Interstate 19

Interstate 19 (I-19) is a north–south Interstate Highway located entirely within the US state of Arizona. I-19 travels from Nogales, roughly 90 meters (300 ft) from the Mexican border, to Tucson, at I-10. The highway also travels through the cities of Rio Rico, Green Valley, and Sahuarita.

Having a total length of just over 102 kilometers (63 mi), I-19 is the ninth-shortest primary (two-digit) Interstate Highway in the contiguous 48 states, where only I-86 (Idaho), I-11 (Nevada), I-2 (Texas), I-42 (North Carolina), I-14 (Texas), I-97 (Maryland), I-87 (North Carolina), and I-42 (Arkansas) are shorter.

While the highway is short, it is a very important corridor, serving as a fast route from Tucson and Phoenix (via I-10) to the Mexican border. The highway is a portion of the US section of the CANAMEX Corridor, a trade corridor that stretches north from Mexico across the US to the Canadian province of British Columbia.

Route description

In Nogales, the southern terminus of I-19 is at West Crawford Street, adjacent to the international port of entry, and southbound travelers can continue into Heroica Nogales, Mexico, via state-maintained surface roads, and connect with Federal Highway 15 (Fed. 15) either to the south or west of Nogales, Sonora.

Starting from the southern terminus at kilometer post 0 (not milepost 0), I-19 initially heads briefly south then west on surface streets, navigating its way through the town of Nogales for 0.32 kilometers (1,000 ft; 0.20 mi) before becoming an Interstate-grade freeway and making the turn to head north toward Tucson. It has interchanges with two other state highways near the southern end of the route, State Route 189 (SR 189) at exit 4 and SR 289 at exit 12.