Freeway in the desert

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A news account reported how a severely injured teen ultimately got to a Phoenix hospital for treatment, due in part to help from an ADOT employee who wasn’t identified. Today, we’re sharing more about that employee and his role in the rescue amid flooding in Globe.
Where do speed limits come from? How are highways engineered, signed, striped, etc., to maximize safety? To explain these and other aspects of state highways, we're pleased to have State Traffic Engineer Kerry Wilcoxon as this week's On the Road With ADOT guest.
See Adopt a Highway volunteers across Arizona caught in the act on National CleanUp Day 2025.

Popular blog articles

Those of you who have ever taken I-17 north or south through our state probably are pretty familiar with the Cordes Junction traffic interchange. It’s the one that sits right between Flagstaff and Phoenix and serves about 13,000 vehicles a day (that’s in addition to the more than 27,000 vehicles that travel daily on I-17 at the junction of SR 69).
The new year officially is here, but before we dive into 2012 we’re going to take a quick look back. ADOT’s Public Information/Media Relations team came up with a great list of the state’s major transportation accomplishments from 2011 and we thought we’d share it here on the blog!
The improvements to SR 143 are really coming along. In fact, construction now is about 64 percent complete!
Back in July we told you all about truck-mounted attenuators and how vital they are to the safety of ADOT employees and drivers out on the road. But, there’s another type of attenuator that acts on the same principle and does just as much to protect motorists...
Back in the early 2000s ADOT started to hear from drivers who said certain stretches of Valley freeways seemed quieter than others. ADOT and the Maricopa Association of Governments (MAG) noticed a difference, too. It seemed that areas paved with an asphalt rubber friction course (rubberized asphalt), which MAG funded through the Regional Transportation Plan, were less noisy than freeway surfaces with cement concrete pavement.
Accommodating existing traffic is a key priority when ADOT builds a freeway … Depending on the project, that can mean working out a construction schedule that takes rush hours into account or hiring extra crews to flag and direct traffic through the site.
The saying, “a photo speaks 1,000 words” holds true when it comes to data. Because, for most people (we’re not talking about the engineers who are out there reading this!) it’s hard to pull real meaning from just a long list of numbers.
The official start of winter is approaching, but the cold weather is already here! Over the past few weeks, we’ve told you how ADOT prepares for the snowy conditions common this time of year in Arizona’s high country.
Before you can build a freeway, you’ve got to move a little dirt... Make that a LOT of dirt, especially in the case of the Loop 303 project under construction right now in the West Valley.
ADOT’s Long-Range Transportation Plan was formally adopted earlier this month. ADOT planners will now use the Long-Range Transportation Plan as a guide to build a transportation system designed to carry Arizona into the future! But just who is this group – otherwise known as the State Transportation Board – that adopted the plan?