ADOT gets $1M federal grant to create online transportation data portal

PHOENIX – Arizona received a $1 million federal grant to create an online data portal that will consolidate information about transportation in the region between Phoenix and the Mexican border.

The portal will bring together transportation-related data from the Arizona Department of Transportation, the Maricopa Association of Governments (the Phoenix region’s planning agency for transportation and other public policy) and other metropolitan organizations in area known as the Sun Corridor.

The data gathered will come from Maricopa, Pinal, Pima, Santa Cruz and Cochise counties, including the Phoenix and Tucson areas.

The portal, called Sun Cloud, will help leaders decide how to make investments that improve safety and mobility on Sun Corridor roadways and make it easier to complete environmental reviews.

“One of the beauties of this is it’s going to be used not only by people who plan our transportation system in the Sun Corridor; the information will be available to the general public,” ADOT spokesman Steve Elliott told KTAR News 92.3 FM on Monday.

Elliott said the data could be of use to potential home buyers researching an area, college students, business owners and others.

“You might want to know what traffic is like on key roads in that area,” he said. “There’s also socioeconomic data that we use for transportation planning that might be helpful.”

Funding for Sun Cloud came from a block of $8.4 million in Federal Highway Administration Accelerated Innovation Deployment Demonstration grants. Eight other states also received grants.

The Maricopa Association of Governments will manage the project.

“When it’s ready we will have an announcement for the public on when they can make use of this,” Elliott said.

KTAR News 92.3 FM’s Ashley Flood contributed to this report.

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