Northeast State DOT Projects Win Top Honors in National Competition

New Brunswick, NJ - Ten state department of transportation projects from Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania have earned regional accolades in the 2025 America's Transportation Awards competition. From saving lives through wrong way detection systems to utilizing new technological advances to deliver projects ahead of schedule with minimal impacts on local communities, each project provides meaningful, lasting benefits to the communities they serve.

Selected from 26 projects submitted by seven states and the District of Columbia in the Northeast Association of State Transportation Officials (NASTO) region, these entries are part of 113 nominations from 35 state DOTs in this year's overall competition.

Sponsored by the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO), the America's Transportation Awards highlights transportation projects that deliver meaningful community benefits. Projects are judged in four categories-Quality of Life/Community Development, Operations Excellence, Best Use of Technology & Innovation, and Safety-demonstrating transportation's vital role for drivers, cyclists, pedestrians, rail users, and transit riders alike.

"The America's Transportation Awards shine a spotlight on the vital projects state DOTs deliver for their communities to enhance safety, expand mobility for users, deliver a better quality of life for residents and visitors, and keep our economy moving," said AASHTO Executive Director Jim Tymon. "The America's Transportation Awards competition continues to show us that state DOTs are able to transform communities in a variety of ways. And as Congress works toward a new federal surface transportation bill, lawmakers need to only look at the tangible benefits that states deliver to their customers through examples like these winners to see why robust federal funding to states is so important."

This year, AASHTO also asked nominees about the impact of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) on their projects to showcase the importance of federal investment in the nation's transportation systems.

Many of the NASTO regional winners were directly impacted by this historic law, highlighting the vital role the next federal surface transportation law will play in continuing the progress in making communities safer and providing mobility and access for all.

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 Derby-Shelton Bridge Pedestrian and Bicyclist Access Improvements (Quality of Life/Community Development, Small Project)
• Pennsylvania's Department of Transportation's Crawford Avenue Bridge Rehabilitation (Quality of Life/Community Development, Medium Project)
• New York State Department of Transportation's Rehabilitation of the Kingston-Port Ewen Suspension Bridge (Quality of Life/Community Development, Medium Project)
• New Jersey Department of Transportation's Route 1, CR522 to Thomas Avenue Hard Shoulder Running Pilot Project (Operations Excellence, Small Project)
• Connecticut Department of Transportation's Fairfield Avenue Bridge (Operations Excellence, Medium Project)
• Pennsylvania Department of Transportation's Pennsylvania's First Digitally Delivered Bridge (Best Use of Technology & Innovation, Small Project)
• New Jersey Department of Transportation's Maintenance Dredging and Channel Improvements (Best Use of Technology & Innovation, Medium Project)
• Maryland Department of Transportation's Model Complete Streets Initiative (Safety, Small Project)
• Delaware Department of Transportation's SR 299, SR 1 to Catherine Street Project Widening Project (Safety, Medium Project)
• Connecticut Department of Transportation's Wrong Way Driver Detection System (Safety, Medium Project)

Following the NASTO competition, additional regional competitions will continue throughout the summer. Once all regional winners are announced, the top three scoring projects in each region will advance to the Top 12, which will be revealed in early September. These standout projects will then compete for two national honors in the 2025 America's Transportation Awards.

The Grand Prize will be chosen by an independent panel of judges, while the People's Choice Award will be decided through online public voting. AASHTO will reveal both winners at its annual meeting in November 2025 in Salt Lake City. Each winning project will receive $10,000 to donate to a scholarship fund or charitable cause of their choice.

Visit https://americastransportationawards.org/ to learn more about this year's NASTO nominees.

Contact: Allie Freedman at afreedman@aashto.org or 202-624-3690