A long-awaited pedestrian bridge in Maricopa should start coming to life soon.

Construction on the bridge that will cross the Union Pacific Railroad tracks onto Maricopa Road is anticipated to begin later this year, according to public records obtained by InMaricopa.

“If we receive favorable bids and are able to move forward with the construction effort, I anticipate construction will start by the end of … 2024,” Maricopa Transportation Engineer Ross Renner wrote in an October email to a UPRR representative.

It’s a timeline the city says is still plausible.

“ADOT is set to bid the project out in the coming months, with construction likely to begin in fall 2024,” said city spokesperson Monica Williams. “This, of course, is subject to change due to a number of factors.”

What is the pedestrian bridge?

The bridge is planned as a part of the city’s Heritage District revitalization project to provide an additional route for pedestrians and bikers.

It’s an idea years in the making. Early designs date back to June 2017, when the city’s planning department presented three possible iterations of the bridge.

However, the current design looks much simpler than initial creative designs.

A screenshot of a preliminary landscape design for the pedestrian bridge west of the John Wayne Parkway overpass. The bridge would span the Union Pacific Railroad tracks onto Maricopa Road. [City of Maricopa]
A screenshot of a preliminary landscape design for the pedestrian bridge west of the John Wayne Parkway overpass. The bridge would span the Union Pacific Railroad tracks onto Maricopa Road. [City of Maricopa]
The 244-foot bridge, designed by Florida-based CONSOR Engineers, is composed of weathered, corrugated metal for a “historic feel,” according to City Manager Rick Horst. Pedestrians and bicyclists can access the bridge via spiral staircases or open-air elevators on each side.

Then-Interim Mayor Vincent Manfredi lauded the project in 2022.

“This is a good pickup for Maricopa, as giving our residents a safe way to cross the tracks and help with walking and biking availability in the area is important,” Manfredi said.

How much will it cost?

The project was estimated to cost around $3.5 million in 2021, but that cost has risen to $5.03 million, according to an agreement the city signed with ADOT in September.

This includes construction and project development costs but could change in the coming months.

“Construction costs will be updated based on the bids received,” Williams said.

Approximately $2.7 million of the project will be covered by a 2022 federal earmark requested by former U.S. Rep. Tom O’Halleran. The funding was among 13 requests for Arizona and was approved by the House Appropriations Committee in July 2022.

Vincent Manfredi is an owner of InMaricopa.

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6 COMMENTS

  4. Another unfortunately typical example of how clueless our city planners are. Just a few glaringly obvious problems with the plans for this bridge that Manfredi and Friends have apparently overlooked, yet can be easily identified with even casual observation by any average citizen such as myself:

    – The entire thing is made out of corrugated metal… how do you plan to keep people from burning themselves just by using it during the summer?

    – This design is of zero benefit to bikers and it’s laughable that you would suggest otherwise. Nobody is going to take their bike up a flight of stairs/elevator, across a bridge, then down another flight of stairs/elevator when it takes literally two seconds to just… ride your bike across the tracks. It would be way less effort for me to wait for a train to pass then just ride across the tracks than to literally carry my bike over this bridge.

    – By opting for this goofy water tower design instead of just using RAMPS (which would ACTUALLY be way better for bikers if that was really your intention), you now are requiring the city to maintain two outdoor elevators. How much is that going to cost every year? Doubt you would need to replace expensive parts on a ramp in ten years like these elevators will cost.

    – Even by the community feedback on your own website here, it’s plainly clear the vast majority do not care about nor intend to ever use this “long-awaited pedestrian bridge”, and makes the whole thing seem like a misallocation of funds.

  5. How about give the people in Tortosa Rancho Mirage and Sorrento a safe sidewalk and bike lanes to get to and from their homes, if they don’t have a vehicle to get to work or the store on the other side of town? Why not build a bridge on Hartman south of Honeycutt so the new Condos being built can enter and exit somewhere else other than filtering to Honeycutt at the roundabout?