Arizona route 303 interchange with I-10 in Goodyear

Arizona State Route 303 (SR 303) or Loop 303, also known as the Bob Stump Memorial Parkway (formerly the Estrella Freeway), is a

freeway A controlled-access highway is a type of highway that has been designed for high-speed vehicular traffic, with all traffic flow—ingress and egress—regulated. Common English terms are freeway, motorway and expressway. Other similar terms ...

that serves the west part of the

Phoenix metropolitan area The Phoenix Metropolitan Area – also the Valley of the Sun, the Salt River Valley, or Metro Phoenix (known by most locals simply as “the Valley”) – is the largest metropolitan area in the Southwestern United States, centered on the city ...

. The freeway, originally a two-lane rural highway, was maintained by

Maricopa County Maricopa County is in the south-central part of the U.S. state of Arizona. As of the 2020 census, the population was 4,420,568, making it the state's most populous county, and the fourth-most populous in the United States. It contains about ...

until 2004 when the

Arizona Department of Transportation The Arizona Department of Transportation (ADOT, pronounced "A-Dot") is an Arizona state government agency charged with facilitating mobility within the state. In addition to managing the state's highway system, the agency is also involved with p ...

again took control of upgrading the interim road to a freeway.

Route description

Loop 303 currently begins at Van Buren Street, one mile south of

I-10 Interstate 10 (I-10) is the southernmost cross-country highway in the American Interstate Highway System. I-10 is the fourth-longest Interstate in the United States at , following I-90, I-80, and I-40. This freeway is part of the originally p ...

in Goodyear. It becomes a six-lane freeway with a

stack interchange A directional interchange, colloquially known as a stack interchange, is a type of grade-separated junction between two controlled-access highways that allows for free-flowing movement to and from all directions of traffic. These interchanges e ...

at I-10. South of Van Buren Street it continues as Cotton Lane but without a route number. The freeway heads north under McDowell and Thomas Roads, then over an interchange with

Indian School Road Many arterial roads in the Phoenix metropolitan area have the same name in multiple cities or towns. Some roads change names or route numbers across town borders, resulting in occasional confusion. For example, the road known as Apache Boulevard ...

. It then proceeds through a farmland terrain and passes by the

Wildlife World Zoo Wildlife World Zoo & Aquarium is a zoo and aquarium in Litchfield Park, Arizona, United States, near Phoenix. The zoo specializes in African and South American animals, and has Arizona's largest collection of exotic animals. It has a "safari tr ...

near the Northern Parkway

trumpet interchange In the field of road transport, an interchange (American English) or a grade-separated junction (British English) is a road junction that uses grade separations to allow for the movement of traffic between two or more roadways or highways, usi ...

. After passing Northern Parkway, the freeway continues for a few miles before entering a residential community at Greenway Road and turning northeast. It passes above Grand Avenue (US 60) and a

BNSF BNSF Railway is one of the largest freight railroads in North America. One of seven North American Class I railroads, BNSF has 35,000 employees, of track in 28 states, and nearly 8,000 locomotives. It has three transcontinental routes that ...

railraod line at a

parclo interchange A partial cloverleaf interchange or parclo is a modification of a cloverleaf interchange. The design has been well received, and has since become one of the most popular freeway-to- arterial interchange designs in North America. It has also be ...

. The freeway turns eastward north of Sun City West before turning north again at the Happy Valley Parkway interchange. It turns east again south of Lake Pleasant at the Agua Fria River. Following the Lake Pleasant Parkway interchange, the freeway condenses down to four lanes and passes through planned

arterial An artery (plural arteries) () is a blood vessel in humans and most animals that takes blood away from the heart to one or more parts of the body (tissues, lungs, brain etc.). Most arteries carry oxygenated blood; the two exceptions are the pu ...

interchanges. The freeway comes to an end at a temporary at-grade interchange (eventually to be a freeway-to-freeway interchange) with I-17 near Skunk Creek. East of this interchange, Loop 303 becomes Sonoran Desert Drive. The southern portion between US 60 to I-10 is used to bypass Grand Avenue, and the whole route is used to bypass the

Phoenix Metropolitan Area The Phoenix Metropolitan Area – also the Valley of the Sun, the Salt River Valley, or Metro Phoenix (known by most locals simply as “the Valley”) – is the largest metropolitan area in the Southwestern United States, centered on the city ...

History

1985–1995

Loop 303 was originally a part of the 1985

Regional Transportation Plan that was funded by a sales tax approved by Maricopa County voters. The

, designed to serve the Northwest Valley, was originally designated SR 517 in 1985; the Loop 303 designation was first assigned on December 18, 1987. The interim two-lane

highway A highway is any public or private road or other public way on land. It is used for major roads, but also includes other public roads and public tracks. In some areas of the United States, it is used as an equivalent term to controlled-access ...

was completed between US 60 and I-10 in 1991, marking the first road along the Loop 303 corridor. The freeway was scheduled to be completed sometime by 2005. However, funding shortfalls and increasing construction costs forced cutbacks in the plan, and in 1995 the freeway was dropped from the regional plans.

1995–2004

Maricopa County took charge of SR 303 when it was dropped from the regional freeway plans in 1995, maintaining the interim two-lane highway along the original corridor while keeping the

state route A state highway, state road, or state route (and the equivalent provincial highway, provincial road, or provincial route) is usually a road that is either ''numbered'' or ''maintained'' by a sub-national state or province. A road numbered by a ...

designation. The county then made significant improvements to the highway, extending it from US 60 to Happy Valley Parkway in 2004 as a four-lane divided

parkway A parkway is a landscaped thoroughfare.''"parkway."''Webster's Third New International Dictionary, Unabridged. Merriam-Webster, 2002. http://unabridged.merriam-webster.com (14 Apr. 2007). The term is particularly used for a roadway in a park or ...

