Don't Trash Arizona! aims to educate and increase public
awareness of the impacts of roadside litter.
Last month we told you about the thousands who take on the immense task of cleaning up Arizona’s roads through ADOT’s Adopt a Highway program – more than 800 tons of trash is picked up off the state highways each year because of these volunteers!
But, picking up trash is just part of the equation when it comes to the very big job of keeping the roads clean. Education is the key to changing littering behaviors and teaching people how roadside trash really affects our state.
That’s where Don’t Trash Arizona! comes in. A joint effort between the Maricopa Association of Governments (MAG) and ADOT, Don’t Trash Arizona! was launched in July 2006 utilizing funding from Proposition 400. The program’s aim is to increase public awareness of the economic, health, safety and environmental impacts of roadside litter.
If you’re not convinced throwing trash on the side of the road is a big deal, check out these facts from the Don’t Trash Arizona! website:
If you drive Valley freeways during rush hour, you’re probably pretty familiar with ramp meters …
They’re the two-light signals positioned at most Valley on-ramps that tell motorists when it’s okay to head onto the freeway.
Ramp meters have been used in the Phoenix-Metro area for about the past 20 years and maybe you think not much about them has changed … but, actually they’ve recently become much more efficient!
Thanks to a project funded through the Maricopa Association of Governments (MAG), roughly 300 ramp meters have been replaced with units that use newer, smarter technology.
As ADOT’s Intelligent Transportation System Supervisor Chuck McClatchey explains in the video above, the older ramp meters were not nearly as efficient as the new models.
“The new controllers actually operate totally independent of each other, which, means you can have 15 cars in one lane, no cars in the other lane and it will give 15 straight greens and just maintain red on the left side,” he said. “The older technology would give two greens and then a green to the non-existent cars. … So you can see that it really was not that efficient.”
Studying the Arizona Driver License Manual is the key to passing your exam.
When do pedestrians have the right-of-way over motor vehicles? How long should you signal before you turn? What does a flashing red traffic light mean?
These are questions you might be trying to learn the answers to in order to get your very first driver license ... or, maybe you just moved here from out of state and need to study for the driver license exam, too.
Perhaps the questions are ones you knew long ago, back when you prepped for your first driver license exam, but it has been years since you studied. Could now be the time for a little refresher?
The online practice tests are new to the site and the direct result of an MVD online web survey. Practice tests were the No. 1 item requested by those who took the survey.
The wildfires burning through portions of the state are destroying so much … from the scenic acreage that will be changed forever to the property loss and the lives so terribly affected.
It’s difficult to take it all in.
But if there’s anything to be gained from this disaster, it’s an even deeper gratitude and appreciation for the fire fighters and support personnel risking so much to battle the flames.
Several ADOT employees are among that support team and not only are they doing all they can in response to the emergency, but many are residents of the towns they’re trying to help save. They’ve stayed behind as friends and family members have been evacuated, in some cases evacuating their own families after their 12-hour shifts.
For the Wallow Fire alone, ADOT maintenance and operations crews from St. Johns, Springerville and Show Low have been on duty day and night keeping motorists out of the fire, allowing firefighters to focus on battling the blaze.
ADOT Maintenance and Operations Tech Brannon Morales sums it up best in the video above, “We’ve got a job to do and it’s keeping the firefighters safe, as well as the public.”
Since the fires began and started to threaten towns, residences and lives, these ADOT crews have assisted in coordinating and setting up the closures of hundreds of miles of state highways. That work includes making sure people know about the road blocks through message boards and signs.
But emergency response and working toward keeping the public safe is not new for ADOT. In fact, it’s a big part of what ADOT does, according to ADOT Emergency Manager Courtney Bear.
“There are maybe 2,500 firefighters on this but there’s probably 1,000 support personnel and we’re a part of that support team,” she said. “We’re a public safety agency… we have a huge public safety component to what we do.”
Work zone barricades are necessary
even when crews aren't present.
‘Why are the cones and barricades still up, but no one is working?!?!?’
If you’ve ever driven by an empty freeway work zone, you might have wondered this yourself.
But, despite how things may appear, there still is a risk to the traveling public, which means those barricades are very necessary.
And, just because workers aren’t present, doesn’t mean work has stopped. Often, there is a cure time for work that has just been completed. Rubberized asphalt, for instance, needs to set four to six hours before a car can drive on it to prevent it from being damaged.
Likewise, if a project involves removing or pumping underground water from a job site (in order to drill for a pier column for example) this process must take place prior to crews starting their work above ground. While this type of “unseen” work is happening, barricades, cones and concrete barriers will remain in place to keep the public safe and the project on schedule.
Monsoon season brings high winds,
thunderstorms and dust storms.
Monsoon season officially begins today, and brings with it some potentially hazardous driving conditions that all motorists should be prepared for.
According to the National Weather Service, Monsoon season lasts now until the end of September ... that means we're in for more humidity, which leads to thunderstorm activity across higher terrains, lightning, hail, high winds, flash floods, dust storms and extreme heat.
ADOT urges drivers to be prepared for summer storms by following these Monsoon safety driving tips:
When it doubt, wait it out! If you see a dust storm ahead, it’s best to exit and wait for the dust to move through the area.
When faced with low or zero visibility conditions, pull your vehicle off the road as far to the right as possible. Turn off your lights, set the parking brake and take your foot off the brake pedal. These steps reduce the chances that other drivers mistake your vehicle as the one to follow.
Don’t risk crossing a flooded wash, even if it doesn’t look deep. Water is a powerful force that should not be underestimated.
