PA Team Earns National Honor for Highway Improvement Teamwork

Philly Corridor's 24 New Bridges Carry 180,000 Vehicles in Prescription for Economic Health

Austin, TX/September 8, 2005 —The National Partnership for Highway Quality (NPHQ) today announced that its 2005 State Award has been earned by the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation, general contractor Allan A. Myers, Inc. and designers URS Corporation and Gannett Fleming, Inc. for “their outstanding performance and customer-oriented success” on the US Route 202, Section 404 Improvement Project.

Announcing the award was Bob Templeton, executive director of NPHQ, a partnership among federal, state, and roadway industry leaders and officials whose shared advocacy of “customer-centered” practices has produced better, safer, more user-friendly roads and bridges that are completed faster, last longer, and minimize congestion and inconvenience.

According to Templeton, the complicated undertaking involved the widening and reconstruction of five miles of Route 202 and US Route 422, along with the redesign and reconstruction of Route 202's interchanges with Route 422 and the heavily traveled Schuylkill Expressway portion of I-76. The project answered a need: the existing roadways and interchanges could not handle the 180,000 vehicles a day pouring through the area, and the daily headaches of severe congestion and traffic jams already were threatening the region's economic health.

Drawing on steady support from numerous stakeholders, including local townships, counties, and organizations, the Pennsylvania team partnered to produce, in Templeton's words, “a safe, functional project that would benefit the Greater Philadelphia region for years to come.”

The design team, following that directive, employed both ingenuity and innovation to maintain existing traffic capacity throughout construction, requiring minimal right-of-way acquisition, and ultimately providing the kind of smoother, faster traffic flow that consigned the old headaches to history.

When the project was officially opened in the fall of 2003, PennDOT Secretary Allen Biehler pointed to the vast achievements: in addition to the widening and reconstruction of Route 202 and parts of I-76 and Route 422, the team had built 24 new bridges and rebuilt and refurbished three dozen outdated ramps.

Templeton said that the work, “nestled within a burgeoning high-tech and business corridor, solved the traffic congestion dilemma it had faced and even exceeded the combined expectations of the business community and the traveling public, the ultimate customers.”

NPHQ is composed of the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO), the Texas Transportation Institute, the Foundation for Pavement Preservation, the National Institute for Certification in Engineering Technologies, the American Highway Users Alliance, The Associated General Contractors of America, the National Ready Mixed Concrete Association, Kiewit Corporation, and the URS Corporation. More information is at www.nphq.org .

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