Interstate 11 Fact Sheet – What They Aren’t Telling You

June 28, 2016 Albert Vetere Lannon
  1. I-11 is about jobs…in Mexico. Among the “Business Case” scenarios projected in the ADOT-NDOT Corridor Justification Report is “nearshoring.”  That means attracting US companies from China to Mexico where “hourly compensation costs are nearly as low as China.” (Pp. 65-66.)  They propose research and development in Arizona and Nevada and production in Mexico (p. 67).  They call that “integrative manufacturing.”   Access the full report, and not the slick summary, at www.I11study.com.
  1. I-11 is about stealing good American jobs from the West Coast and sending them to Mexico where the Port of Guaymas is seen as an “alternative” port that will “attract a share of traffic destined for the United States.” (Pp. 61-62.) Financing for the Port of Guaymas expansion reportedly comes from China.
  1. An I-11 highway through the Avra Valley would hurt tourism and kill existing jobs. Saguaro National Park, Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum, Tucson Mountain Park, Kitt Peak, Ironwood National Monument, hundreds of ancient archaeology sites, bighorn sheep, deer, mountain lions and more will be negatively impacted.  Existing businesses catering to truckers and tourists along the present I-10 corridor would be hurt along with communities. Some have suggested that smugglers would love the new highway to move illegal drugs faster and further.
  1. The Avra Valley I-11 route proposed by Pima County Administrator Chuck Huckelberry will enrich real estate speculators while evicting 47 local families. According to research published in Desert Times newspaper in January 2014, Mesa real estate millionaire and two-time political candidate Wilford Cardon owns over 1500 vacant acres along the “Huckelberry Highway” route.  Huckelberry has not named the affected property owners.
  1. Some call it “crony capitalism,” the rich helping each other get richer with taxpayer money. Local millionaire real estate moguls Don Diamond and Diamond Ventures president Eliot Goldstein served on Cardon’s campaign committee in his failed bid for Arizona Secretary of State.  Diamond owns 3000 acres along Huckelberry’s “Sonoran Corridor,” a piece of I-11 east of I-19 as shown on County maps (see over).   His “Swan Southlands” project would get a free highway.   Huckelberry’s proposed $30 million for the Sonoran Corridor was decisively rejected by voters as part of the November, 2015, bond package, but he and members of the Pima County Board of Supervisors are trying to revive it and overturn the will of the voters.
  1. If you like I-11, there’s a cheaper way to do it. ADOT State Engineer Jennifer Toth, speaking at a State Transportation Board meeting in December 2008, raised and dismissed the idea of double-decking a piece of the existing I-10, from Ruthrauff to I-19.  It would, she said, accomplish everything ADOT wanted, but would cost too much.  What she didn’t say was that while the cost-per-mile of double-decking is higher, double-decking just six miles of I-10 would cost one-third of the $3 billion the 56-mile highway proposed by Huckelberry adds up to.  That would save taxpayers nearly $2 billion!  ADOT’s numbers, confirmed again by ADOT’s John Moran.
  1. Part of I-11 in the Avra Valley will be elevated, according to Huckelberry. That’s because there is only an 80-foot right-of-way on Sandario Road at Mile Wide between the Tohono O’odham Nation and the federal Bureau of Reclamation’s Wildlife Mitigation Corridor established when the CAP canal was built.  I-11 needs several hundred feet ROW.   Neither the feds nor the Nation are interested in giving up their land. 
  1. An Avra Valley I-11 route is in violation of the Board of Supervisors’ own policy. In BOS Resolution 2007-343, Pima County policy stated: “NOW, THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that the Pima County Board of Supervisors opposes the construction of any new highways in or around the County that have the stated purpose of bypassing the existing Interstate 10 as it is believed that the environmental, historic, archaeological and urban form impacts could not be adequately mitigated.” 

PROPOSED INTERSTATE 11 ROUTE THROUGH THE AVRA VALLEY

I-11

 

SPEAK UP NOW BEFORE IT’S TOO LATE.  While actual construction may be years off, decisions made now will be binding. In addition to the public meetings, public comment can be made at i11study.com website, by e-mail to i-11ADOTStudy@hdrinc.com, by toll-free phone to 1-844-544-8049, or by mail to Interstate 11 Tier 1 EIS Study Team, c/o ADOT Communications, 1655 W. Jackson Street, Mail Drop 126F, Phoenix, AZ 85007.

Avra Valley Coalition — Contact: albertlannon@powerc.net.

 

About Albert Vetere Lannon 103 Articles
Albert grew up in the slums of New York, and moved to San Francisco when he was 21. He became a union official and labor educator after obtaining his high school GED in 1989 and earning three degrees at San Francisco State University – BA, Labor Studies; BA, Interdisciplinary Creative Arts; MA, History. He has published two books of history, Second String Red, a scholarly biography of my communist father (Lexington, 1999), and Fight or Be Slaves, a history of the Oakland-East Bay labor movement (University Press of America, 2000). Albert has published stories, poetry, essays and reviews in a variety of “little” magazines over the years. Albert retired to Tucson in 2001. He has won awards from the Arizona State Poetry Society and Society of Southwestern Authors.