Scottsdale Road Roundabout Cancelled
Carefree Highway Project Endangered
On April 8, the Scottsdale Town Council approved a motion to direct the City Manager to take steps to redesign the intersection at Scottsdale Road and Dynamite Boulevard from a roundabout to a signalized intersection.
This project was originally approved by the previous Scottsdale City Council, and because construction is now underway this change of direction will require some work to be reversed and redone, will add significant additional costs, and risks pushing the completion back from this year to 2026. The new direction will also result in the forfeiture of a $31 million Federal Highway Administration grant.
According to the City Council report, a second planning period will now be undertaken, after which the project will proceed with revised cost and timing. The current contractor will be retained and to the extent possible is expected to continue working while the revised plan is developed. To fill the gap created by the grant forfeiture, regional funds will be transferred from other projects, including the Carefree Highway improvement bordering Carefree.
The Council’s intent is to convert Carefree Highway to a “federal project” by replacing its current funding with a federal grant. An undefined cost increase will be caused by some redesign to meet federal requirements. Project delay is also likely as Scottsdale will not initiate the request to transfer federal funding to Carefree Highway until fiscal 2026. Working with the Maricopa Association of Governments (MAG) and the Arizona Department of Transportation (ADOT), the city has reported that it cannot guarantee this plan will prove possible. Since no back-up plan for Carefree Highway has yet been identified, it is therefore not immediately obvious when or even if the Carefree Highway project will proceed.
AZ Central (subscription required) reports the April 8 Scottsdale / Dynamite action as a conflict between transportation safety and local public opinion. Scottsdale’s Transportation Director Mark Melnychenko had informed the Council that the American Association of State Highway Transportation Officials (AASHTO) and the Insurance Institute of Safety (IIHS) report a 90% reduction in fatal crashes and a 75% reduction in injury crashes as well as a 30-50% increase in traffic capacity with the installation of modern roundabouts on arterial streets. Scottsdale reports that its own data from new roundabouts installed over the past decade is consistent with these safety projections. Council members supporting the change motion said that neighborhood residents opposed the roundabout, and that a signalized intersection would still improve safety. Mayor Borowski reported that 2/3 of emails from residents were in favor of keeping the roundabout, and 2/3 of the resident speakers on this topic during the Council meeting were also opposed to the motion to replace the roundabout with a signalized intersection. Councilwoman Whitehead pointed out that the previously approved project was projected to improve “level of service” for the intersection from an ‘F’ rating to an ‘A’ rating, but replacing the roundabout with a redesigned traffic signal would improve the intersection only from an ‘F’ to a ‘D’ rating. Documentation provided to the Council by staff also showed that a redesigned signalized intersection could not match the safety improvement associated with the roundabout.
The vote to eliminate the roundabout passed by a 4-3 vote. As currently authorized, the new signalized intersection plan will add cost and risk delay to the Scottsdale Jomax to Dixileta corridor project, will add costs, delay and uncertainty to the Carefree Highway project, and will result in the cancellation of the Hayden to Loop 101 project, whose funds will also now be allocated to the Scottsdale corridor project. The planned roundabout at Raintree and Northsight, another Scottsdale safety initiative, is therefore cancelled as well.
Carefree Unity 4/14/2025
Carefree Unity 