When ADOT builds a road, the work gets started years (sometimes decades) ahead of any real construction … It all begins with the planning phase, which includes everything from determining where a new roadway is most needed to taking a look at available funding.

When ADOT has a freeway to build, many steps must be taken long before any asphalt is paved. One of those initial tasks involves pre-wetting the soil, which entails pretty much exactly what you think it does … crews put sprinkler systems into place and water the dirt!

As ADOT employees, we naturally get a lot of transportation-related questions thrown our way by friends and family... it’s just something that comes with the job! But, another question we regularly get focuses on the rock landscaping surrounding our Valley freeways. People want to know why we don’t just use trees and shrubs instead of rock. Others wonder why we landscape the area at all.

What are your thoughts on the possibility of a new transportation connection between Phoenix and Tucson? If you travel between these two major metropolitan areas, the Arizona Department of Transportation wants to hear from you!

Several miles of new HOV lanes opened earlier this week in Chandler and the West Valley … just in time for the Monday morning commute!

Construction got started earlier this fall on a project that’s designed to bring some big improvements for a stretch of Interstate-10 in the Tucson area. The I-10 widening project from Ruthrauff Road to Prince Road will not only expand the freeway to four lanes in each direction, but will also reconstruct the Prince Road traffic interchange so the road will pass over the Union Pacific Railroad tracks and I-10. New landscaping and entrance and exit ramp improvements are also part of the plan.

Earlier we told you about the new intercity rail study that’s going to help ADOT examine the possibility of a new transportation link between Phoenix and Tucson. (By the way, there’s still plenty of time to comment and we hope you will!) But, today, we really want to focus on why ADOT conducts studies like this one.

They're typically headed to one of the country’s biggest tourist destinations -- the Grand Canyon. One of the main routes to the popular south entrance happens to be State Route 64, which takes motorists right through the middle of Tusayan (pop. 560). The small town gets a lot of pedestrian and vehicle traffic and understandably there have been some concern related to all the activity on SR 64.

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).

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”?

If you haven't yet heard, last Friday night WSDOT closed the Alaskan Way viaduct -- one of the two main north-south freeways through downtown Seattle -- for demolition and ultimate replacement with a waterfront tunnel.

Arizona drivers now have even more designs to consider… four new specialty plates (Arizona Centennial, Boy Scouts of Arizona, Hunger Relief and Channel 8 PBS) are available starting today!

We started this blog back in April with a definite vision in mind… Informing readers about ADOT projects, programs and services was certainly our aim, but we also wanted to give some insight on why and how we do things around here and maybe even highlight some cool facts about our state’s transportation system.

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

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

ADOT will be testing out its Dynamic Message Signs by posting “EMERGENCY ALERT SYSTEM TEST IN PROGRESS” from 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Dynamic Message Signs are an important tool and are already used by ADOT to get the word out on AMBER Alerts and other critical information.

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.

Driving a snowplow is a lot harder than it looks … Luckily, ADOT has about 395 employees trained and ready to operate the nearly 200 snowplows in Arizona’s fleet.

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.

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.