Northern Parkway is a

limited-access road A limited-access road, known by various terms worldwide, including limited-access highway, partial controlled-access highway, and expressway, is a highway or arterial road for high-speed traffic which has many or most characteristics of a contro ...

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

that serves the west part 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 ...

. Northern Parkway was first opened in December 2013. Northern Parkway currently ends at the

Agua Fria River The Agua Fria River (Spanish for "cold water") is a long intermittent stream which flows generally south from east-northeast of Prescott in the U.S. state of Arizona. Prescott draws much of its municipal water supply from the upper Agua Fria ...

but is planned to extend to the

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 ...

Route description

Northern Parkway begins at a

trumpet interchange In the field of road transport, an interchange (American English) or a grade-separated junction (British English) is a road junction that uses grade separations to allow for the movement of traffic between two or more roadways or highways, usi ...

with

Loop 303 Arizona State Route 303 (SR 303) or Loop 303, also known as the Bob Stump Memorial Parkway (formerly the Estrella Freeway), is a freeway that serves the west part of the Phoenix metropolitan area. The freeway, originally a two-lane ...

. The

parkway A parkway is a landscaped thoroughfare. The term is particularly used for a roadway in a park or connecting to a park from which trucks and other heavy vehicles are excluded. Over the years, many different types of roads have been labeled p ...

heads east for three miles, passing through interchanges at Sarival Avenue, Reems Road, and Litchfield Road. After passing Litchfield Road, it turns southeast and proceeds along the Northern Avenue corridor. Northern Parkway then passes through the Dysart and El Mirage Roads interchanges where

frontage roads A frontage road (also known as an access road, outer road, service road, feeder road, or parallel road) is a local road running parallel to a higher-speed, limited-access road. Where parallel high-speed roads are provided as part of a majo ...

accompany the parkway for this one-mile segment. East of El Mirage Road, Northern Parkway crosses the

where it temporarily ends. Northern Parkway is planned to replace Northern Avenue heading east from the Agua Fria River to US 60 (Grand Avenue).

History

Plans to build a

along the Northern Avenue corridor date back to 2001 when the City of Glendale found a need for a major east-west corridor between

Loop 101 State Route 101 (SR 101) or Loop 101 is a semi-beltway looping around the Phoenix Metropolitan Area in central Arizona, United States. It connects several suburbs of Phoenix, including Tolleson, Glendale, Peoria, Scottsd ...

and Loop 303. In 2003, the Northern Parkway concept was included in Maricopa Association of Governments (MAG) regional transportation plan (RTP). A year later, residents of

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 ...

voted to extend the regional half-cent

sales tax A sales tax is a tax paid to a governing body for the sales of certain goods and services. Usually laws allow the seller to collect funds for the tax from the consumer at the point of purchase. When a tax on goods or services is paid to a govern ...

for transportation. As part of this initiative, a number of major arterial road projects were funded including Northern Parkway. In 2008, Maricopa County along with the cities of Glendale, El Mirage, and Peoria approved a design concept report for the project. Roughly 70% of the project's funding will come from the federal funds allocated by MAG while the remainder coming from the four local agencies. Over $315 million has been programmed for Northern Parkway from MAG, roughly half of the projected total cost of the whole project at $615 million.

Phases 1–2

Construction on the four-mile segment between Loop 303 and Dysart Road began in March 2012 and was opened in December 2013. Construction of the

overpasses An overpass, called an overbridge or flyover (for a road only) in the United Kingdom and some other Commonwealth countries, is a bridge, road, railway or similar structure that is over another road or railway. An ''overpass'' and ''underpass ...

at Reems and Litchfield Roads began in summer 2014 and was completed in January 2015. With the completion of those interchanges, this four-mile segment was converted to freeway standards. The project stalled from 2015–2019 as Maricopa County saw less growth in this region than expected because of the

Great Recession The Great Recession was a period of market decline in economies around the world that occurred from late 2007 to mid-2009.

. Construction resumed in early 2019 on the segment between Dysart Road and 111th Avenue. It consisted of constructing the frontage roads between Dysart and El Mirage Roads and building a new bridge above the Agua Fria River. This part was complete in August 2020. The second part of this project was to construct overpasses at Dysart and El Mirage Roads as well as build the parkway between those two roads. Construction began in June 2021 and was completed in September 2022.

Future

Phase 3

Phase 3 will be constructed between late 2025 and 2027 and the first part will be to finalize the design for this segment. The first major construction will begin in 2025, consisting of widening the Northern Avenue corridor to three lanes in each direction and adding a median between 111th Avenue and 99th Ave. No

grade-separated In civil engineering (more specifically highway engineering), grade separation is a method of aligning a junction of two or more surface transport axes at different heights ( grades) so that they will not disrupt the traffic flow on other tr ...

interchanges will be built in this segment due to residential communities.

Traffic signals Traffic lights, traffic signals, or stoplights – also known as robots in South Africa, Zambia, and Namibia – are signaling devices positioned at intersection (road), road intersections, pedestrian crossings, and other locations in order t ...

will be placed at the major intersections. Other access points in this segment will be limited to right-in/right-out movements. This is expected to be complete in 2027. The segment between 99th and 91st Avenues will be taken over by the Arizona Department of Transportation (ADOT), as Northern Parkway intersects Loop 101. The roadway will be widened to four lanes in each direction along with a new diverging diamond interchange (DDI) with the Loop 101. Traffic signals will also be reconfigured in this section. Construction of this will be between 2026 and 2027.

Phase 4

The segment between 91st and Grand Avenues will be widened to three lanes in each direction. There will also be no grade-separated interchanges in this segment until Grand Avenue. Traffic signals will be at the major intersections and other access points will also be limited to right-in/right-out movements. A two-way flyover ramp will be constructed at Grand Avenue to move uninterrupted traffic from westbound Northern Parkway to southeast Grand Avenue and vice versa. This will be the final part of the Northern Parkway project, there is currently no timeline for construction of Phase 4, but a scoping assessment was completed in 2020. When complete, Northern Parkway will be in length, stretching from Loop 303 to US 60. Northern Parkway will be an access-controlled freeway for the six-mile segment from Loop 303 through the Agua Fria River. Between the Agua Fria River and US 60, it will be an enhanced arterial street with lights at major intersections, and partial interchanges at freeway junctions.

Major Intersections

References

External links

{{Attached KML, display=title,inline Freeways in the Phoenix metropolitan area Transportation in Maricopa County, Arizona