ADOT wins 2 national awards for public outreach on major projects

PHOENIX – Two major transportation corridors. Two major projects that required extensive public outreach to keep drivers informed and engaged, while knowing what to expect during construction. 

This week, the Arizona Department of Transportation’s Office of Communications and Public Involvement won two top awards during the annual meeting of TransComm, the communications committee for the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO), a national nonprofit group that represents and supports state departments of transportation. 

ADOT’s winners are: 

I-17 Improvement Project: Public Involvement Approach with a Consultant

This award recognizes a specific campaign that informs the public on transportation improvements, with the help of a consultant. The I-17 Improvement Project’s public involvement team used a variety of tools, outreach and visual storytelling to educate and engage all audiences about this major project along 23 miles of Interstate 17 between Anthem Way and Sunset Point. The goal of the campaign was to keep the public informed about both the widening portion of the project and Arizona’s first flex lanes system, while providing progress updates and celebrating milestones that highlighted the daily construction process.

I-10 Broadway Curve Improvement Project: Excel with a Consultant

This recognition represents AASHTO's highest award for public relations programs and campaigns. The entries in this division recognize the specific techniques that made a pivotal contribution to the overall success of a broad-based communication endeavor that uses two or more public relations tools. The I-10 Broadway Curve Improvement Project utilized traditional and non-traditional public involvement outreach methods to educate and inform the public about ADOT’s largest urban freeway reconstruction project that ran along 11 miles of one of the busiest stretches of I-10 through the Phoenix metropolitan area. The project utilized a paid advertising campaign and a free project mobile app – both firsts for an ADOT freeway construction project – as some of the tools to keep the public updated throughout the project’s four years of construction.  

This year’s annual TransComm conference in Chicago included more than 200 transportation communicators representing all of the state DOTs. The conference includes a yearly awards ceremony, with each category representing the best transportation projects around the country and the communications strategies and tactics that make them stand out. Each category is voted on by communication teams from the state DOTs. 

ADOT Communications and Public Involvement supports projects and agency priorities through public involvement outreach, news media relations, safety communications, social media engagement, graphics and video production, website design and operations, internal communications, constituent services, employee engagement and recognition, and more.