MnDOT is putting speed cameras in highway work zones, starting this summer. The department will run a work-zone speed safety camera pilot under a state law that authorizes the program from August 2025 through July 2029. Cameras go up in as many as four work zones across 2026 and 2027, with the first two operating this summer on northbound Interstate 35W in Burnsville and Highway 65 near Braham. From 2021 through 2025, speeding factored into 38 percent of the state’s work-zone crashes, which caused 600 injuries and 22 deaths, and, according to MnDOT, automated speed enforcement has cut death and serious-injury crashes by 19 to 56 percent in other states. The pilot lands raises the stakes on temporary traffic control design and work-zone safety on active projects, where crews work feet from live traffic, and it opens a four-year record that could shape whether Minnesota moves toward automated enforcement that carries real penalties.
Sources: MnDOT Traffic Safety Cameras; Government Technology, July 2026
FUNDING A $120 million federal technology grant closes to applicants Monday, and Minnesota agencies are assembling bids now. FHWA’s Advanced Transportation Technology and Innovation program, known as ATTAIN, is taking applications through July 27 for its combined fiscal 2025 and 2026 round, with about $60 million available in this cycle and awards capped at $12 million per recipient per year. Eligible applicants are public entities (e.g., state and local governments, transit agencies, metropolitan planning organizations, toll and port authorities, and research consortiums), and a local match is required with no waiver. The money funds deployment of intelligent transportation systems, vehicle-to-infrastructure communication, infrastructure monitoring, and connected-corridor technology. Firms do not apply directly, but the agencies that do lean on consultants to scope and stand up these systems, so an ATTAIN award for MnDOT, the Met Council, or a metro city typically converts into ITS and technology engineering work. With the deadline days away, any Minnesota application is in final assembly this week.
Sources: AASHTO Journal, July 17; USDOT, ATTAIN program
Temporary traffic control (TTC). The system of signs, signals, channelizing devices, pavement markings, and work-zone layouts that guides drivers and protects workers through a construction or maintenance zone, governed in Minnesota by the state MUTCD and MnDOT’s standards. TTC design sets the taper lengths, buffer spaces, and reduced speed limits a work zone runs on, which is what MnDOT’s cameras are meant to reinforce. As enforcement tightens around work-zone speeds, the assumptions built into the traffic control plan, and how well drivers actually hold to them, carry more weight.
Build your bench: ACEC Minnesota’s Leadership Development Series for mid-career professionals runs September 2026 through April 2027 in a 24-person cohort, and the four-session Emerging Leaders program for early-career staff runs this October and November.
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