Temporary Signal, Widening Planned for Hunt Highway

The Town of Florence and Pinal County are teaming up to address traffic backups along Hunt Highway with a temporary traffic signal and widening the road to five lanes.

Coming first is a temporary traffic signal and left turn lane at Hunt and Arizona Farms Road, along with pavement preservation work. This will be near the northwestern edge of the town limits and ease traffic flow at a three-way intersection now controlled by a single stop sign, county public works spokesman Ray Telles said.

Southbound traffic on Hunt will have a left-turn lane onto Arizona Farms at the signal, along with greatly needed preservation treatments on the highway between Magma Road and Oasis Lane as well as on Arizona Farms Road east to the Union Pacific rail crossing.

Construction at the intersection is scheduled to begin June 4 and be completed by late July. Lane restrictions are planned, but no road closures are anticipated.

Pinal County has been widening segments of the highway within its jurisdiction from two to five lanes, starting from the Ellsworth Road intersection, over the past several years, with the final phase

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San Gabriel while his father worked there as a police officer. He joined the Pasadena department in 1994 and advanced over the course of 28 years, starting out in patrol and advancing by working in every division before being appointed commander in 2020.

He earned a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice, a master’s degree in organizational leadership and is a graduate of the POST Command College and the of the project extending from Magma to Oasis, a nearly 4-mile stretch where traffic regularly slows down at major traffic points.

Design of this project is ongoing, and in March the Town of Florence and the county agreed to extend this widening project for another 1.3 miles to Franklin Road within the town limits, where Florence Hospital is located and Hunt already has been widened into a fourlane divided highway with turn lanes. The rail crossing also will be widened and upgraded, with coordination with Union Pacific beginning in September.

Telles said the county is working to find the funding for the widening project while design continues, with a target design completion date of May 2024.

FBI National Academy.

He has embraced the value of community policing throughout the course of his career and has made local appearances at places like schools and Chamber of Commerce meetings.

“The next iteration of community policing requires law enforcement to make deep connections and to build safer neighborhoods and business districts through collaborative partnerships,”

Goodman said. “That means my door is always open so we can continue building those partnerships.”

Goodman and his wife Victoria have three grown daughters. He succeeds former chief Jim Hughes, who left in September 2022 after becoming chief in January 2021 following the retirement of Steve Stahl from the role.