The American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials Center for Environmental Excellence will host a virtual peer exchange discussing alternative project delivery and the National Environmental Policy Act or NEPA process on March 8 from 1:30 pm to 4:30 pm eastern.
That exchange will feature representatives from Minnesota, Pennsylvania, and Utah sharing their experiences using alternative project delivery methods, such as public-private partnerships or P3s and design-build contracts.
The discussion will highlight best practices when using alternative delivery methods as well as discuss the experiences of those states navigating the NEPA process when using an alternative delivery method.
The exchange also includes a question and answer session once the state presentations conclude.
To register for this virtual peer exchange, click here.
Transportation Electrification Focus of NASEO Conference
The National Association of State Energy Officials 2022 Policy Outlook Conference held in Washington D.C. February 8-11 focused in part on the ways states and federal agencies can work together to support transportation electrification.
[Above photo by AASHTO]
Jim Tymon, executive director of the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials, participated in a panel discussion on February 10 regarding how states are ramping up support for the construction of a nationwide network of electric vehicle or EV chargers.
[Editor’s note: The U.S. Department of Transportation and U.S. Department of Energy formally launched a new National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure or “NEVI” formula program on February 10 as well that will provide nearly $5 billion over five years to help states create a national network of some 500,000 electric vehicle-charging stations.]
During the panel, Tymon noted that AASHTO has formed two inter-committee “working groups” to aid efforts by state departments of transportation around the country to support the Biden administration’s plan to build 500,000 EV chargers by 2030.
Those two AASHTO-led groups – the EV Inter-Committee Working Group and EV Practitioner’s Working Group – seek to address what Tymon called the “technical and logistical challenges” facing the administration’s plan to build 500,000 EV chargers within the next eight years. He noted that AASHTO addresses many of these issues in letters sent to the Federal Highway Administration on January 14 and January 28.
AASHTO Executive Director Jim Tymon speaking to NASEO
“Our members … understand that the [EV charger] buildout needs to be consistent and coordinated across the country in order to provide reliable and accessible service to all EV drivers,” Tymon explained in written remarks prepared ahead of the conference.
“For example, chargers need to be universal so that any vehicle can use them; the chargers need to be reliable with uptimes of at least 95 percent; and payment methods need to be consistent, uniform, and available to all members of the public,” he said.
Moreover, while consistency is important, he said this build-out effort requires “flexibility” in certain areas. “For example, rural communities are going to have different needs than urban corridors,” he emphasized. “In order for efficient implementation to occur, states will need the flexibility to implement plans that meet the needs of their communities, while keeping the bigger picture in mind.”
Tymon pointed out that collaboration between state agencies such as state DOTs and state energy offices “will be instrumental” in achieving the goals set out in the $7.5 billion EV program established by the $1.2 Trillion Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act signed into law in November 2021.
“AASHTO looks forward to doing what we can to support our members as they continue these successful relationships with their sister agencies and regionally with their peers across state lines,” he said. “No one sector can be successful on its own. This is a massive undertaking and continual communication – of challenges and concerns, best practices and lessons learned – will be key to the success of this huge implementation project.”
State DOTs ‘Plow Ahead’ With Plow Naming Contests
For those transportation professionals who believe engaging with the public is tantamount to poking a stick at sleeping dogs and hornets’ nests, “Snowprah Winfrey,” “Alice Scooper,” and “Hans Snowlo” insist it really is “Snow Big Deal.”
[Pictured above: South Dakota DOT’s Bruce Thiewes at the wheel of “Control/Salt/Delete,” a truck/tow/plow unit based in the Watertown, SD, area. Photo by the South Dakota DOT.]
Those are just some of the winning entries from citizens in “Name the Snowplow” contests that state departments of transportation have staged this winter. So far, at least seven states – Colorado, Connecticut, Michigan, Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Vermont – are holding contests that have produced gems such as “The Scrape Gatsby,” “The Big Leplowski,” and “Snowbegone Kenobi.”
While the contests may seem frivolous, there is a serious purpose behind them, according to Jake Loesch of the Minnesota Department of Transportation.
Minnesota Department of Transportation
“We’ve been able to have fun with a lighthearted contest but deliver an important message along the way about safety and driving tips when snowplow drivers are out working,” said Loesch, Minnesota DOT’s director of communications and public engagement.
The agency recently wrapped up its second-ever “Name a Snowplow” contest. After plowing through nearly 60,000 votes, the Minnesota DOT noted in a statement that it selected eight winners based on vote totals: Betty Whiteout; Ctrl Salt Delete; The Big Leplowski; Plowasaurus Rex; Scoop Dogg; Blizzard of Oz; No More Mr. Ice Guy; and Edward Blizzardhands.
