ADOT Blog

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?

You’d be amazed by how much there is to learn just by counting cars (yes, cars…not cards!)… Traffic counts are exactly what the name implies – physical counts of the traffic on a particular road – and ADOT takes them at approximately 1,400 locations around Arizona.

I-10 was closed most of the day and night last Wednesday after two tanker trucks collided near Chandler Boulevard south of downtown Phoenix. For hours, many drivers could see the resulting column of black smoke. Even more people saw footage and photos of the collision’s aftermath on the news and online.

Last month, as part of our Building a Freeway series, we told you about the massive underground support substructures that help give bridges strength. Next up in the series is an important -- but temporary -- structure that’s used as crews build a bridge, tunnel or even a box culvert.

Arizona isn’t known for its harsh, winter weather conditions, but that doesn’t mean we don’t see some considerable snowfall during our colder months.

You might say each ADOT road construction project is a sum of its parts

When a new highway operation technician is hired by ADOT, they’ve got one year to complete some basic training …

The ADOT Research Center Library might not carry any best-sellers, but where else are you going to find a title like, “Benefits of high volume fly ash: new concrete mixtures provide financial, environmental and performance gains”?

You know when you drive under or over a freeway bridge that it’s a massive structure… There are the two abutments (the upright supporting structures at each end that carries the load of the bridge span), there are usually center columns or piers, and, of course, the girders and the bridge deck (the part you actually drive across).