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From the ADOT Archives: Traffic

From the ADOT Archives: Traffic

August 29, 2014

This photograph from 1973 shows Interstate 17 in Phoenix.

Where were you on March 20, 1973?

If you happened to be driving I-17 near McDowell Road on that date, you might spot yourself in this photo.

Taken just one month after President Richard Nixon was inaugurated for a second term, this picture gives us a good look at how I-17 has changed in the past 41 years…

If you drive that same stretch today, you’ll notice that we have more lanes than we did back then – a couple in each direction. You also will see that we no longer use those “button” pavement reflectors. Instead, ADOT uses reflective striping and pavement markers to create lane lines.

Examining this picture (which does indicate a bit of heavy traffic for those motorists heading north) makes us wonder where the drivers of 1973 got their travel info.

Of course they didn’t have ADOT’s Twitter feed or Facebook page to keep them informed and there wasn’t an az511.gov yet. Those drivers certainly didn’t have the Weekend Freeway Travel Advisory emailed to them each week because email wasn’t really a thing yet.

Here in 2014, we invite you to take advantage of the traffic-avoiding opportunities those 1973 drivers didn’t have. If you’d like to learn a little more about the history of I-17, please revisit this blog post from last year.

It’s safe to say things have changed since 1912 when the Arizona Highway Department was first established. But you don’t just have to take our word … we’ve got plenty of pictures to prove it. We combed through our archives and decided to periodically post these photos from the past in a blog series we’re calling, “From the ADOT Archives.”

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