Sunland Asphalt was awarded the 2017 Arizona Transportation Partnering Excellence Award for the Arizona Department of Transportation (ADOT) SR-260 Woods Canyon Lake to Forest Lakes project.

Sunland, ADOT, ADOT’s consultants, our subcontractors and the various agencies involved went above and beyond to safely complete this project on-time and under budget, despite numerous challenges including:

Schedule: The project schedule was subject to numerous obstacles throughout the duration of the project. From cooler than anticipated weather that delayed the start of the project, to a tight window for the project to be completed between the major Holiday of Memorial Day, 4th of July and the Cedar Creek Fire. Despite the scheduling obstacles the job was completed within contract time and without impacting the major holiday traffic weekends.

Remote Location: This project was over an hour away from the asphalt plant. Our team developed a schedule and traffic control plans to efficiently move the trucks through the project site ensuring continuous operations while monitoring key quality control metrics.

Traffic Control: Northern Arizona is a destination for many trying to escape the heat in the Valley. This segment of SR-260 is the gateway to northeastern Arizona’s beautiful rim country and the White Mountains. The closest alternate routes are hours out of the way leaving traffic no option but to travel through the work zone. Sunland-ADOT cooperatively worked together to implement traffic control plans that would minimize the use of flagger stations which allowed for ample notifications of road work ahead and minimal delays.

Cedar Creek Fire: The Cedar Creek fire of 2016 on the White Mountain Apache Reservation land resulted in the evacuation of thousands of people. This segment of SR-260 was identified as a main evacuation route for the Pinetop – Lakeside and Show Low communities. There was a one week period where the project was shut down as evacuation orders were implemented.

Congratulations to everyone who contributed to the successful partnering of this project including Rick Risner (Sunland), Matt Johnson (Sunland), Michael Thompson (Sunland), Manny Martinez (Sunland), Asia Flood (Sunland), David Noll (Sunland), Gary LesSueur (Sunland), Mike Carrasco (Sunland), Tom Goodman (ADOT), Jack Tagler (ADOT), John Lenzmeier (ADOT), and Susan Mona (ADOT).

Check out some photos from the project: