Two projects in Connecticut and Delaware took home the top honors at the 2025 America’s Transportation Awards competition, hosted by the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials.
The Grand Prize went to the Connecticut Department of Transportation’s Fairfield Avenue Bridge project, an emergency reconstruction job following a tanker-truck crash underneath the Interstate 95 overpass near Norwalk on May 2, 2024.
The 8,500-gallon tanker generated a two-hour fire that destroyed the two-span bridge. Swift action by CTDOT had northbound travel on I-95 open by the night of May 4 and southbound travel open by May 5.
The bridge was replaced in a record seven months by Yonkers Contracting Company with a total price tag of $17 million, which was $3 million under budget.
People's Choice Award
The Delaware DOT won the People’s Choice Award with its $40 million Catherine Street Widening Project, which extended a two-mile corridor to boost capacity and safety. Crews from the main contractor A-Del Construction Company also added transit, pedestrian and bicycle facilities.
This section of Catherine Street (also known as State Route 299 and Main Street) connects US 301 with Delaware State Route 1/US 13. The upgrades, which were designed over nearly 10 years, not only addressed future traffic models but also improved multimodal connections to essential services and key destinations.
Both projects first advanced through four regional contests before winning the national awards. The Grand Prize was awarded by an independent panel of industry judges, while the People’s Choice Award winner was determined though public online voting. Both awards are accompanied by a $10,000 cash award for a charity or transportation-related scholarship chosen by the winners.
Projects are judged using a points system that considers a project’s safety, quality of life/community development, best use of technology and innovation, and operations excellence.
The Finalists
The two winning projects were picked from 12 finalists, beating out the following projects:
- Florida Department of Transportation’s I-95 Express Phase 3
- Kansas Department of Transportation’s Safer Roads Ahead with the Kansas Vulnerable Road Users Safety Assessment Tool
- Kentucky Transportation Cabinet’s Right-sizing, Roundabouts, and Revitalization: Ashland’s Winchester Avenue Streetscape Improvements
- Idaho Transportation Department’s Robotics On Clearwater Bridge
- Illinois Department of Transportation’s Connecting Springfield – Jefferson and Madison Street Underpasses
- Missouri Department of Transportation’s Focus on Bridges
- New Jersey Department of Transportation’s Maintenance Dredging and Channel Improvements
- North Carolina Department of Transportation’s Complete 540, Phase 1
- North Dakota Department of Transportation’s Wrong Way Detection Project
- Utah Department of Transportation’s Provo 300 South Improved Project
Now in its 18th year, the 2025 awards program received 113 project nominations from 35 states.
