It's been quite a time since I heard from longtime owner-operator Joey Slaughter, who reached out today about a particular stretch of road he calls "by far the worst I’ve ever seen in my 30-year career" driving trucks.
Namely, that's I-40 in Arizona, particularly I-40 eastbound between Kingman and Flagstaff. How bad is it? Here's just one example of what it looked like from a dash-eye view, as it were, on a rainy day this past March:
Courtesy of Joey Slaughter
That's not so dissimilar to somewhat recently-remedied conditions on I-24 Westbound coming out of Nashville here I saw late last fall, victim of multiple freeze-thaw cycles of the prior winter that plagued the season. Northern Arizona's certainly experienced that this past winter, too, as DOT officials told ABC 15 in Phoenix this past March. Viewer Debra Sherfey put the situation with the road to reporters quite bluntly: "It's just, it's disintegrating. I mean it's ... it's falling apart."
While that report noted a repaving project was planned "along a several-mile stretch of I-40 eastbound, east of Kingman," for 2025, Slaughter felt it was high time California produce haulers and others who use the road plenty regularly make their thoughts known.
More recently than the March report, too, a new project from Arizona DOT has gotten under way in Flagstaff between I-17 and Walnut Canyon Road, and Mohave Valley News in April reported newly planned paving projects ID'd as huge needs in Western Arizona, so perhaps some relief is coming:
[Related: Arizona I-40 pavement work under way]
