New source for as-builts: Arizona DOT ROAD

[J N Winkler]

Arizona DOT as-built construction plans (with some as-bid plans as well) are now online, the portal having a name--Repository of Online Archived Documents--that gives rise to a punning acronym:

https://road.azdot.gov/

In principle it should contain everything that is in Engineering Records at Arizona DOT HQ in downtown Phoenix.  I first visited that office in person in the late summer of 2002, when I obtained PDF copies of the 1999 I-19 sign rehabilitation contracts on CD.  This portal is a huge step up in convenience since it allows you simply to download instead of having to have someone do a file pull and burn to optical media.  I stumbled across it shortly after December 25 and, for me, it was a very nice late Christmas present.

For a person interested in current and historical guide signing, Arizona DOT is one of the best agencies to work with because--except for a very brief period in the late 1980's/early 1990's--all of their signing plans have been pattern-accurate.  (MnDOT is the only other agency for which I have found this to be true, albeit with a much narrower gap when they were transitioning from the old Fortran sign drawing software to SignCAD.)

The records go back at least as far as the start of Interstate construction in Arizona.  They may go back further, but my very casual searches of non-Interstate non-freeway routes have not turned up listings with completion dates earlier than 1955 or so.  (Not all metadata is fully populated.)  Searching is available by route, milepost, TRACS, region for statewide contracts (statewide, MAG-wide, PAG-wide), keyword (useful for contracts pre-dating advent of the TRACS system in the early 1980's, if you can find the FAP numbers for the route segments that interest you).  Projects can also be located through GIS (Google Maps/OSM-style interface) and through a "blue book" available for download as a PDF.

There are a very few projects (mainly high-profile structures) for which the only documentation available for download is a "Critical Infrastructure" letter that essentially instructs you to request the plans through ADOT's Risk Management bureau.  I have also tried a few TRACS numbers I have on hand and discovered that in some cases, it can take many years after completion to final out the plans or scan them.  My experience with both this portal and Engineering Records is that plans do become available fairly early for high-profile projects such as the major design-builds in the Phoenix area.  The quality of the PDFs available for download is also somewhat variable.  Newer projects tend to be either plotted PDF with redlines or 24-bit scans of paper plans at varying resolutions, while older projects tend to be bitonal scans, usually at 7200 x 4800.  In the case of some recent projects, letting plans are still available through ADOT's project advertisement portal and these are usually plotted while the as-builts may be 24-bit scans.

[kurumi]

(searches for I-410, I-510, I-710) Awwww. Oh, well.

But I pulled a doc for SR 989 and -- I wish other DOTs were doing what AZDOT is. This is cool.

[Max Rockatansky]

Well this data base will make one hell of an addition when I'm doing my AZ road research.  I didn't even know this was a thing ADOT just provided for public view.

[NE2]

10-MA-148 I-10-3(21) shows the original plan for I-10 across southern Phoenix, with the I-510 stub to Buckeye Road.

Search for 'I-510' in the 'keyword' field to find several actual I-510 ("Phoenix Penetration Route") contracts.

[Mapmikey]

10-MA-148 I-10-3(21) shows the original plan for I-10 across southern Phoenix, with the I-510 stub to Buckeye Road.

Search for 'I-510' in the 'keyword' field to find several actual I-510 ("Phoenix Penetration Route") contracts.

This set of drawings also has US 93 labeled through Phoenix...

[Max Rockatansky]

10-MA-148 I-10-3(21) shows the original plan for I-10 across southern Phoenix, with the I-510 stub to Buckeye Road.

Search for 'I-510' in the 'keyword' field to find several actual I-510 ("Phoenix Penetration Route") contracts.

This set of drawings also has US 93 labeled through Phoenix...

Hence AZ 93.  That would have been a hell of a thing to see five multiplexed US Routes in downtown Phoenix. 

[Zonie]

("Phoenix Penetration Route")

This is the greatest name ever for a freeway.

[kurumi]

("Phoenix Penetration Route")

This is the greatest name ever for a freeway.

Between that and the Superstition Freeway, the Phoenix area is a movie directed by Rob Zombie

[kphoger]

Phoenix Penetration...

...sounds like a mythological occurrence.

[Zonie]

Phoenix Penetration...

...sounds like a mythological occurrence.

Or a title of a Bob Crane home movie...

[J N Winkler]

I've been working with construction plans from the ROAD portal over the past few weeks (about 3000 files downloaded, about 500 processed for signing), and wanted to share a few findings regarding I-510 and exit numbering.  I also have a few meta observations about locating projects.

I-510

NE2 mentioned project I-10-3(21) upthread.  In addition to this, project I-10-3(54) (1967) covered a length of I-10 that includes what is now the SR 143 interchange and had one guide sign with an I-510 shield.  Project I-10-3(52) (1965) included the bridges and paving for what was then the I-10/I-510 wye interchange.  The signing plans called for installation of independent-mount I-510 shields on the appropriate ramps, but most of the overhead large panel signs at the interchange itself were labelled "Future Sign" with no actual messages.  The southeastern I-10/I-17 interchange is now in the same location and is still a wye variant, but when I-10 was re-routed north through what was originally planned as the I-510 corridor, the ramps were reconfigured to remove what would have been a TOTSO for I-10, and I-17 northbound is accessed from westbound I-10 through a right exit.

After plans to build I-510 as an Interstate were abandoned, construction plans for TRACS H008904C (1989) (highlighted link goes only to sheets 901-1000) called for what is now SR 51 to be signed as "Mountain 510" at what is now the Mini-Stack, with a shield consisting of "510" below a stylized depiction of mountain peaks.  Loop 202 was also to have an ordinary state route designation with an Interstate-like number--SR 217.  These signs were apparently cancelled by change order and not installed.

