Summer is on the horizon, and that traditionally means the start of ADOT’s pavement repair season. After an unusually harsh winter, we’re gearing up for even more projects across the state.

In addition to pavement projects already in the works, including repaving southbound I-17 between Flagstaff and the Yavapai County line, ADOT is about to begin the first of 23 projects to repair pavement, mainly in northern Arizona, after the record-setting winter. The State Transportation Board approved $50.5 million for these projects, which will extend through the summer. 

The state budget approved for the fiscal year beginning July 1 includes even more funding for these repair projects, which consist of removing and replacing areas of damaged surface pavement. Most of these areas are in higher elevations where freeze-thaw cycles stress pavement.

The interactive video above, from our I-17 paving project south of Flagstaff, shows how crews apply a new overlay of asphalt after the top layer has already been milled away. Click anywhere on the video to change your view.

Pavement maintenance is a year-round priority at ADOT, and the work the video shows, sometimes referred to as a mill and fill, is one of the more involved responses.

In addition, you may see crews replacing temporary patches with larger, permanent ones to repaving miles of a highway. Some of this work will consist of spot repairs replacing a small area around a pothole. In those cases, crews will cut out a larger section of pavement until reaching a solid base underneath. Then a crew applies an oil-based product before filling the area with asphalt. To complete the repair, a roller compacts the new material.

Where worn pavement extends for longer distances, a large milling machine will remove the top couple inches of pavement spanning a single lane or the entire roadway. These sections could stretch for a few hundred feet or even a mile. 

While the schedule for the 23 projects mentioned above is still being developed, we’ve already announced the locations here. The project locations all include spot work, meaning select sections of the highway will be patched or repaved. One exception: An entire 20-mile-long section of State Route 260 will be repaved this summer.

The work will include daytime and nighttime work, depending on the area and what is safest for work crews and the traveling public.

There are a lot of funny sounding tools and instruments that help ADOT maintain the state's highways.

You've heard of Distance Measurement Instruments and even something called the "pokey picker upper," but what in the world is an inclinometer? It sounds like something Wile E. Coyote would purchase from the Acme Corporation. 

It turns out that the term is pretty darn self-descriptive if you read it this way: "incline-o-meter". 

That's right, it's a meter that measures inclines.

Now that we've got that out of the way, let's talk about what it does. 

As funny as the name may sound, inclinometers are important tools in highway design and maintenance. Also known as tilt meters or slope indicators, these nifty little measuring devices are critical for safety as they help engineers prevent landslides that can bury a road or wash it away completely. 

"When we cut into a land feature or a slope, it will unbalance the (underlying) forces," said Tad Niemyjski, an engineer overseeing ADOT's Geotechnical Design Team. "If we see an acceleration over time of a slope's movement, then that's when we really have to start stepping in and develop some engineering measures that can slow the movement down."

Those countermeasures can include building a buttress at the base of or reinforcing the soil in the failure area. The trick is finding the vertical extent of earthen failure and that is when we deploy the use of inclinometers. 

"We will build a soil and or rock buttress - essentially an earthen dam at the base," he said.

Other measures include installing infrastructure - essentially a perforated well casing - in the ground to drain and evacuate excess water accumulation. 

Inclinometers are used frequently in many areas of the state, including State Route 87, also known as the Beeline Highway, north of Sunflower between Fountain Hills and Payson.

"At that location in 2006, they had a large part of the roadway slip out and drop and that closed the highway down for some time," Niemyski said.

Who'd have thought such a funny word would be so critical to our roadway  infrastructure? 

Now that you know what an inclinometer is, all you need to do is practice saying it correctly.

Say it with me now: "inkləˈnämədər". See that’s not so hard!

 

 

 

 

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Today is March 14. Or, written another way, 3/14. That makes today "Pi Day."

Pi, which has an approximate value of 3.14, is used to find the area and circumference of a circle. Pi has many applications and engineers at ADOT certainly use it when designing and building the state highway system.

Though most people are familiar with 3.14 being the value of pi, its full value can be calculated to trillions of digits. Here at ADOT, we wanted to mark Pi Day with something fun. So, we went to the 50th digit of pi, found photos with those corresponding digits on our highway signs and edited it all together with a catchy song. 