The snowplow-naming contest trend appears to have begun in Scotland, where every year since 2006, annual public contests come up with names for what the Scots call “gritters,” which explains why “Gritney Spears” is a past winner.
Inspired by the Scots, the Michigan Department of Transportation held its first snowplow-naming contest in 2021, and Jeff Cranson – the agency’s communications director – said the public reaction proved tremendous.
“Levels of community engagement are always difficult to gauge, even if you have the resources to commit to truly scientific surveys,” he noted. “But I would say any [state] DOT initiative that prompts more than 15,000 responses, and counting demonstrates a connection with some part of the audience.”
Sometimes, the connection is an unexpected one. When a South Dakota Department of Transportation crew took a snowplow to an elementary school as part of the contest, they did not know that the teacher was the daughter of a recently deceased South Dakota DOT snowplow driver. The connection resulted in warm memories for the teacher and a favorable article in the local newspaper.
“That’s why we do the contest,” said Julie Stevenson, South Dakota DOT’s strategic communications coordinator. “We use the contest as a way to share vital information. The ultimate goal is to humanize the snowplow operators.”
The New York State Department of Transportation aimed for a similar goal with its first snowplow-naming contest in 2021. The winning name, “Howe’s Plow,” honors Dennis “Matt” Howe, a highway worker killed in a work zone in 2019. Now, one plow truck in each NYSDOT region will bear the name “Howe’s Plow” in his memory.
New York State Department of Transportation
“It’s a fitting tribute to Matt’s memory that more than two-thirds of the votes cast in this contest went to Howe’s Plow,” said NYSDOT Commissioner Marie Therese Dominguez in a statement. “I hope it serves as a reminder to drivers to slow down and move over for the safety of the mothers, fathers, sons, and daughters driving plows and doing other essential road work year-round to keep travelers safe.”
Other state DOTs are using snowplow-naming efforts in roadway safety campaigns. For example, amid a dramatic spike in snowplow strikes statewide in 2021, the Idaho Transportation Department launched a safety campaign centered on a caricature dubbed “Mr. Snowplow.”
“We were concerned with what we were seeing on the roads, with four hits in the span of just 10 days, so we began a short-term campaign to raise awareness,” explained Justin Smith, the agency’s public information officer for districts 5 and 6 in East Idaho, in a statement.
The campaign included multiple social media posts, press releases, interviews with local media, and a poem written by the spouse of one of the department’s snowplow drivers entitled “Mr. Snowplow, you are loved.” The poem went viral, with shares across the country and in Canada, and helped the agency’s safety campaign not only raise motorist awareness of snowplows and the dangers of passing them but reduced snowplow strikes dramatically as well.
The Wyoming Department of Transportation is conducting a similar campaign, issuing a “top 10 list” of things its snowplow operators want motorists to know in regards to driving around snow removal equipment, along with video highlighting how the agency gears up to “fight” snow and ice on the roads every winter.
https://youtu.be/b_xel_iCwYI
Michigan DOT’s Cranson said snowplow-naming contests demonstrate that “the majority of people appreciate important work, like clearing roads of ice and snow to assure safe passage.”
Minnesota is just starting its contest this year. Minnesota DOT’s Loesch – who said his agency’s snowplow naming contest received more than 13,000 entries on its first day – would “strongly recommend” that other agencies hold such contests of their own.
“It’s a fun, simple way to engage the public that doesn’t present much risk to the agency,” he noted.
Connecticut DOT Makes Sustainability Central to Capital Plan
The Connecticut Department of Transportation is making sustainability central to its new interim five-year Capital Plan, covering fiscal years 2022 through 2026.
[Above photo by the Connecticut DOT]
The agency said the interim plan includes $2.25 billion in total capital program funding for the fiscal year 2022, which began October 1, 2021, including approximately $1.36 billion for roadway and bridge infrastructure, $844 million for bus and rail, and $49 million in support of agency facility repairs and improvements.
Connecticut DOT added that its “new focus” within the new interim plan is on reducing greenhouse gas emissions, protecting natural and community resources, and improving the health and safety of residents – a focus that includes investments in public transportation plus bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure.
“Strategic investments in infrastructure, increased access to public transportation, and new initiatives that reduce our carbon emissions are critically important to economic growth in Connecticut and the health and safety of residents,” explained Joseph Giulietti, commissioner for the Connecticut DOT, in a statement.
