What’s a “pokey picker upper,” you ask? This uniquely named idea implemented by Timothy Mitchell, highway operations supervisor for the Quartzsite Maintenance Unit, has allowed his team to spend less time transporting equipment to the shop and is creating savings in repair costs. 

“When we were doing regular spot litter removal, the number of flat tires we were getting was so high, we needed to come up with a way to reduce that waste,” Mitchell said.

That push for a countermeasure became the idea of the pokey picker upper. 

Because so many pieces of metal were causing the damage, a magnet seemed the best way to tackle the problem. The real quandary, however, was how to find a way to use the magnet to grab the metal before it could puncture any tires. Mitchell brainstormed an idea and quickly welded together a prototype. A 3-foot bar was affixed to the front of the truck and the magnetic bar hung from that, hovering just above the ground. That's what you see in this photo to the right. He also made it interchangeable so it is easily moved to either the passenger or driver side of the vehicle, depending on where it is needed. 

Crews began using the new tool in August. The maintenance unit discovered it worked well and since then their welder has improved upon the prototype. The upgraded version will be reproduced for other vehicles across the agency doing similar duties with potential for tire damage.

They are still compiling data for the number of hours and costs related to the flat tires. But Mitchell said before they were trekking to the shop two to four times a week for repairs, and now it's only once or twice a month, which is a substantial improvement. 

And what about the very scientific name? Mitchell said “It kind of just came to me.”

Spoken like a true inventor!

This device is an example of how ADOT employees are committed to solving problems and eliminating wasteful processes by using Governor Doug Ducey's Arizona Management System. 

When was the last time you had to climb up on top of a chair to change a light bulb?

Sure, that pesky hallway light is a pain to replace, but it's your place and someone has to keep the lights on.

We feel for you. That's why we chose this photo from nearly 50 years ago of crews doing something similar, checking and cleaning the fluorescent lights of a tunnel from on top of truck-mounted scaffolding. 

To be perfectly honest, we don't know which tunnel this is. We've looked at it every which way and still our best guess is it could be either the Queen Creek Tunnel, on US 60 between Superior and Miami, or the Mule Pass Tunnel on State Route 80 just before Bisbee. The only note on the photo simply says "Tunnel light cleaning October 1971."

If it is the Queen Creek Tunnel, then the whole lighting system you see here was replaced in 2016 when we put in a light-emitting diode, or LED, lighting system to improve visibility and save on energy.  

Tunnel cleaning is still a regular part of ADOT's highway maintenance. Most noticeably is that four times a year crews will spend a night cleaning each direction of Interstate 10 as it passes through the Deck Park Tunnel, including making sure the lights are working. As you can see from this video from several years ago, today we have the advantage of using pressure washers and bucket trucks to reach those high places. 

Getting a chance to touch big a snowplow, front-end loader and hydrovac truck probably won’t make the top of most adults' bucket lists. But there’s a kind of magic that happens between small children and big trucks.

That's why it was a special thrill for dozens of children who had the chance to get near heavy vehicles, including three from the Arizona Department of Transportation, during a recent “Touch a Truck” fundraiser in Phoenix.

Youngsters climbed into the drivers' seats and signed their names on ADOT’s front-end loader and snowplow.

Members of ADOT Phoenix Maintenance and the Central District Hydrovac Unit volunteered for the event to help educate people about how the state-of-the-art trucks serve the public.

Touch a Truck raises funds for children with spina bifida – a birth defect that affects the spinal cord – to attend Camp Patrick in Payson, which has extensively trained medical staff.

The department has participated in all three Camp Patrick annual fundraisers. Tommy and Katie Reeve founded the camp after realizing the need for one. Their third son son, Patrick, has spina bifida, and the camp is named for him.  

"ADOT is one of our biggest supporters,” said Tommy Reeve, a Phoenix firefighter. “They bring trucks that the kids think are really cool. ADOT helps us put on the event and 100 percent of the money goes to the camp."

