Big road-building equipment has been a common sight along a busy section of Thornydale Road where many businesses are located. Officials expect the road-widening work to be finished by January.

Jim Davis / Arizona Daily Star

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At first glance, it might look like road construction has become a new cottage industry for the town of Marana.

Major road projects in three sections of town have caused — or are about to cause — headaches for drivers trying to get to and from work and home.

Though they acknowledge that the improvements are annoying, town officials say the work is necessary for Marana to better accommodate increased traffic. The projects affect North Silverbell and North Thornydale roads, and the extension of West Tangerine Farms Road.

"There will be some inconveniences; there's no way around it," Mayor Ed Honea told residents who attended an open house last week on the widening and realignment of a stretch of Silverbell. "But it's a means to a better end."

The three projects will cost a total of $62 million for 5.6 miles of new or widened roads.

Silverbell Road

Work was scheduled to begin today to widen Silverbell from two to five lanes between North Cortaro and West Ina roads.

The $16 million project, which also involves installation of a new sewer line under the road and realignment of some tight curves in the road, requires Silverbell to be completely closed to traffic between Ina and North Bradstreet Drive until Nov. 1.

Assistant Public Works Director Ryan Benavides said the decision to shut Silverbell down will save on both time and money, allowing construction crews to work freely without having to also manage traffic going through the construction zone.

"This will save us at least half a year," Benavides said. "And the additional traffic control measures needed (to keep the road open) would have driven up the price."

To accommodate the shutdown, detours have been set up for drivers who use Silverbell as a through street.

Drivers approaching the closed portion of Silverbell from the north can turn left onto Cortaro and take the eastbound Interstate 10 frontage road down to Ina, or turn right on Cortaro and turn onto Ina where it connects with Cortaro about a mile to the west.

Those coming from the south will need to either turn right onto Ina and take the westbound I-10 frontage road up to Cortaro or turn left on Ina and then turn right onto Cortaro to get back to Silverbell.

Anne Marie Peters, who lives in the Sunflower age-restricted neighborhood in Continental Ranch, said she regularly uses Silverbell to go to central Tucson. Though she knows the detour will add some time to her drive, she said she understands the need for Silverbell to be closed for a while.

"I think it's kind of like what they're doing on the freeway," Peters said. "At first, I thought it was kind of excessive to shut down all the exits, but that seems to make it (the widening) go faster."

Project Manager Tom Houle said that when the rebuilt stretch of Silverbell opens in November, drivers will notice a much smoother road that no longer will need to be shut down when it rains.

"We'd had to close it during the monsoons all the time," Houle said.

Houle said seven major box culverts are being built under the road to handle heavy flow from three washes that feed into the Santa Cruz River to the east. The culverts will cause Silverbell to be raised an average of 3 feet from its current height.

The project's scope also includes handling all the civil work associated with the Silverbell-Cortaro District Park, which is planned for much of the land between Silverbell and the Santa Cruz River.

Parks and Recreation Director Tom Ellis said the road crews also will build the parking lot for the park, which will have a total of five lighted ball fields, two of them for soccer.

Ellis expects Silverbell-Cortaro District Park to open in June 2009.

Tangerine Farms Road

The new 3.8-mile road linking some of Marana's largest new residential communities with I-10 is almost ready to open, with town officials scheduling June 25 for the grand opening of Tangerine Farms from West Moore Road to I-10.

But before the $29.7 million project can truly be complete, work must be done to reconfigure the area where Tangerine Farms will connect with the freeway and the eastbound I-10 frontage road.

As a result, drivers getting off I-10 at West Tangerine Road and those wanting to get onto I-10 from that interchange will face about two months' worth of lane restrictions or road closures.

"The frontage road is going to be rerouted," said Morris Reyna, Marana Construction Division manager. "This will serve as a permanent detour until the frontage road eventually becomes one-way."

When the work is finished, drivers using the eastbound I-10 frontage road will have to turn onto a pair of temporary roads — known as Street A and Street B — that will take them across Tangerine Farms and back onto the frontage road.

Work began Monday on the first phase of this work. Reyna said the first three weeks of activity won't have much impact on drivers using the Tangerine interchange at Interstate 10.

But tentatively starting on June 2, access on and off I-10 from the west side of the freeway will be closed while Tangerine Farms is extended to the eastbound I-10 on- and off-ramps. Traffic lights also will be installed during this time on both sides of I-10 at Tangerine, eliminating the continual-through access that drivers on Tangerine currently have when approaching I-10.

Marana Public Works Director Barbara Johnson said the last batch of work couldn't be done until the Arizona Department of Transportation signed off on Marana's requests to reconfigure the area.

Johnson also said Tangerine Farms — which will have two lanes in each direction — could have opened as early as the third week of March, but then it would have needed to be shut down periodically to allow for application of rubberized asphalt that can be put down only when temperatures remain above 60 degrees.

"We expect this road is going to get a lot of usage, so if we'd opened it up and then all of a sudden closed it again, that wouldn't have been good," Johnson said. "We want it to be exactly right when it's open."

Waiting two more months is worth it for Brian and Nikki Hatley, who live in the Gladden Farms master-planned community through which Tangerine Farms runs.

Both work in Tucson and currently take Moore Road to the eastbound frontage road to get onto I-10 and head into the city.

"We definitely think it's going to save us a lot of time," Nikki Hatley said.

Thornydale Road

Work continues on Thornydale to widen it to three lanes in each direction between West Orange Grove Road and the Cañada del Oro Wash.

The $16.3 million project began in January and is expected to be completed in January 2009.

Johnson said paving is about to begin on the new northbound lanes, with the construction schedule calling for traffic to be shifted onto those lanes around the second week of June.

Once the traffic is shifted over, allowing the new southbound lanes to be built, access from four feeder streets on the east side of Thornydale will be reopened.

"I think Thornydale is working extremely well," Johnson said. "We've worked hard to do a lot of outreach to the neighbors, the businesses and residents."