At peak, the joint venture had about 225 workers on-site, working around the clock. “We did 200,000 cubic yards of excavation and roughly 220,000 cubic yards of concrete pavement,” says Mills. “Both teams perform their own concrete paving. We had two concrete batch plants and our own fleets of equipment. If both crews are up and running, we can pave a mile a night.”

With paving, overlays and other final items for the freeway, which serves over 100,000 daily vehicles, it's still a “mad dash” to the finish line, says McCarthy. The job marks another Phoenix freeway feature for the joint venture, which last year finished an adjacent $188-million reconstruction of state Route 202.