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MnDOT program wins international award [UPDATED]
Published 9:55am Monday, November 19, 2012 Updated 11:59am Monday, November 19, 2012The Minnesota Department of Transportation has won an award for its Better Roads for a Better Minnesota infrastructure improvement program from the International Road Federation. MnDOT will receive the award in January 2013 at the Annual IRF Awards Luncheon in Washington, D.C.
“It is a significant honor to win this award,” said MnDOT Commissioner Tom Sorel. “Transportation agencies and businesses from across the world compete. It says a great deal about Minnesota’s innovative transportation engineering and delivery efforts.”
Initiated in 2011, the Better Roads for a Better Minnesota is a four-year program that will:
• Improve more than 700 miles of roads
• Upgrade transit in the Twin Cities metro area, including MnPASS expansion and shoulder hardening for transit
• Increase safety and ADA accessibility while improving infrastructure such as drainage facilities
• Explore innovative engineering and delivery techniques to get the most for the taxpayer dollar
• Provide jobs for Minnesota citizens
“This program is one of MnDOT’s key efforts to address state road pavement conditions, which our research and performance measures tell us are declining faster than our investments can keep up,” Sorel said. “The Better Roads program allows us to get the highest return on our transportation investments by exploring use of innovative methods of contracting, design and construction.”
The award is part of the IRF’s annual Global Roads Achievement Awards program. Better Roads won in the Project Finance and Economics category. Entries in this category are judged on planning, innovative funding, constructing and/or operating a project in a cost efficient manner.
For more information about the Better Roads for a Better Minnesota program, see www.dot.state.mn.us/betterroads/.
IRF is a non-governmental, not-for-profit organization with the mission to encourage and promote development and maintenance of better, safer and more sustainable roads and road networks.
