'Downtown Mile Project': Flagstaff gets $32M for transportation, flood control
FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. - Flagstaff is getting $32 million to help improve downtown transportation and to help with flood control.
"This is huge for public safety, huge for national commerce, and huge for the community that traditionally gets hit by flooding," Flagstaff Mayor Paul Deasy said. "These have been projects that we've been looking at for, honestly, 25 years to protect our city from flooding. In fact, 20% of our flooding, including downtown Southside, are 20% of our community, including downtown and Southside and North IU, will be assisted greatly from the flooding threats that we face every single year."
Congressman Tom O'Halleran made the announcement this week. This "Downtown Mile Project" funding comes from the Arizona Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. According to O'Halleran, this project "is an initiative that will improve public safety and transportation in such a beautiful rapidly growing city in our district, addressing flood control issues and climate change mitigation in the process."
It'll include adding pedestrian underpasses at Rio de flag and Milton Road, along with pedestrian gates at Beaver and San Francisco Streets. There will also be a BNSF railway track realignment.
"Will help prevent flooding on the railroad and as we are the connection between L.A. and Chicago for Commerce coming from Asia, this is a huge win not just for us, but the country several realms," said Deasy.
Mayor Deasy says over the past several years, flooding in the downtown area has just kept getting worse, and he's eager to get started on this project.
"The last two years [we] had to declare five states of emergency due to the post-wildfire flooding issues in our community," Deasy said. "The Pipeline Fire that hit us this June, and we've been dealing with some flooding efforts actually feeds into this region of the project for the downtown."