Top 10 transportation projects join national awards competition

The American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and AAA recently announced the list of the top 10 project finalists that are competing in the 2015 America’s Transportation Awards contest; for the year 2015, there has been a total of 48 projects from 24 states involved in the competition.

All of these are divided into three main categories, including “Best Use of Innovation,” “Under Budget” and “Quality of Life/Community Development.”

The final 10 projects have the highest scores from four regional competitions. Now, a panel comprised of experts will choose the People’s Choice Award (worth $10,000) and the Grand Prize winner. The awards ceremony will take place in Chicago at the AASHTO Annual meeting on Sept. 27.

The top 10 include the I-595 Corridor Improvements in Florida, the Port of Miami Tunnel in Florida, the 96Fix in Michigan, the Milton-Madison Bridge in Indiana and Kentucky, the Deep Creek Canyon Bridge in Montana, the Watford City Bypass in North Dakota, the Paseo del Norte/I-25 Reconstruction in New Mexico, the North Tarrant Express in Texas, the Assembly Street Improvement Project in South Carolina and the I-15 US-91/1100 South Interchange in Utah.

"The scores have been tallied, and there are 10 projects left, competing to be called the best in America," Bud Wright, AASHTO executive director, said. "Only one state DOT will take home this year's grand prize but all the projects in the competition are making the nation's multimodal transportation system better, faster and safer."