PennDOT District 4 Project Receives Award for Best Use of Technology and Innovation

PennDOT Engineering District 4, comprised of Lackawanna, Luzerne, Pike, Susquehanna, Wayne and Wyoming counties, received recognition from the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) in 2025 for its innovative work on the Milwaukee Road Bridge Replacement Over Gardner Creek project in Lackawanna County, earning the award for "Best Use of Technology and Innovation."

This project, which replaced a 32-foot steel girder bridge with a 52-foot prestressed concrete bridge, was the first in Pennsylvania to utilize PennDOT's Digital Delivery 2025 initiative. This initiative aims to modernize the delivery of infrastructure projects by incorporating digital data and 3D technology and establish digital modeling as the standard approach for future projects.

Led by Assistant Construction Engineer John Pivovarnick and Transportation Construction Supervisor Pat Krajewski, the team designed, bid, and built the bridge using a fully digital model instead of traditional 2D paper plans.

"We are proud of the hard work Pat and John put into this innovative and state-of-the-art project," said Assistant District Executive for Construction Harold Hill, P.E. "We look forward to designing and delivering more projects in the future using the Digital Delivery technology."

Using 3D models to guide the construction process provides significantly more data than traditional paper plans. The 3D model allows the contractor access to all the design information on tablets rather than the limited information traditionally supplied by conventional paper plans, and to-scale illustrations were created to guide crews through the sequence of construction.

The new bridge was completed and opened to traffic in June 2024, ahead of schedule, due to effective teamwork and Digital Delivery methods.