Innovative Pavement Design Saves Millions on Major Phoenix Freeway Project

Client

Arizona Department of Transportation (ADOT)

Location

Phoenix, Arizona

Challenge

As the largest highway project in Arizona’s history, the South Mountain Freeway (State Route 202) spans 22 miles and was designed to improve mobility around Phoenix, a region that has experienced unprecedented growth over the last 30 years. The corridor provides a direct link between the East and West Valley and helps bypass downtown Phoenix, where congestion and regional travel demand created a need for a more efficient east-west connection.

For ADOT, the project represented a critical investment in long-term regional mobility, helping improve travel reliability while reducing congestion through downtown Phoenix. It required a solution that balanced initial construction value with long-term pavement performance on a $916 million public-private partnership project.

Solution

The Transtec Group, A Terracon Company, partnered with the winning design-build team to develop an optimized asphalt pavement design tailored to the corridor’s scale, traffic demands, and desert operating environment. The pavement design served as the project’s key innovation, helping increase long-term pavement performance while generating significant cost savings. The performance-based approach helped the team select and optimize pavement structures for both initial and long-term quality while supporting the project’s cost-efficiency goals

Results

Transtec’s optimized asphalt pavement design delivered a high-performing solution aligned with ADOT’s mobility and budget goals. The approach increased expected pavement performance and generated more than $60 million in cost savings on the $916 million public-private partnership project. The project was also planned for delivery at $122 million less than the original budget.