Arizona’s State Transportation Board has awarded a $106 million construction project to build a free-flowing traffic interchange for I-40 and U.S. 93 in Kingman, Arizona.
The board selected Dickinson, North Dakota-based Fisher Sand & Gravel Co., according to an announcement last week. Construction on this first phase of the project is expected to begin this summer and take two and a half years.
The interchange in West Kingman is designed to reduce congestion on the highly traveled route between Phoenix and Las Vegas while improving safety, travel times and reliability, according to the release. Although vehicles now must stop at a traffic signal where Beale Street intersects with I-40, the system-to-system interchange will feature ramps that allow traffic to flow freely.
Because Arizona DOT does not have the funds to build all the improvements of a full system interchange at one time, the project will be constructed in two phases, according to its website. The Phoenix-to-Las Vegas directional ramps will be constructed first.
Phase II will construct the directional ramps between Las Vegas and California when traffic demands warrant the improvements and when available funding can be programmed, according to Arizona DOT.
The interchange is designed to handle projected traffic growth for the next 25 years, the release said.
Fisher Sand & Gravel is known for its work on U.S.-Mexico border wall projects. During the Trump administration, it received nearly $2 billion in federal contracts for the wall.
In 2022, the company settled a lawsuit brought by the federal government over potential flood risks associated with a 3-mile-long privately funded wall the company built in 2019, according to the Daily Journal.