Arizona State Route 74 (SR 74), locally known as the Carefree Highway, is a state highway in central

Arizona Arizona is a U.S. state, state in the Southwestern United States, Southwestern region of the United States, sharing the Four Corners region of the western United States with Colorado, New Mexico, and Utah. It also borders Nevada to the nort ...

that stretches east to west from its junction with U.S. Route 60 (US 60) just south of Wickenburg to its junction with

Interstate 17 Interstate 17 (I-17) is a north–south Interstate Highway located entirely within the US state of Arizona. I-17's southern terminus lies in Phoenix, at I-10/US 60 and its northern terminus is in Flagstaff, at I-40. Most of I-17 is kn ...

(I-17) in North Phoenix. It serves

Lake Pleasant Regional Park Lake Pleasant Regional Park is a large outdoors recreation area straddling the Maricopa and Yavapai county border northwest of Phoenix, Arizona. The park is located within the municipal boundaries of Peoria, Arizona, and serves as a major recre ...

and serves as a northern bypass around the often congested stretches of US 60 through the northwest suburbs of the

Phoenix metropolitan area The Phoenix metropolitan area, also known as the Valley of the Sun, the Salt River Valley, metro Phoenix, or The Valley, is the largest metropolitan statistical area in the Southwestern United States, with its largest principal city being the c ...

. From end to end, it is long. The Carefree Highway is the inspiration for the 1974

Gordon Lightfoot Gordon Meredith Lightfoot Jr. (November 17, 1938 – May 1, 2023) was a Canadian singer-songwriter who achieved worldwide success and helped define the singer-songwriter era of the 1970s. Widely considered one of Canada's greatest songwriters, ...

song of the same name.

Route description

Stretches of the highway are known as the Morristown-New River Highway, Lake Pleasant Highway, and Carefree Highway, the last of which actually extends past I-17 to Tom Darlington Drive in Carefree. This stretch of Carefree Highway is sometimes numbered as SR 74 on maps, but is not actually part of the state highway system. This route offers good views of undeveloped desert landscapes, especially of large

saguaro The saguaro ( , ; ''Carnegiea gigantea'') is a tree-like cactus species in the monotypic genus ''Carnegiea'' that can grow to be over tall. It is native to the Sonoran Desert in Arizona, the Mexican state of Sonora, and the Whipple Mountains ...

and other desert plants. It is frequently used as an alternate route to

US 60 U.S. Route 60 is a major east–west United States highway, traveling from southwestern Arizona to the Atlantic Ocean coast in Virginia. The highway's eastern terminus is in Virginia Beach, Virginia, where it is known as General Booth Bouleva ...

(Grand Avenue) between Phoenix and Wickenburg for motorists traveling to and from

Las Vegas, Nevada Las Vegas, colloquially referred to as Vegas, is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Nevada and the county seat of Clark County. The Las Vegas Valley metropolitan area is the largest within the greater Mojave Desert, and second-l ...

, with fewer traffic signals than using US 60 directly.

History

From 1927 to 1931, SR 74 was assigned from Wickenburg west to Ehrenberg; this stretch of highway was renumbered as part of U.S. Route 60 (US 60). On December 15, 1961, SR 74 was assigned to a new planned alignment, to be built from New River southwest to Morristown. The leg east of

was originally planned to angle northeast away from its current alignment towards New River. But by 1974, the highway heading eastbound abruptly ended southeast of Lake Pleasant, at Lake Pleasant Road and the Carefree Highway; that same year, Carefree Highway between SR 74 and I-17 was designated SR 74T (Temporary 74). On October 18, 1989, the "Temporary" banner was officially removed from the Carefree Highway leg.

Future

The passage of a sales tax extension by voters in

Maricopa County Maricopa County () is a county in the south-central part of the U.S. state of Arizona. As of the 2020 census the population was 4,420,568, or about 62% of the state's total, making it the fourth-most populous county in the United States and ...

in both 2004 and 2025 provided significant funding for highway improvements throughout the region. The Arizona Department of Transportation (ADOT) will use a portion of that funding to acquire right-of-way along SR 74 for future improvements, but has no plans to upgrade the highway to a controlled access freeway. ADOT is also in the planning stages for a bypass around Wickenburg. This bypass would effectively continue SR 74 beyond its current western terminus with US 60 to connect to the planned alignment of future I-11. Whether this bypass would be marked as SR 74 or not is undetermined. This extension would likely be constructed at/around the same time as I-11.

Major intersections

References

External links