“Our interim five-year plan demonstrates our ongoing commitment to safety, equity, and resiliency,” he said. “As we emerge from the pandemic, we will do so stronger and with the support we need.”
The Connecticut DOT also noted it operates more than 2,500 traffic signals – more than all other New England states combined – and is embarking on a 10-year program to upgrade the system to reduce transportation emissions and better meet the mobility needs of all roadway users.
Where public transportation is concerned, the agency said ridership continues to rebound from the COVID-19 pandemic, with rail ridership at approximately 50 percent and bus ridership over 70 percent of pre-COVID levels. Given new trends in commuter needs, such as more telework options, Connecticut DOT said focusing its transit funding on “service improvement and customer experience” projects.
Finally, the agency is aligning its funding with an executive order signed by Governor Ned Lamont (D) in December 2021 directing Connecticut DOT and all other state agencies to take “actionable steps” to reduce carbon emissions.
As a result, projects included in Connecticut DOT’s interim five-year plan that directly reduce emissions and improve air quality include installing more electric vehicle charging stations, installing solar power at agency facilities, plus expanding the Community Connectivity Grant Program to build-out accessible sidewalks, crosswalks, and bike infrastructure, while converting its transit fleet to electric buses.
Arizona DOT: Highway Litter Increasing in Maricopa County
The Arizona Department of Transportation, along with its maintenance contractors, picked up 118,578 bags or 811 tons of trash along freeways in Maricopa County in 2021.
[Above photo by the Arizona DOT]
Unfortunately, the agency said that represents a continuing increase in litter collected from 250 miles of state highway in Maricopa County. During the past five years, Arizona DOT litter has steadily increased along state freeways in Maricopa County. In 2017, the agency said it picked up 80,442 bags of litter compared to the 118,578 bags in 2021 – a 47 percent increase.
“Drivers can help out by simply not littering,” said Mary Currie, who manages Arizona DOT’s Adopt a Highway program, in a statement. “Don’t toss that burger wrapper, paper cup or cigarette butt out of the window. All of those seemingly small and insignificant items build up over time creating safety issues.”
Some of those safety issues include blockages of stormwater drainage grates, sometimes preventing water from flowing freely to retention basins, drainage channels or pump stations. That can cause standing water to build in low-lying locations along freeways. Over time, litter also can negatively affect the operation of pumps that remove storm runoff along some Phoenix-area freeways.
Several other state departments of transportation are also witnessing similar increases in highway litter.
For example, the North Carolina Department of Transportation said that by November 2021, its crews, contractors, and volunteers collected more than 12 million pounds of litter from state roadways, surpassing the previous trash-collection record of 10.5 million pounds in 2019.
The Pennsylvania Department of Transportation specifically expanded its “routine” litter pickup operations statewide through the Labor Day holiday in 2021, especially on higher-traffic roadways where volunteer groups cannot safely pick up litter, in order to deal with increased trash accumulation along state roadways.
“Every dollar we have to spend on litter cleanup is a dollar we cannot invest in our system,” PennDOT Secretary Yassmin Gramian explained in a statement at the time – noting that her agency spends roughly $14 million annually on statewide litter removal efforts.
Nevada DOT Launches Latino Cultural Preservation Project
The Nevada Department of Transportation and contractor Mead & Hunt are working to develop a “multiple property documentation form” or MPDF to help preserve Latino-related properties statewide, with a primary focus on the cities of Las Vegas and Reno.
[Above image via the Nevada DOT]
“This is an exciting new project that will pave the way for similar DOT projects throughout the country to preserve the rich cultural fabric of our communities across Nevada,” explained Cliff Creger, Nevada DOT’s chief of cultural resources, in a statement. “We are seeking input from the public on the important people and places to northern and southern Nevada’s Latino communities.”
He added that the resulting MPDF from that outreach seeks to reflect the way the Latino community defines the importance and use of properties. It also would cover how such properties are directly associated with Latino “themes” as well as their chronological periods in the historic contexts and/or which physical features convey distinctive design features.
The goal of the project is to build relationships within the Latino community, integrate the outreach findings and program into the MPDF, then develop a historical context for future transportation projects in Nevada.
This project also aims to “understand, explore, and propose criteria” to improve the “evaluation eligibility” of historical properties based on the Latino community’s unique past, standards, and values, the agency added.
“We understand that the architectural history representation of the Latino culture is unique to its own past and can be understood from its own standards and values,” Creger noted.
