Vehicles make their way westbound along Ina Road, approaching the intersection at La Cañada Drive last week. As the road-widening project continues, Ina Road, near La Cañada Drive, is limited to one lane in each direction, causing traffic delays throughout the day.

Construction activity has accelerated on La Cañada between Calle Concordia and Ina Road. Work crews have removed vegetation and scraped right-of-way.

La Cañada residents north of Ina Road have been struggling for nine-plus years trying to get Pima County officials to acknowledge and to respond appropriately to their needs.

A call for bids on the long-awaited, much-debated expansion of La Cañada Drive from Ina Road to Calle Concordia was issued Monday by the Pima County Department of Transportation.

As motorists of Northwest Tucson have no doubt noticed, the intersection of La Cholla Boulevard and Magee Road may not be a preferred driving route, as the area has been bombarded with what seems to be an obstacle course of construction.

It wasn’t so many years ago La Cañada was but a dusty, two-lane road leading out of Tucson and into the rural environs of horse country and perhaps a few scattered guest ranches.

Ground was broken Wednesday, Dec. 9 on the La Cañada road improvement project, with elected and appointed officials wearing bright orange hard hats turning dirt with gold-painted shovels in front of large heavy equipment.

Ground is being broken Wednesday morning on the controversial reconstruction of La Cañada Boulevard from Ina Road to Calle Concordia.

In June, the Pima County Department of Transportation estimated the cost to rebuild La Cañada Drive from Ina to Calle Concordia at somewhere between $22.6 million and $24.5 million.

Ron Hilwig, chairman of the citizens advisory committee for the La Cañada improvement project from Calle Concordia to Ina, has angrily resigned his position.

A bid opening on the reconstruction of La Cañada from Calle Concordia to Ina Road has been pushed by Sept. 16 by the Pima County Department of Transportation.

The summer tourism season has arrived in Old Montreal, but the tourists have not.

Beginning on Thursday night at 7 p.m., July 26, 2012 through Friday morning at 6 a.m., the Pima County Department of Transportation and their contractor, Select Development and Construction Inc, will be installing the new precast box culvert across Orange Grove Road just west of La Cañada Road. Due to the installation of the large drainage structure, it is necessary to close the roadway.