Eligibility
Any public or private organization engaged in highway or transportation engineering or construction in Western Pennsylvania is eligible to enter the awards program. Submitted projects must be directly related to transportation. Eligible project types include highways, bridges, traffic signals, intelligent transportation systems (ITS), railroads, public transit, bikeways, pedestrian enhancements and ADA compliance, and multi-use paths. Entries must be submitted to ASHE through a member of the Southwest Penn Section.
Project entered in the competition must be within the Southwest Penn Section (Greene, Fayette, Washington, and Westmoreland Counties).
Project construction must have been substantially completed, or be scheduled for substantial completion, between January 1st, 2026, and December 31st, 2026.
Each entry must be prepared in accordance with these Criteria (Page 1) and Entry Form (Page 2).
See Page 3 of application for Rating Guidelines.
Entries and accompanying photographs submitted for judging will not be returned.
The ASHE Southwest Penn Technical Committee reserves the right to determine eligibility of all entries.
Submittals shall be provided in PDF format by email, with photos supplied at high resolution. Photo captions must appear in the PDF submission but not on the individual image files. Photos may be incorporated into the PDF; however, full-resolution images may be requested later.
Categories
Any highway/transportation construction project within the following construction cost categories:
Category A:
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Less than $5,000,000
Category B:
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$5,000,000 and greater, but less than $10,000,000
Category C:
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$10,000,000 and greater, but less than $30,000,000
Category D:
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$30,000,000 and greater
Awards
The owner, the designer, and the contractor of the winning entry in each category will receive a plaque acknowledging their achievement. The ASHE Project of the Year Awards will be presented at the January 2027 monthly ASHE Southwest Penn meeting. The winner in each category will be asked to provide a brief presentation (15-20 minutes) at a future ASHE Southwest Penn Meeting.
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In addition, the scores for the winning projects will be evaluated, and the highest-ranked projects in each 2026 ASHE National Awards category will be forwarded to the ASHE Northeast Region as the Southwest Penn Section's candidate projects. The Region will consider these projects for submission to ASHE National. If necessary, candidate projects may be required to revise their materials to meet the National submission criteria.
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Judging: Entries will be judged based on the submitted application according to the weighted Rating Guidelines on Page 3 of the application.
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Deadline: Entries must be received by 5:00PM on November 20th, 2026. Late entries will not be accepted.
