The Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT) eastern Oregon team has earned national recognition from the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials for its improvements to I-84.
The Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT) eastern Oregon team has made some significant safety improvements along Interstate 84 over the past 18 months, and those efforts have garnered a national award from the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials.
The awards recognized the ODOT Region 5 Snow Zone Safety Improvement Project with top honors in the Operations Excellence, Small Project group.
Now, the project is in the running for the People's Choice Award, where it will compete with 12 other top projects.
These Top 12 finalists — whittled down from 80 nominees from 35 state DOTs via four U.S. regional contests — are competing for both the grand prize and the People's Choice Award. Both prizes come with a $10,000 cash award, for a charity or transportation-related scholarship of the winners' choosing.
If Oregon wins, Truckers Against Trafficking, a non-profit organization dedicated to helping members of the trucking, bus and energy industries combat human trafficking, will receive the prize money.
An independent panel of transportation industry experts will select the grand prize winner, while the general public will decide the People's Choice Award winner through online voting. Online votes will be weighted to each state's population, allowing for greater competition between states with larger and smaller populations. AASHTO will announce the winners during its annual meeting in San Diego, from Oct. 26 to 29.
Online voting ends at 11:59 p.m. on Oct. 25. You can cast your vote online at americastransportationawards.org. Individuals can cast no more than one vote per day.
Other regional finalists include:
- Arizona DOT — Fourth Street Bridge over Interstate 40 (Quality of Life/Community Development, Small Project group)
- Delaware DOT — Margaret Rose Henry Bridge and Approach Roads (Operations Excellence, Medium Project group)
- Florida DOT — Leveraging Innovation: How FDOT Transformed the Gateway to Florida Keys (Best Use of Technology & Innovation, Small Project group)
- Indiana DOT — Grand Valley Boulevard Bridge (Quality of Life/Community Development, Small Project group)
- Kansas DOT — Turner Diagonal: Partnering for Growth (Operations Excellence, Medium Project group)
- Kentucky Transportation Cabinet — Brent Spence Bridge Emergency Repair Project (Operations Excellence, Small Project group)
- New Jersey DOT — Route 1 Permanent Hard Shoulder Running Project (Operations Excellence, Small Project group)
- North Carolina DOT — Reconstruction of Salem Parkway (U.S. 421/I-40 Business) (Quality of Life/Community Development, Medium Project group)
- Pennsylvania DOT — Ohiopyle Multimodal Gateway (Quality of Life/Community Development, Small Project group)
- South Carolina DOT — S.C. 61 Phase 1 (Rural Road Safety Program) (Operations Excellence, Small Project group)
- Utah DOT — I-15; Lehi Main to S.R. 92, Technology Corridor (Quality of Life/Community Development, Large Project group)
Sponsored by the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials, AAA and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the competition evaluates projects in three categories: Quality of Life/Community Development; Best Use of Technology & Innovation; and Operations Excellence. The projects are also divided into three sizes: small (projects costing up to $25 million); medium (projects that cost between $26 million to $200 million); and large (projects costing more than $200 million).
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