I-70 PROJECTS WEBSITE

CONSTRUCTION, DESIGN , INFRASTRUCTURE, GOVERNMENT, INSTITUTIONS, MUNICIPAL

Challenge

When Engineering District 12-0 of the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation (PennDOT District 12) embarked on an aggressive $750 million regional effort to modernize 58 miles of Interstate-70 in Washington and Westmoreland Counties, Pennsylvania they tasked McCormick Taylor to design a corridor-specific website to keep the public abreast of the changes as they occur. Some roadway and bridge sections of I-70 in southwestern PA were constructed more than 60 years ago and are part of the oldest section of Interstate highway in the United States. As a result, PennDOT was frequently monitoring the conditions of the Interstate to identify priority rehabilitation and reconstruction needs to improve safety and better accommodate today's motor vehicles with the goal of addressing the following:

Replace or rehabilitate existing deteriorating bridges
Upgrade existing interchange acceleration and deceleration ramps
Improve the roadway geometry
Replace bridges with less than 16'6" under clearance
Improve interchange traffic flow

Highway modernization efforts of this scale do not come easy and are not without some inconvenience to the motoring public and residents of adjacent communities who live, work and recreate in the region.

How We Helped:

McCormick Taylor’s Communications Services Group developed the branding package for the online presence, designed and built the website www.I-70project.com. The site contains webpages dedicated to each of the approximately 30 separate projects, which comprise the modernization effort, and provides 24/7 access to the general public to monitor progress of all projects from engineering through design and construction. Website visitors access all projects directly from an interactive corridor map of I-70 on the home page, where PennDOT’s overall modernization effort is explained.

Results:

The I-70 Projects website serves as a “one-stop shop” for the public to access the most up-to-date information for each I-70 project in PennDOT Engineering District 12. It also serves as a medium to host virtual and hybrid project public and stakeholder meetings. For public meetings, pages are easily organized and informational content including narrated, captioned PowerPoint presentations, graphic displays, interactive mapping, sign-in in sheets, project brochures and surveys populated in a Perch content management system. While an in-person public meeting provides a limited window of opportunity to review content and interact with project team members, the public meeting content is maintained 24/7 on the public meeting web page for the duration of the public comment period, giving the public an extended opportunity to participate in the public engagement process. Project stakeholder meetings are hosted live online, providing the opportunity for stakeholders to engage from the comfort of their homes or workspaces to participate in live conversations in real time with the project team.

The website also proved effective in providing emergency communications for unanticipated traffic restrictions and detours resulting from traffic crashes on I-70. Updated emergency detour information and related graphic mapping of lane closures and detour routes in project work areas, help the motoring public, businesses and residents to plan work arounds to enhance safety as recovery and corrective repairs are undertaken. The immediacy and availability of information during a bridge strike incident that forced the closure of parts of I-70 and Route 51 were recognized as part of a larger recovery effort that received PennDOT’s Quality Award for Innovation.