Rock slides and construction on AZ 89A between Flagstaff and Sedona

[Occidental Tourist]

It took an hour-and-a half today to make the normally 40 minute trip between Sedona and Flagstaff.

Rock slides just north of Sedona had 89A down to one lane with a flagman for about 100 yards.  The big delay was further north, where a road widening project had several one lane detour segments with flagmen, some extending for miles.  Further, some of the detour travel is on gravel or bare dirt.

Take AZ 179 to I-17.

[Max Rockatansky]

Its actually pretty common for slides to be in Oak Creek Canyon on 89A.  I'm surprised there is that level of construction is going on after the entire canyon was repaved a couple years back.  Really there just plain isn't much that can be done to improve 89A given the geography.  Beautiful roadway, but there is no way you are going fast....oh, and there is nanny speed limits on the hairpins descending Oak Creek Canyon.

[Occidental Tourist]

The widening is from Oak Creek Vista to I-17.  Given that you can't widen the highway going down into Oak Creek or along the creek, I'm not sure what they're hoping to achieve widening it north of there.

Also, weirdly they demo'd a lot of the existing road rather than grade around it and lay new asphalt for use as temporary travel lanes while the old asphalt was demo'd and relaid. Hence, in some sections they pulled everything up and have traffic driving over bare dirt.

[Max Rockatansky]

Above the Oak Creek vista to north to I-17 was in pretty rough shape last year, that doesn't exactly surprise me....nor the extreme work zone.  When the actual descent and roadway in Oak Creek Canyon was repaved a couple years ago, ADOT just shut the road down completely which prevented access between Flagstaff and Sedona completely on 89A.  I want to say that when 89A was repaved between Jerome and Prescott Valley that a similar measure was also taken...but that was further back in time.   For whatever reason ADOT tends to treat 89A as though it was some sort of Death Road or needs to be with extreme care.  Now the dirt thing is surprises me given that kind of extreme level is usually only reserved for really rural state highway which 89A really isn't