It is 2.8 miles from the intersection of Palisades and Saguaro to Saguaro and Shea. Both directions would be five lanes (2.5 inclusive of shoulder both sides). That would be 14 lane miles or 73,920 lineal feet. A lane is 10 feet wide (plus or minus) or a total of 739,200 square feet.

From Bob Burns’ news article dated Jan. 11, Fountain Hills has 390 lane miles. Equal to 3.5 million square yards or 31.5 million square feet. I believe the $150,000,000 to do all 390 lane miles is overstated and incorrect.

But using his dollar amount that works out to $4.76 per square foot.

The method of replacement is such that most of the old asphalt roadway is re-processed on site (dug up, ground up, heated, reused, with news asphalt added and then repaved). So what one is paying for is mostly the heavy equipment, labor and some added asphalt. Remember all the tonnage of your old roadway has been paid for previously.

As a target I would pay no more than one half the $4.76 and even less because of the overstatement aforesaid.

At $2.38 per square foot the 14 lane miles I delineated above would cost no more than $1,759,296. On RFQs, if no successful bids received, hold the capital in abeyance, for use on roads only.

A small (roughly 3.5 percent of estimated 390 lane miles) and a critically damaged roadway, heavily used by voting citizenry, should be extent of first task. Upon completion of that, the voting citizens could then see success, and vote for more bonds for roads as time goes on.

This is a bond issue I would vote for without hesitation.

“Sharper pencils,” let’s hear from you. If my cost per square foot is “closer to truth,” the 100/3.5 ($1,759,296) = $50,265,598 would be all to complete 390 lane miles, and this over perhaps 10 years.