Mayor Romero: Tucson's 22nd Bridge project two years away

The postponed project to replace the 22nd street bridge is about two years away, Tucson Mayor Regina Romero said this week.

The “timeline” for the bridge, which was put on hold in November of last year, is now “24 months,” Romero said while giving a senior White House advisor a tour this week of some projects here funding through President Biden’s Investing in America Agenda.

The 22nd Street Bridge project, which was awarded a $25 million federal grant from the U.S. Department of Transportation in 2022 as part of a program from the federal Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.

The project would replace the bridge that arches above the railroad tracks and was delayed due to a persistent levy of community criticism, including a design which had pedestrian and bike paths in the middle of the bridge between separated traffic lanes.

Romero and Tom Perez, senior advisor to Biden and director of the Office of Intergovernmental Affairs, also stopped at the TARP facility, which received $30 million from the EPA to remove PFAS chemicals from Tucson water wells.

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Also included in Perez’s visit was highlighting the work of Tucson’s urban forestry program, the Tucson Million Trees Initiative. In September 2023, the city was awarded a $5 million urban forestry grant as part of a $1 billion federal outpouring of grants to promote the US plant and maintain trees in urban settings.

Their final stop was an electric bus ride to La Mark Park, a federally funded project on Tucson’s south side. Once a “barren lot,” Romero said, it is now being transformed “into a protected city park with tree canopy and rainwater harvesting, shaded seating and a nature play area.”Councilmember Lane Santa Cruz, who represents the area, said neighbors cited the park as a quick quality-of-life improvement.

“And so, what that has proven to us, and I think part of why these investments are so important, in communities and the ways that they show up in the neighborhood, it’s the leveraging of resources,” Santa Cruz said. “And being able to work together, build a relationship that brings about a project like this one. This was one of our first natural desert parks, in Ward 1. Now I’m a big advocate for having more of these in our communities.”

Perez, who visited Tucson on the fourth Investing in America tour, said Romero understands how important this investment is to the community.