TUCSON, Ariz. (13 News) – The future of southern Arizona roads is now partly in the hands of university students.
ADOT has been working to find ways for drivers to stay safe and now, they’re getting a few more opinions.
“Not just to conduct that research but come up with ideas that we hadn’t even thought of,” Arizona Department of Transportation spokesperson Steve Elliot said.
It’s part of the new Arizona Transportation Institute. It will task the University of Arizona, Arizona State, and Northern Arizona with performing research in areas like safety, sustainability, and efficiency.
“All of us can benefit from a big pool of experts, and the talented students, and the faculty members working together,” AZTI Executive Director Yao-Jan Wu said.
Together, they will create well-researched ideas to find new solutions to old problems.
“Who can come up with ideas and we can review them and choose the ones that work best for us and fund them,” Elliott said.
ADOT said it is already starting to review some of the work that all three universities have provided and said it feels optimistic about the partnership.
“I was very impressed and hopeful,” Elliott said. “Not even hopeful, I knew it was going to go great but I was very impressed with the quality of the ideas.”
The money they’re giving to the universities will help build up the schools pointing ADOT in a new direction.
“Arizona needs more engineers,” Wu said. “We don’t produce enough, so AZTI is going to produce more engineers for our state.”
The institute will be based in southern Arizona at the University of Arizona.
AZTI said seeing the progress will take some time but will slowly but surely be a part of your everyday commute.
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