This particular cultural outreach project undertaken by Nevada DOT is reflective of similar efforts by state departments of transportation nationwide.
For example, the Colorado Department of Transportation debuted a documentary called “Durango 550 – Path of the Ancestral Puebloans” in January to show how the agency worked with archaeologists and regional Native American tribes to document, study, and ultimately share the discoveries unearthed near Durango in southwest Colorado.
That particular archaeological excavation took place in 2018 and 2019 ahead of construction on the US 550-US 160 Connection South project in 2020.
“This documentary shows the unique collaboration of all entities involved, laying the groundwork for a new approach to archaeology, blending western science with traditional cultural beliefs,” explained Greg Wolff, a Colorado DOT archaeologist, in a statement.
In July 2021, the Ohio Department of Transportation helped open the new 54-mile-long Quaker Heritage Scenic Byway that seeks to foster a “new awareness” of cultural and historical diversity in rural southwest Ohio with stops along the way telling the story of Quakers who migrated to the region from the late 18th to the late 20th centuries.
That project helped reveal numerous layers of local history such as Quaker interactions with Native American communities, agriculture and land use, abolitionism, and religious practices – all identified through historical research, digital mapping, and told through “interactive” narratives.
Finally, the latest episode of the Environmental Technical Assistance Program or ETAP Podcast discussed ways state DOT cultural resources programs are exploring to identify and preserve homes built in the 30 years following World War II that may have potential historical significance.
AASHTO Comments on Latest Proposed WOTUS Revisions
The American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials submitted a seven-page letter on February 2 to the Department of the U.S. Army and the Office of Water Oceans, Wetlands, and Communities Division within the Environmental Protection Agency to comment on the latest proposed revisions to Waters of the United States or WOTUS regulations.
[Above photo by the Ohio DOT]
The foremost concern expressed by AASHTO in its letter focused on the “need to clarify the standards used for determining the jurisdictional status of roadside ditches” so that the latest proposed WOTUS rule changes “clearly exclude” the overwhelming majority of roadside ditches.
“Unlike previous iterations of regulations defining WOTUS for which the agencies extended the public comment period, this proposed rule makes numerous changes to the pre-2015 definition of WOTUS, and relies on supporting documents including a 250-page Technical Support Document and 177-page Economic Analysis,” AASHTO emphasized. “But [it] does not give the public sufficient time to fully digest and understand the agencies’ proposal and submit comments.”
The debate over changes to WOTUS regulations spans several years. In September 2019, EPA and the Department of the Army – representing the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers – repealed and ended what they described as a “regulatory patchwork” that required implementing two competing sets of Clean Water Act rules, which created a regulatory burden across the United States, especially for transportation projects.
The EPA and Department of the Army published a proposed rule in February 2019 as part of the second step in this process – developing a new WOTUS definition that would “clearly define” where federal jurisdiction begins and ends in accordance with the Clean Water Act and Supreme Court precedent.
In that proposal, the agencies said at the time they would provide a “clear definition” of the difference between federally regulated waterways and those waters that rightfully remain solely under state authority.
EPA and the Department of the Army then published a final rule in April 2020 defining the scope of waters federally regulated under the Clean Water Act, while adhering to Congress’ policy directive to preserve states’ primary authority over land and water resources.
When that new final rule went into effect, it replaced the rule published in 2019 that formally repealed a regulatory effort initiated in 2015 to expand the WOTUS definition under the Clean Water Act.
However, the EPA and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers – via a broad environmental directive issued by President Biden in January 2021 – began an entirely new WOTUS revision process in November 2021, first to repeal the 2020-era rule and then to design a brand new WOTUS regulatory framework.
The constant back-and-forth changes to WOTUS regulations are the main concern of AASHTO and state DOTs, as it impedes the ability to effectively plan transportation projects.
“We caution that any final rule should truly be final, to the extent possible,” AASHTO said in its February 2 letter. “Frequent rule changes – especially of the magnitude characterizing the WOTUS definition – can be damaging to our members, because uncertainty has a substantial impact on transportation projects that often have a long lead time.”
AASHTO also expressed “concern” with the suggestion by the EPA and Department of the Army that an “anticipated second rule” would seek to “further refine” the test for WOTUS and “build upon the regulatory foundation” of the initial rule now being proposed.
“A second rule that does not focus solely on clearly defining WOTUS but instead introduces new concepts, standards, or requirements that go beyond the case law will increase the probability of confusion, additional lawsuits, and the need for additional changes in the future, further harming our members’ ability to plan for projects,” the organization said.
