This $17 million project at an intersection on U.S. 14 in Brookings, S.D. by the South Dakota DOT won an American’s Transportation Award for improvements that included developing traffic control and sequencing plans, replacing two bridges over I-29 with one, and reconstructing four ramps. Sidewalks were added to facilitate pedestrian traffic, while new traffic signals help move traffic. PHOTO: AASHTOSix projects from four northeastern states are among those honored in the regional America’s Transportation Awards competition. Here’s just a sampling of the work they accomplished:
- optimizing and expanding transit for inner-city users
- increasing safety on a busy seasonal roadway
- using an innovative bridge replacement so drivers could avoid a 42-mile detour
“State DOTs are committed to making America safer, better and stronger by improving connections between communities both large and small, urban and rural,” says John Schroer, president of the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials and commissioner of the Tennessee Department of Transportation. “The transportation projects in this competition are part of a national multimodal network that is moving millions of people and tons of goods where they need to go every day.”
Sponsored by AASHTO, Socrata, AAA, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the 11th annual America’s Transportation Awards competition recognizes transportation projects in three categories:
Quality of Life and Community Development; Best Use of Technology and Innovation, and Operations Excellence.
Project categories are also differentiated by size—small (projects costing less than $25 million), medium (projects that cost between $25 million and $200 million), and large (projects costing more than $200 million).
The Northeast region winners:
- New Hampshire Department of Transportation‘s NH Route 125 Reconstruction, Contract G (Quality of Life/Community Development, Small category)
- Maryland Department of Transportation‘s Upgrade of MD 404 (Shore Highway) (Quality of Life/Community Development, Medium category)
- Delaware Department of Transportation‘s SR 1/SR 72 Diverging Diamond Interchange (Operations Excellence, Small category)
- Maryland Department of Transportation‘s BaltimoreLink (Operations Excellence, Medium category)
- Pennsylvania Department of Transportation‘s Statewide Demand-Response Transit Scheduling Software Implementation (Best Use of Technology & Innovation, Small category)
- Pennsylvania Department of Transportation‘s Hunter Station Bridge (Best Use of Technology & Innovation, Medium category)
Also, nine projects in the western region received top honors at the WASHTO meeting in Rapid City, South Dakota on June 13. Winners in the remaining two regions will be announced throughout the summer, says an AASHTO spokesman. To read more about those western region awards, click here.
The three highest-scoring projects from each region will be included in the “Top 12” and compete for a grand prize. The top two winners also receive $10,000 cash awards to be donated to a charity or scholarship of the state DOT’s choosing. The winners of the top two awards will be announced Sept. 23 at the AASHTO Annual Meeting in Atlanta.
Learn more about the nominees and the competition at AmericasTransportationAwards.org.
