTA plan voters passed in 2006, a 25 million dollar grant from the federal government, Pima County and other agencies.

Construction won’t start up until the City of Tucson holds a few more public feedback sessions, but they haven’t released any dates yet. They said the project is going to take about two and half to three years to finish.