“There were little hard hats running all over the place,” said Michael Culp, hydrovac operation supervisor. “We actually helped the children out of their wheelchairs and lifted them up so they could sit in the seats, honk the horn and play with buttons.”

Culp was joined by Phoenix Maintenance Supervisor Jim Durlin and other ADOT members who talked to community members about the state-of-the art vehicles.

They explained, for example, how the hydrovac truck keeps drains clean and highways clear of water when it rains and how snowplows make roads safer after storms.

“This event brought smiles to the children of the community and perhaps some future ADOT employees,” Culp said. “It helps us put ADOT’s name out there as an agency that likes to give back to the community and to reinforce what we do on the roadways to keep them safe.

“This is a once in a lifetime event for these children that they wouldn’t have without events like this.”

By David Rookhuyzen / ADOT Communications

Litter is no joke.

Even putting aesthetics and environmental impacts aside, junk tossed from vehicles can create a hazard on the roadway and other trouble that you can't see.

That's something our crews know all too well as they work to ensure all 59 pump stations and other freeway drainage systems in the Valley are ready for storm runoff. As we've told you about before, litter can get swept into pump stations and potentially clog grates and hinder the flow of water.

Keeping our freeway drainage systems clear is a year-round effort, and powerful storms this past winter proved how important it is to have clean and maintained pump stations and drainage catch basins throughout the year.

You can see crews in action using this equipment in the video above. But we hope you'll also see that, even with the hydrovac, it's still a laborious task.

By Ryan Harding / ADOT Communications

Hibernation is over for bears, chipmunks and snakes – and now highway projects in northern Arizona.

As temperatures warm up to the proper levels for paving, ADOT will start or continue work from last year on repairing winter weather damage to pavement along state highways.

Work on a 17-mile stretch of Interstate 40 is picking up from last summer with crews repairing the ramps at the Grand Canyon Boulevard interchange in Williams. They will also lay new pavement down along the interstate creating a smooth ride for travelers and truckers.

Another project picking up from last summer is work on the last 28 miles of northbound Interstate 17 to Flagstaff. Last year, crews rebuilt the highway from milepost 312 to 315 and replaced the bridge structures in each direction at Willard Springs Road with a new, innovative technique.

Crews will pave the rest of the stretch of highway, repairing worn out pavement and smoothing over filled potholes created from freeze-thaw cycles.

With pavement improvements to the main interstates in the Flagstaff area pretty well in hand, ADOT will turn its attention to improving pavement conditions along a 13-mile stretch of State Route 89A from uptown Sedona to the Pumphouse Wash Bridge. This project is expected to begin later this summer.

While there’s a lot of highway work to do during the summer weather window, ADOT takes steps to minimize the impact to traffic during the weekends – even stopping work on major summer holidays like Memorial Day weekend, the Fourth of July and Labor Day weekend.

As you keep an eye out for bears and other wildlife now up and about while exploring the high country, keep up-to-date on highway projects as well by visiting az511.gov or calling 511.

By Laurie Merrill / ADOT Communications

If you were born and raised south of Cordes Junction, let’s face it: You’re probably not an expert when it comes to driving in snow. Even if you hail from the East Coast or a place like Colorado, chances are you’ve been driving in blazing sunlight so long that at the very least you need a refresher.

ADOT’s Know Snow website is packed with tips on how to stay safe, warm and prepared for any journey on which you might encounter snow or ice. We recommend giving it a look with snow forecast in Arizona's high country starting Thursday night.

One of the most important tips takes place before you even get behind the wheel: Research weather conditions. Visit az511.gov or dial 511 for updated road conditions. Follow ADOT's Twitter account at @ArizonaDOT. However, never use a cellphone or mobile device while driving.

If it's going to be a big storm, you might choose to sit this one out . That way ADOT’s nearly 200 snowplows can clear the roadways.

Did you know that ADOT's commercially licensed plow drivers – 400 of them in all – typically work 12-hour shifts during storms? Did you know that the safest place to be is four car lengths behind a snowplow, and that it's never safe to pass one until it pulls over to let you by? Did you know that ADOT annually spends between $5 million and $8 million on winter safety operations?

