This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2011, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

It may seem longer for commuters dodging construction, but the project to rebuild Interstate 15 in Utah County completed one full year of construction this week.

What the Utah Department of Transportation calls the state's largest-ever highway project — stretching 24 miles between Lehi and Spanish Fork — is now one-third complete, and still on schedule for completion in December 2012.

"The project has overcome many challenges due to the unusually high precipitation during the winter and spring seasons," said Dal Hawks, project director. "Yet we have remained on schedule, and in some cases, have completed tasks ahead of schedule."

UDOT on Thursday released a list of milestones that the I-15 Corridor Expansion (I-15 CORE) project has completed during the year. That includes:

• Pouring 428,298 square yards of concrete paving (covering 60 lane miles), using 4 million tons of fill dirt, and installing 21.4 miles of drainage pipe.

• Employing 1,560 people on the construction and management team, making the project among the 15 largest employers in Utah County. Workers on the project have logged more than 2.5 million labor hours.

• Moving into place all six of the bridges that were built off-site and moved using self propelled modular transporters. UDOT has moved 25 such bridges statewide in recent years to reduce disruption to traffic, nearly double the number of bridges moved by all other states combined.

• Completing the longest two-span bridge move in the Western Hemisphere at Sam White Lane in American Fork.

• Conducting 93 percent of total lane closures and restrictions on I-15 at night to reduce inconvenience.

• Shifting traffic onto new concrete pavement in two, three-mile sections in American Fork and Springville.

• Opening the first two of 63 total bridges on the project at Proctor Lane and 2700 North in Spanish Fork.

• Beginning construction on all 10 interchanges.

By the end of 2011, crews plan to have all 24 miles of I-15 traffic shifted onto new concrete pavement.

Other planned work in the next year of construction includes closure of the American Fork 500 East interchange to construct a new "diverging diamond" interchange; opening new bridges at Sam White Lane and 200 South in Lindon; and more changes at Provo Center Street and US-6 interchanges.

The project, of course, also became controversial politically. It was a hot topic in last year's gubernatorial race when Provo River Constructors won the $1.1 billion contract for it after its principals gave $87,500 to Gov. Gary Herbert's election campaign, and UDOT gave $13 million to a losing bidder that claimed the agency tweaked bid scoring to rob it of the contract by one point.

State Auditor Auston Johnson earlier this month released an audit saying it could not conclude whether bidding had been fair because of lack of documentation and the subjectivity of the process.