Think of all the development and desert parking lots that can be built along the way.

Expect to hear this soon. Americans see magnficent natural beauty, republicans see an opportunity to sell it off, piss off Americans, and make a buck for their billionaire BFFs.

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Filling the canyon has to start somewhere.

the grand canyon for profit

Or is it planned further downstream, by that transparent skywalk thing?

Would this be more, or less, obnoxious than the stream of tourist helicopters?

https://www.nps.gov/grca/learn/management/upload/GCNP_DEIS_Cover_through_Chapter_3.pdf

and bill it to Mexico, of course

Need a jobs program, think big.

a canyon is a canyon, how much more do you need to look at?"

There's a reason there aren't many roads through the Arizona Strip and west of the Navajo Nation. There are no desire paths existing because there's no reason for one. The geography just can't support it. 89 is about the best route, it's 4 lane divided for most of its route, but it's got a lot of areas where it's penned in. (Also, 89 is perfectly fine.) There's really no good place to join 15 and 40 except where they do meet up, because there's these giant deep holes and plateaus, and there's no need. Inside the Nation, the Nation gets to decide what roads they need, and they've made pretty good decisions given their needs and resources.

To an extent, better roads into the strip would be a sociological good -- a big reason the FLDS grew into such an abusive cult is because they were geographically isolated from their legal jurisdiction, and the law enforcement that was closer was out of jurisdiction. (For those who don't know the region: Colorado City is where 389 crosses the Utah border, about half-way between Fredonia and St George. Mohave County has jurisdiction, but they're based in Kingman, on the other side of the canyon. Getting to Colorado City is just difficult, calling for backup takes hours, and sometimes one just can't get there from here.) However, the easier solution would be for both states to cooperate, and declare that section a dual administration zone.

But the UEP is being broken, and the two states are doing a much better job of administering the breakup and handling the legal issues this time than they did in the 1950s. So even that flabby argument isn't really worth following.

That idea has been coming up since I was a kid -- one of my parents was an ADOT engineer, the other managed construction projects. My engineer parent is one of the most arrogant, over-confident, too clever by half asshats out there (though to be fair, he builds really good roads and runways) but even he looked at the geology, the geography, and even blue-sky wild overestimates of funding and concluded it's pointless.

Personally... 191 is a much superior, absolutely gorgeous route if one really must transfer from 70 to 40 and wants to skip I25 or I15, 89 is also perfectly lovely, and any trip in that region should be treated as "enjoy the journey" rather than "get this over with." It's the most beautiful high desert landscape in North America.