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Eight projects from state departments of transportation in Connecticut, Delaware, Pennsylvania, New York, and New Jersey won top prizes in the regional 2024 America’s Transportation Awards competition. These projects from the Northeast region were recognized for their positive impact on communities, ranging from employing new safety measures to save lives to investing in customer-focused transit.
Selected from 22 projects nominated by seven state DOTs in the Northeastern Association of State Transportation Officials (NASTO) region, they are among 106 nominations submitted by 39 state DOTs as part of the annual America’s Transportation Awards contest. Sponsored by the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO), AAA, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the America’s Transportation Awards competition showcases how state DOT projects strengthen their communities.
Projects are nominated in four categories: Quality of Life/Community Development; Operations Excellence; Best Use of Technology & Innovation; and Safety. They highlight transportation’s crucial role for every person in every community, regardless of their mode of travel. In response to the increasing number of fatalities on U.S. roadways in recent years, 2024 marks the inaugural year of the safety category, celebrating projects that effectively addressed safety challenges.
“The America’s Transportation Awards competition highlights the critical role state DOTs play in improving safety, enhancing mobility, and improving quality of life for their communities,” said AASHTO Executive Director Jim Tymon. “Our new safety category, implemented as part of AASHTO President Craig Thompson’s emphasis areas, allows us one more avenue to learn from each other on ways to drive down fatalities and serious crashes across the country. These winning NASTO region projects showcased the very best solutions to transportation challenges, whether they be finding ways to improve transit service for communities, restoring traffic after emergencies, or implementing engineering changes in neighborhoods to make all road users safer.”
All nominated projects first compete at the regional level against projects of their own size: “Small” (projects costing up to $10 million), “Medium” (projects costing between $10 million and $100 million), and “Large” (projects costing more than $100 million). This year’s winning NASTO regional projects are:
Connecticut Department of Transportation’s Customer Experience Action Plan (Quality of Life/Community Development, Small Project)
Delaware Department of Transportation’s Claymont Train Station (Quality of Life/Community Development, Medium Project)
Pennsylvania Department of Transportation’s Automatic Queue Protection System (Operations Excellence, Small Project)
New Jersey Department of Transportation’s I-76/676, Bridges and Pavement, Contract 1 (Operations Excellence, Medium Project)
Pennsylvania Department of Transportation’s I -95/Cottman Avenue Emergency Response (Best Use of Technology & Innovation, Small Project)
New York State Department of Transportation’s US 62 Road Diet Project (Safety, Small Project)
Pennsylvania Department of Transportation’s PA 18 Signal Upgrades (Safety, Medium Project)
New Jersey Department of Transportation’s Route 3, Route 46, Valley Road & Notch / Rifle Camp Road Interchanges (Safety, Large Project)
Following the NASTO regional competition, the “Top 12” nationwide finalists will be announced in early September, featuring the three highest-scoring projects from each region. Those top contenders will then compete for the two 2024 America’s Transportation Awards national prizes.
The Grand Prize will be selected by an independent panel of judges, while the People’s Choice Award will go to the project with the most online votes from the public, weighted by state population. AASHTO will announce the winners at its annual meeting in October 2024 in Philadelphia. Both winners will receive $10,000 each for a charity or transportation-related scholarship of their choosing.
Visit https://americastransportationawards.org/ to learn more about this year’s NASTO nominees. Information courtesy of AASHTO. Learn more here.