Talk about a quick turnaround … it’s been just three months since a fiery crash destroyed the Mescal Road/J-Six Ranch Road bridge in Cochise County and already ADOT has approved a contract to rebuild and reopen the bridge this fall.
Considering the process can normally take up to two years, it is clear this project is critical to the nearby communities.
You might remember that the bridge suffered heavy damage back on March 15 after two semi-trucks collided underneath it. The damage from the resulting fire was so severe that the bridge was demolished by ADOT a few weeks later on April 8.
But, with the bridge gone, so is the link between the communities of Mescal and J-Six Ranch, and that is why the replacement project is on a fast track.
In fact, construction is expected to begin early next month at the site located on I-10 at milepost 297, west of Benson.
ADOT's Interstate Signing Supervisor
Dudley Heller shows an example of a
worn out sign that was replaced.
We received a question on our Facebook page last week asking us why, in this time of tight state budgets, ADOT is spending money to swap out what appear to be perfectly good highway signs. We thought it was a great question, so here’s the answer…
The primary reason is simple: Safety!
All highway signs – from green guide signs, to white speed limit signs, to blue service signs - are coated with a special reflective material that helps drivers see them clearly at night. The official term is retroreflectivity: a material’s ability to return (retro) most of the light back to its originating light source, in this case, back to the vehicle.
Signs that are damaged, weathered, or worn, can still appear perfect during the daylight hours, but in reality, the reflective surfaces may have already begun to deteriorate, making it hard to read at night. And while only one-quarter of all travel occurs at night, approximately half of all traffic fatalities occur at this time.
ADOT maintains roughly 500,000 signs around the state, most of which have an average life span of 10-15 years. ADOT swaps out the old signs based on which section of highway needs it the most.
Several students from Calabasas Middle School in Rio Rico participate in a national walk-to-school event.
Between homework, heavy backpacks and pop quizzes, kids face enough challenges … walking to school should be the simplest part of the day.
But that’s not always the case, which is a reason why Safe Routes to School was created. The program takes aim at the growing epidemic of childhood obesity by making it a little easier and a bit safer for kids to ride a bike or walk to school!
ADOT administers the federally funded program in Arizona and annually distributes grant money to schools, districts, tribal communities, municipalities and nonprofit agencies who successfully outline projects that help remove the barriers preventing students from safely and conveniently walking or biking to school.
That shift has led to more traffic congestion around schools and might be partly to blame for health issues like childhood obesity. According to a CDC report cited on the FHWA website, safety issues are the big concern for parents … traffic danger is often cited as a reason why their kids don’t bike or walk to school.
Concrete noise walls reduce traffic noise by blocking the
path that sound waves travel from the traffic to the residential area.
Most people don’t find the sound of traffic especially soothing …
ADOT certainly recognizes this and is constantly working to minimize the impacts to surrounding neighborhoods from the noise of new freeways.
You would think figuring out the impact of noise could get tricky because everyone perceives it differently – a sound that’s irritating to you might be tolerable to someone else.
But, federal law requires that ADOT estimate the future noise levels from new freeway projects, and if traffic noise approaches or exceeds 67 decibels, noise abatement must be considered. ADOT has taken it a step further, though, and considers 64 decibels to be the acceptable threshold to consider noise abatement for new projects.
The amount by which noise levels will change in a residential area also is a factor. A road project that will cause noise levels to increase by 15 decibels or more is considered an impact and noise abatement measures must be considered.
Just to give you an idea of what a decibel measurement means … a whisper could register at about 20 decibels, normal conversation comes in around 60 decibels and if you were standing about 15 feet from a loud rock band, you’d be hearing sounds measuring roughly 130 decibels.
Most of the signs ADOT produces have to be pretty big so drivers can read them, but one of the newest is simply massive…
At 16x16 feet, a new sign welcoming motorists to Arizona is among the tallest in the state. It recently was installed on Interstate 8 near Yuma; however, it was made in Phoenix, and as you can imagine, moving a sign that size isn’t a simple task (see video above and photo slideshow below).
At roughly 1,000 pounds, the sign is so tall that it needed to be split in half for transport. Both halves were hoisted with a crane and put onto a trailer on moving day. After the nearly 200-mile journey, six ADOT crew members worked for about two hours to unload the sign and attach it three posts.
It was a big job, but the crew has plenty of experience installing signs around the state. Signs, markers and signals actually are a top priority for several organizational work groups, or orgs, within ADOT’s Traffic Engineering Group.
Crews are busy adding more than 80 lane miles of high occupancy vehicle (HOV) lanes to two Valley freeways – 30 miles in both directions on Loop 101 in the west Valley and 12 miles on east- and westbound Loop 202 in Chandler that will link directly to HOV lanes on the Loop 101 (Price Freeway) and Interstate 10.
The payoff for having these HOV lanes is significant. Not only do they help improve traffic flow and encourage carpooling, but they also expand transit opportunities (think express bus service). People who use them save time and money; and, we all enjoy the benefits of cleaner air thanks to fewer auto emissions.
But you’re probably asking yourself the same question we at ADOT are frequently asked: Why don’t we build the HOV lanes when we build the freeway?
It’s a good and fair question. To answer it, we’ll use an analogy that should hit home for just about anyone who’s ever purchased a house. We all dream about the add-ons we’d love to have from the get-go: the in-home theater, the furnished game room or the gourmet kitchen with stainless steel appliances. Most of us, though, don’t have the budget to get everything at once, so we start with what we can afford to meet our needs at the time, and save up or secure additional financing later for the improvements on our wish lists.
It’s quite similar when it comes to building our Valley Freeways. Constructing them to 100-percent capacity all at once is usually not financially feasible. As a result, we build and improve freeways in phases, using the funding that is available when the project is scheduled to begin.