Exit numbering

Arizona DOT implemented exit numbering and mileposting on Interstates in 1970.  Projects I-40-4(86) and I-8-2(58) (both 1969) were among the last not to include exit numbers or mileposts.  Project I-8-1(59) (1970) (covering I-8 through Yuma) was probably the first to install exit numbers, and the plans diagrammed an approach that was probably used nowhere else in Arizona.  The exit tab was to be 4 ft high, with word "EXIT" above the number, and mounted on top of the main sign panel at the left (not right) regardless of exit ramp orientation.  Both exit tab and main sign panel were to have all four corners rounded.  Mileposts were not included, though exit numbers were mileage-based.

Project I-10-6(59) (1970) called for a more conventional approach to exit numbering, with center-mounted tabs, and included mileposts in the familiar vanilla MUTCD style.  Tabs had no bottom border and were 2 ft high (current standard in Arizona is 3 ft, compared to 2 ft 6 in nationally).

In 1977, Arizona changed from center-mounted tabs to right-justified tabs, with the border at the upper right corner of the main sign panel being unrounded.  Project I-8-2(75) (1977) was probably the last to call for centered tabs, while project I-8-1(70) (1977) was likely the first with right-justified tabs.

Until about 1985, the norm in Arizona was to include sign panel details only for the main sign panels in signing plans, exit number tabs being handled through a standard plan sheet.  Now sign panel detail sheets include the complete sign assembly, including exit tab.

Meta

The TRACS project numbering system that Arizona DOT currently uses dates from about 1985, though there is some evidence that TRACS numbers were retroactively assigned to projects in process during the early 1980's (mainly TRACS numbers pencilled in on the title sheet but not included in plan sheet collars, as is the case today).  A typical TRACS number for state highway work is HAAAABBC, where "H" means highway, "AAAA" is a four-digit macro project number, BB is a project phase number, and "C" means construction.  There are non-highway TRACS numbers that substitute a letter appropriate for a different mode for the H--I think A for aviation, R for rail, etc.  In addition to C as the final character, D means design and L means location.  (I think R may also be used for right-of-way acquisition, but I have not seen this in actual TRACS numbers.)  After about thirty years of using the TRACS numbering system, Arizona DOT seems to have exhausted four-digit macro numbers (going from 005X for some of the I-10 completion contracts in the 1980's to 8XXX today), and seems to be opening new series with F and T as the initial character.  There are also TRACS numbers for local agency work, generally of the form SXAAABBC, where X is an alphabetic character and AAA is a macro project number.

As a very rough generalization, TRACS are assigned in loosely chronological sequence and the macro project numbers do not map nicely to route numbers, though there is a tendency to cluster macro numbers for large freeway construction projects spread across multiple jobs (e.g., some Loop 303 projects had consecutive macro numbers) and for certain types of rehabilitation work (e.g., about ten years ago there was a cluster of sign rehabilitation contracts with 77XX macro numbers).  01 is by far the most common project phase number; multiphase projects running to project phase numbers over 10 are less common now than they were in the 1980's and 1990's.

Before the TRACS system was rolled out, Arizona DOT used a variation of FAP numbering for both federal-aid and non-federal-aid projects, and as NE2 alludes to above, these allow older projects to be located through keyword searching.  The usual form is X-A-B(C), where X is a funding code or group of funding codes (I = Interstate, F = federal-aid, NFA = non-federal-aid, etc.), A is the route number for funding purposes (not necessarily the same as the signed route number), B is the section number, and C is an agreement number.  In federal-aid funding contexts, C refers to the agreement under which Arizona DOT submits vouchers to FHWA for reimbursement.  (For old Interstate projects you can find the actual vouchers, usually carefully typewritten in triplicate, in the NARA satellite facility covering the state of interest.)

In the case of Interstates (FAP numbers generally beginning with I or including an I funding code), the funding number is generally the same as the signed number.  For US and state highways, it generally is not:  e.g., various lengths designated as US 60 have had 22 and 28 as funding numbers.  A typical section of a FAP route is usually around 60 to 80 miles in length:  e.g., I-40 had 5 sections, I-10 had 6 sections, etc.  Section numbering follows the same pattern as mileposts--up from south/west.

In cases where a route has been relocated, the ROAD portal appears to keep plans for the old segments available under the last route number assigned to them that still exists in the system.  For example, if you do a search on US 60 under the milepost range that corresponds to the Superstition Freeway, the results will include FAP projects for route-section 22-3 (original city street routing of US 60 in Mesa, Tempe, etc., now no longer on the state system) and 28-1 (Superstition Freeway, originally built as SR 360, with US 60 being moved to it and SR 360 designation being retired around 1990).  It is unclear what happens in cases where highway corridors are removed altogether, though I suspect Arizona DOT still keeps the plans as part of the permanent record (including substantial expenditures) of agency activities.

The ROAD portal has duplicate plans for numerous projects.  The duplicates that are of lower quality can often (not always) be recognized through funding route numbers zero-filled up to three digits.  E.g., for project I-10-2(50) (made up), file 010-2(50)-Rec.Dwg.(2017).pdf is more likely to have issues with too-light scanning, unwanted cropping, etc. than file 10-2(50) RD.pdf.  Not all projects are duplicated, however.

Generally, the best strategy for maximizing search results for a given FAP number is to omit the funding code and all zero filling.