For more facts and tips, please check out our Know Snow website. You’ll be glad you did.

You also can reduce the chances of getting caught out in the cold by downloading the free ADOT Alerts app available for iOS and Android at ADOTAlerts.com. Using geofencing technology, the app will alert you to major events on highways, including any closures prompted by snowfall.

By Doug Pacey
ADOT Office of Public Information

Something didn’t seem right to Thelma Begay.

Peering south toward the Glen Canyon Bridge from the Arizona Department of Transportation’s Equipment Services shop as a thunderstorm pummeled Page Friday afternoon, the account technician saw a line of traffic in both directions stopped on the bridge. She called over Shop Supervisor Scott Kennedy to take a look.

Kennedy, a 23-year resident of Page, knew something was wrong.

“Cars stopping on the bridge like that never happens, so I told her let’s drive down and see what’s going on,” Kennedy said. “Best case, it’s nothing. Worst case, we’ll see what we can do to help.”

That decision sent Page’s Equipment Services shop on a wet and muddy adventure that saved motorists from potential headaches and kept weekend getaway plans on schedule.

Kennedy and Begay hopped in one truck, while Equipment Repair Lead Technician Dustin Allen and Equipment Repair Technician Elias Tsinigine rode in another. When the two trucks made the three-quarter-mile jaunt down the hill on US 89 to the bridge, they encountered a river of mud and bowling ball-size rocks flowing across the highway at the entrance to the Glen Canyon Dam Visitor Center. Traffic heading in both directions was stop and go, and a Department of Public Safety officer was in the middle of the mudflow, directing vehicles.

Kennedy spoke to the officer and asked if ADOT had been notified. The officer said he had called in the incident, but ADOT’s Page Maintenance crews had not yet arrived to begin clearing the highway or take over traffic control.

“I told him we’d get the ball rolling,” Kennedy said.

He quickly learned that Page Maintenance crews were responding, but they were coming from the other side of the bridge and were stuck in the backup they’d been called on to clear. At ADOT, maintenance crews respond to traffic incidents for a variety of reasons, including when roadways need to be cleared of debris, when immediate roadway repairs are necessary and when DPS requests traffic control. Equipment Services is responsible for maintaining ADOT’s fleet of vehicles and its workers are rarely asked to report to an incident scene.

“The shops know when to look out for one another,” said Devin Darlek, equipment services administrator. “There have been many instances where the maintenance crews help out our shop personnel. To see it live, it’s like watching a great team playing on the field.”

By now, it was close to 1 p.m. and Kennedy knew something had to be done quickly.

“It’s a Friday afternoon,” he explained. “Everyone is coming to Lake Powell, people are towing boats, motorhomes are out there, lots of foreign tourists. It was going to be a mess.”

To Kennedy, the only option was for Equipment Services, which maintains and repairs ADOT vehicles, to step out of its comfort zone and clear US 89. On the foursome’s mind was the recent 25-month closure of US 89 south of Page because of a massive landslide.

“All four of us are cognizant of what it means to have the major route in or out of town cut off,” said Kennedy. “This was smaller, but we were definitely thinking about that.”

So, Kennedy directed Allen to drive a front-loader to the scene and clear large debris, while he and Tsinigine helped direct traffic to ensure Allen had enough space to operate. Begay stayed in a truck because the crew did not have enough orange safety vests for all to be working on the highway. The cleanup effort took about 20 minutes and traffic began flowing at a steady pace in both directions almost immediately.

“Dusty got the majority of the debris cleared,” Kennedy said. “It quit raining hard and that slowed the debris flow. Maintenance showed up and thanked us and they took over doing the dirty work of cleaning up all the muck.”

By 3:20 p.m., the highway had fully reopened, providing travelers easy passage to Lake Powell and the Glen Canyon National Recreation Area and points beyond.

Kennedy praised his co-workers for reacting quickly to a situation that called for action beyond their job descriptions, calling it a “whole team effort.”

“It was just common sense,” Kennedy said. “Felt to me like the right thing to do.”