Take this I-19 exit, and basically you're nowhere
Alaska had the proposed "Bridge to Nowhere," which gained notoriety during former Gov. Sarah Palin's failed vice presidential campaign.
Much less known - but as curious - is Southern Arizona's "Exit to Nowhere," otherwise known as the Papago Road exit on Interstate 19 just south of Tucson.
Located in the middle of the Tohono O'odham Nation's San Xavier District, the freeway exit - essentially a glorified U-turn - was part of the original construction of I-19 when the freeway was built in the late 1960s, according to the Arizona Department of Transportation Web site.
The Papago Road exit was included so the San Xavier District could develop frontage along the freeway, district planner Mark Pugh said.
Arizona Daily Star archives indicate the area included the remnants of a Hohokam village, which had to be partially excavated and removed to allow for road construction.
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The ruins became a focal point of the O'odham's 1997 decision on where to put its second casino. The original plan was to build it around the Papago exit, but an outcry from tribal members led to the casino getting built five miles to the south, at I-19's Pima Mine Road exit, Star archives show.
The Papago exit still can be developed, Pugh said, though he didn't know when - or if - the San Xavier District would get around to it.
Developing the exit would "come with a high cost," he said.
Arizona Department of Transportation spokeswoman Linda Ritter said her agency has no plans to either modify or shut down the exit, which consists of the standard on- and off-ramps, a short road underneath I-19 and barriers to what would be Papago Road if it ever was extended east or west from the freeway.