 

 

 

 

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March is Women’s History Month and we want to take a moment to acknowledge former Arizona Governor Rose Mofford.

Mofford was Arizona’s first female governor, holding the state’s highest office from 1988 to 1991. She was governor when the Interstate 10 Deck Park Tunnel opened in Phoenix. The tunnel was the final segment connecting the transcontinental freeway between Santa Monica, Calif., and Jacksonville, Fla.

But, back to Rose.

Born the child of Croatian immigrants on June 10, 1922, Mofford grew up and graduated from high school in Globe. Mofford was appointed Secretary of State, a role she served between 1977 and 1988. 

Mofford was a champion of the state’s transportation system, overseeing the start of construction on Loop 101 Agua Fria Freeway, the opening of State Route 51, as well as the aforementioned I-10 tunnel project, which was part of the expansion of the Papago Freeway. 

So critical was her leadership to the state and its still-young transportation system that state officials named a stretch of US 60 the “Governor Rose Mofford Memorial Highway.”

Fast-forward to 1990 when the picture of Mofford in the tunnel was taken. It would have been in the twilight of Mofford’s career in public service. One may wonder what she was thinking as the flashbulbs flickered, presiding over the opening of one of the state’s most vital transportation corridors; the most powerful woman in state government and the first female to achieve it. 

Mofford passed away on Sep 15, 2016. She was 94.

The next time you trek to Las Vegas and notice work crews are widening another section of US 93, you might pause for a moment to think of the work of Kara Lavertue.

Lavertue’s role at ADOT includes working on high-profile improvements like widening that busy highway between Sin City and Phoenix, but her job doesn’t involve grading the roadbed or running asphalt paving machines. That’s because Lavertue is one of many engineers at ADOT whose work is more behind the scenes, in this case overseeing construction projects.

It’s important work because engineers like Lavertue ensure every element of the preparation and construction are done to precise specifications so the pavement, bridges and even drainage are reliable and safe for decades to come.

“We hold contractors to specifications and plans and make sure projects are built the way they’re supposed to be built,” she said.

Lavertue is a resident engineer in ADOT’s Prescott Valley office. She holds a civil engineering degree from the University of New Mexico and has worked at ADOT since 2000, first as part of a design team. She’s been a resident engineer since 2018, overseeing construction projects once they’re awarded to a contractor.

Her projects span parts of northwestern Arizona and have included pavement preservation, roadway widening and installing broadband along Interstate 17. The broadband project is not a routine highway project, as it is in cooperation with the Arizona Commerce Authority to create more affordable opportunities to provide rural communities with high-speed internet service. However, ADOT plans to use the fiber to provide “smart highway” technology for things such as overhead message boards, traffic cameras, weather stations and wrong-way driving detection technology.

The job means more than straightforward engineering, as a great deal of management work goes into successfully completing projects. And the projects can be about more than just improving or adding pavement. When building a wildlife overpass, ADOT engineers worked with other stakeholders such as the Bureau of Land Management and the National Park Service.

“We see a little bit of everything,” Lavertue said.

EDITOR'S NOTE: As part of National Engineers Week, which calls attention to the importance of engineering and career opportunities in engineering, ADOT is featuring different aspects of engineering at ADOT.

For decades, a 1959 Chevrolet Apache truck carried employees all over the Grand Canyon Airport, which ADOT owns and operates. By the 1980s its condition had deteriorated and could no longer be used for daily operations.

Instead of junking it, ADOT employees at Equipment Services in Phoenix restored what we’ve come to call our "Little Yellow Truck."

"This is a part of our past, and a part of our history," says Lionel McFarlane, ADOT Equipment Services Manager. "We can’t just forget about our history."

Jerry West, administrator of Equipment Services at the time, and his team donated their free time (some even on weekends), parts and labor to the passion project. They replaced and restored just about everything, including the interior seat and truck bed. By the time they were done ADOT’s little truck that could was glowing with new paint, shiny chrome and a cleaned-up engine.

McFarlane says the truck is truly a joy to behold. But it’s more than that to him and ADOT employees.

"These types of things are an extension of our business and the passion that we have towards transportation," he said. "This is a passion with us."

Our “Little Yellow Truck” is enjoying retirement from the daily grind and makes appearances at parades and other special events.