Building a Freeway

Imagine the Loop 202 South Mountain Freeway without any designs on its bridges, ramps and sound walls? What drawings and colors would you use? What plants would line the roadway? This activity makes you the designer. 

Check out our new video showing how crews place massive girders for the new Hell Canyon Bridge.

Ever wonder what it takes to move one million cubic yards of rock and dirt?

Watch today’s video and you may never look at pavement markings in the same way ever again!

Here we are, blogging about pavement … again! When we told you there’s a lot to learn on the subject, we weren’t joking ...

ADOT Construction Manual. We were perusing the ADOT Construction Manual just recently and we came across a passage that terrifically sums up ADOT’s Project Development Process.

As you can see in the video above, girders are the concrete and steel beams that enable the bridge to support the roadway and the vehicles on top of it. They’re vital to the design of a bridge, but not all girders are the same…

You probably don’t think much about drainage when you’re driving, but a well-designed drainage system can increase the lifespan of a highway and help keep the public safe. We’ll blog about how these systems are designed and maintained soon, but today we just want to give you a quick glimpse of the types of drainage solutions used on a project like the Loop 303/I-10 interchange.

Placing Portland Cement Concrete Pavement (PCCP) is one of the final steps involved when building a road, but it’s far from an afterthought…

When you’re building bridges, there’s more than one way to get the job done... We told you a few months ago about a method that utilizes false work and sand jacks. Today, we’re going to fill you in on a different approach … the key terms to remember are soffit fills and waste slabs.

Remember this awesome time-lapse video showing the construction of a temporary bypass at Greenway Road and the Loop 303? Well, today we’ve got an even more in-depth look at how crews built the new intersection – complete with temporary barriers, fences and traffic signals – in just about 43 hours! (Take a look at the photos below for an amazing before and after aerial glimpse of the new bypass!)

Accommodating existing traffic is a key priority when ADOT builds a freeway … Depending on the project, that can mean working out a construction schedule that takes rush hours into account or hiring extra crews to flag and direct traffic through the site.

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.

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.

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).

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!

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.