. SR 303 was still largely a two-lane

rural In general, a rural area or a countryside is a geographic area that is located outside towns and cities. Typical rural areas have a low population density and small settlements. Agricultural areas and areas with forestry typically are de ...

road and the only sections as a four-lane divided parkway was the extension north of US 60, and the southern terminus just north of I-10 between Indian School and McDowell Roads. The segment between US 60 and

Bell Road Bell Road is a major east-west arterial road in the northern Phoenix, Arizona metropolitan area. It is one of the few roadways to cross the Agua Fria River in the northwestern part of the metro area, providing a vital link between the growing sub ...

in Surprise was partially upgraded to freeway standards in 2004 with

overpass An overpass (called an overbridge or flyover in the United Kingdom and some other Commonwealth countries) is a bridge, road, railway or similar structure that crosses over another road or railway. An ''overpass'' and '' underpass'' together for ...

es at Clearview Boulevard and Mountain View Boulevard. An interim interchange and bridge above US 60 were also built at the same time. In May 2004, SR 303 was renamed the "Bob Stump Memorial Parkway" in honor of former Arizona

congressman A Member of Congress (MOC) is a person who has been appointed or elected and inducted into an official body called a congress, typically to represent a particular constituency in a legislature. The term member of parliament (MP) is an equivalen ...

Bob Stump.

2004–2011

With the extension of the

sales tax A sales tax is a tax paid to a governing body for the sales of certain goods and services. Usually laws allow the seller to collect funds for the tax from the consumer at the point of purchase. When a tax on goods or services is paid to a gove ...

approved in 2004, SR 303 was taken back over by the Arizona Department of Transportation (ADOT) and added back to the regional transportation plan. As Maricopa County had completed much of the required study and preparation work, construction on the freeway proceeded with a planned completion date of the I-10 to I-17 segment by 2015. According to an agreement between the state legislature and ADOT, Statewide Transportation Acceleration Needs (STAN) funds were used to build a partial interchange at Bell Road in summer 2010, several years before previously intended. Funds from this were also used to upgrade the crossings at Waddell and Cactus Roads to make way for the new freeway. In 2009, construction began on the 14-mile segment between Happy Valley Parkway and I-17. In May 2011, this segment opened as a four-lane freeway with interchanges at Happy Valley Parkway, Lone Mountain Parkway (not opened until 2012), and Lake Pleasant Parkway. Motorists still have to pass through signaled ramp junctions at I-17 until a full freeway-to-freeway interchange is built.

2011–present

Beginning in mid-2011, ADOT began upgrading Loop 303 between US 60 and I-10 from a two-lane highway to a six-lane freeway with

auxiliary lane In road transport, a lane is part of a roadway that is designated to be used by a single line of vehicles to control and guide drivers and reduce traffic conflicts. Most public roads (highways) have at least two lanes, one for traffic in each ...

s and interchanges. In August 2011, construction began on the six-mile segment between Mountain View Boulevard and Peoria Avenue. This segment was completed in fall 2013 with interchanges at Bell, Greenway, Waddell, and Cactus Roads as well as Peoria Avenue. In November 2011, construction began on the north half of the I-10 and Loop 303 stack interchange. Construction was completed in August 2014 with the opening of all of the north half ramps. The McDowell Road bridge was also completed during this time. In May 2012, construction began on the seven-mile segment between Peoria Avenue and Thomas Road. This segment was fully completed in August 2014 with a trumpet interchange at Northern Parkway (opened in late 2013) along with other interchanges at every arterial road except Olive Avenue. In August 2014, construction began on the seven-mile segment between US 60 and Happy Valley Parkway to upgrade it to freeway standards. The first part was to upgrade the roadway to three lanes in each direction; it was complete in summer 2015. The second part was to construct a parclo interchange at the US 60. This part began in December 2014 and was complete in spring 2016. The final part was to construct the El Mirage interchange. This began in February 2015 and was complete in summer 2016. This marked the first time the entire Loop 303 between I-10 and I-17 was fully upgraded to freeway standards. In February 2016, construction began on the south half of the I-10 and Loop 303 stack interchange. Construction was complete in October 2017 with the opening of all of the south half ramps along with the Van Buran Street interchange. In December 2020, construction began to widen the six-mile segment between Happy Valley Parkway and Lake Pleasant Parkway from two to three lanes in each direction. It was completed with the opening of the Jomax Parkway exit in Peoria in January 2022. In October 2022, construction began to build the interchanges at 51st Avenue and 43rd Avenue. Construction is expected to be completed in late 2023.

Future

A new segment of Loop 303 is planned to begin construction in 2024. It is the 2.5-mile segment south of Van Buren Street to Elwood Street along the Cotton Lane alignment. It will consist of building three lanes in each direction along with interchanges at Yuma Road and Elwood Street. There will be frontage roads along this entire segment to provide access to local communities. Bridges will be built over Lilac Street/Canyon Trails Boulevard and Lower Buckeye Road, and access will be via the frontage roads. Loop 303 is planned to continue south of Elwood Street and connect to the future SR 30 in Goodyear. Construction of that segment will be around the same time as that portion of SR 30, and the timeline is currently unknown. A full freeway-to-freeway interchange will be built at the Loop 303 and I-17. The goal is for construction to begin sometime in 2028. Loop 303 has been built to accommodate four-general purpose lanes, one HOV lane, and one auxiliary lane in order to expand in the future. Long-term plans include the Loop 303 to continue south of SR 30 to the future I-11 Hassayampa Freeway. Most of this extension would be in Goodyear and would be built around the same time as that portion of I-11.

Exit list

Exit numbering is arbitrary.

References

External links

* {{Authority control

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Transportation in Maricopa County, Arizona