Infrastructure Week: Throwing back to projects benefiting Greater Arizona

EDITOR'S NOTE: During Infrastructure Week 2019, we're highlighting aspects of construction, improvement and maintenance that are part of Arizona's $22.4 billion investment in state highways. Today's Throwback Thursday post takes you back to some of the many ADOT projects in recent years that have improved the quality of life around Greater Arizona.

By Steve Elliott / ADOT Communications

Here at the ADOT Blog, there's just nothing better than video to illustrate how transportation investments benefit communities around the state. Case in point: the video above from a 2017 project that used an innovative technique to create a bridge in just 96 hours in northwestern Arizona.

So without my words getting in the way, at least too much, let's continue Infrastructure Week 2019 with a Throwback Thursday exploration of some projects completed in recent years around Greater Arizona, as featured in ADOT videos.

It's no secret that we're awfully excited to now have drones, funded by a federal grant, to help tell ADOT's story. That led to this aerial view from February explaining a project improving traffic flow and safety on State Route 347 in Maricopa. The work, finishing later this year, includes creating a bridge carrying traffic over the Union Pacific Railroad tracks.

This September 2018 video used one of our new drones, along with some magic at the production end, to highlight improvements that are part of a project widening several miles of I-10 near Eloy. The work has advanced considerably since this video was made, and the project will be wrapping up later this summer.

Next up is a May 2018 video explaining how ADOT worked closely with businesses in Seligman on a project, now wrapping up, reconstructing the decks of three bridges along one of two routes between the Route 66 community and I-40. In addition to a project timed to affect just one summer, the community will have bridges ready for additional decades of use.

ADOT invests in preserving highways around the state, but sometimes a full rebuild is in order, as was the case with a project that replaced 5 miles of I-40 in each direction just west of Williams. The pavement in this area was stressed from years of freezes and thaws common to highways in Arizona's high country. This 2017 video, made a year before work wrapped up last fall, shows what went into the $34 million project.

Sometimes making an improvement, such as creating a modern State Route 89 bridge at Hell Canyon between Chino Valley and Ash Fork, requires removing what came before. This 2016 video shows the demolition of the previous Hell Canyon Bridge.

Infrastructure and jaw-dropping surroundings make for incredible video, as was the case with a $27 million project, completed in 2016, that rehabilitated Interstate 15's Bridge No. 6 in the Virgin River Gorge of far northwestern Arizona. Do note that another project to upgrade other bridges in that stretch is scheduled to begin after Memorial Day.

It's been several years now, but I'd be remiss to feature videos of improvements in Greater Arizona without showing ADOT's efforts to restore US 89 after a catastrophic landslide south of Page. This 2015 video provides two views of this project.

And these videos are just a start. To see more, please visit and subscribe to ADOT's YouTube channel at youtube.com/ArizonaDOT.