Construction crews have taken over a section of the Pantano Wash along Kolb road in the last few months and you may have asked yourself what's going on.
It's part of a $12.3 million project to connect Sabino Canyon Road and Kolb by building a bridge across the Pantano Wash. The goal is to ease congestion at the Grant and Tanque Verde intersection.
According to the project manager Joe Chase, the Grant and Tanque Verde intersection is the second most congested intersection in the county. It also has the highest CO2 admissions.
Patricia Zarin opened her store Classy Sweets about a year and a half ago along Tanque Verde Road northeast of Grant. While she says a lot of her business comes from drivers seeing her along Tanque Verde, she also sees how bad traffic can get.
"People go way too fast, way too fast," she said. "And they're always jamming on the brakes and I'm talking there's usually an ambulance here once a week."
Some drivers say they just avoid the area all together.
"I live farther east, what I do is I catch Pantano and hit south from there just to avoid all the traffic here," said Robert Baker.
The project is part of a $2.1 billion plan by the Regional Transportation Authority approved by voters in 2006. The project is expected to be finished by February of 2017.
During construction, people using east side portion of The Loop will be re-routed to the west side.
