With just two months remaining on the current federal highway and transit program extension, the Americans for Transportation Mobility coalition delivered Wednesday an open letter to Congress pressing for action on a multiyear reauthorization bill. The letter is signed by the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials as well as more than 1,000 companies, other organizations, and chambers of commerce from all 50 states.Wednesday’s letter marked the launch of a multifaceted campaign to tell Congress to “Make Transportation Job #1″ and to pass a highway and transit bill early this spring. Legislation is advancing in the House (see related story) and the Senate (see related story).

“Addressing our transportation challenges is critical to economic growth and national competitiveness,” Janet Kavinoky, vice president of Americans for Transportation Mobility, said in a statement. “Our country can’t get back on its feet economically if we can’t move people and goods efficiently.”

The eighth extension of the 2005 highway and transit authorization law known as “SAFETEA-LU” expires March 31.

“For the last six months, leaders in Washington — both Republicans and Democrats — have repeatedly stated that a surface transportation bill is an important item for the jobs agenda,” Kavinoky said. “It’s time Congress and the president follow words with action and make transportation job number one.”

The ATM coalition is launching an ad campaign in Washington and in key states and districts around the country during the month of February. It will include television, radio, and online ads. The “Make Transportation Job #1″ campaign will also include a radio tour and a grassroots initiative next month. The coalition is a nationwide effort by business, labor, transportation organizations, and concerned citizens to advocate for improved and increased federal investment in the nation’s aging and overburdened transportation system.

“Our message to the Congress is simple: ‘It’s time to do your job,’” Pete Ruane, president of the American Road & Transportation Builders Association, said in a statement. “Pass a properly funded surface transportation bill to kick-start the economy and get America moving again.”

Senate Environment and Public Works Committee Chairwoman Barbara Boxer, D-California, called Wednesday’s letter and its massive amount of signatories “historic in its breadth and width.”

Boxer said in a statement: “Now is the time to act to save 1.8 million jobs and create up to 1 million more jobs. There is no excuse to delay further, especially when the transportation authorization expires on March 31. … I call on every senator to work across party lines to find the necessary funds to move forward on this critical jobs bill.”

One of the video ads is available at bit.ly/ARTBAvideoad. More information is available from ATM at www.fasterbettersafer.org.

The last two Senate committees whose approvals are necessary before a surface transportation reauthorization package can be called up on the floor will act next week, Senate Environment and Public Works Committee Chairwoman Barbara Boxer, D-California, said during a press conference Thursday.Both the Senate Finance Committee and the Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee will meet next week to mark up the revenue and transit components of the two-year, $109 billion legislation, Boxer said. The Finance Committee must identify $12 billion in revenue sources to pay for the bill’s cost beyond what the Highway Trust Fund is projected to be able to cover.

Boxer’s committee has already approved the highway portions of the bill, “Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century.” (see Nov. 10 AASHTO Journal story). The Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee has passed the highway safety and transportation research pieces (see Dec. 16 AASHTO Journal story).

The current surface transportation authorization extension is set to expire on March 31.

A video of Boxer’s nine-minute press conference is available on YouTube at bit.ly/Boxer012612.

Three House of Representatives committees will mark up next week a five-year, $260 billion highway and transit reauthorization bill. (see related story) Also in the news this week, more than 1,000 organizations sent a letter to Congress urging prompt action on a highway and transit reauthorization bill, and the Americans for Transportation Mobility coalition announced it will launch an advertising campaign in February in support of such action. (see related story)

Three House of Representatives committees will mark up next week a five-year, $260 billion highway and transit reauthorization bill. The key policy legislative language is expected to be released by the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee on Monday or Tuesday, followed by a committee meeting Thursday morning to consider amendments and vote on the bill, the “American Energy & Infrastructure Jobs Act.”State transportation department executives were briefed on the measure Thursday evening by House T&I Committee staff during a conference call organized by the American Association of State Highway and Transportation officials. Two draft bill summaries circulating on Capitol Hill this week indicate the House measure will include many provisions that state DOTs have long called for.

“We are encouraged to hear that the House will propose a long-term bill that will maintain existing funding levels. This will provide important long-term certainty to state DOTs,” said AASHTO Executive Director John Horsley. “We are hopeful that reforms beneficial to state DOTs are included in the legislation such as offering maximum flexibility in using federal highway and transit grants, consolidating programs, accelerating project delivery, and providing innovative finance solutions.”

To streamline the transportation project approval process, the House’s reauthorization bill “will delegate more authority to states, establish hard deadlines for federal agencies to make decisions, and cut the amount of federal red tape currently involved in getting projects built,” House T&I Committee Chairman John Mica, R-Florida, wrote in The Hill on Tuesday. “Cutting this cumbersome review process time in half while still ensuring the proper environmental protections will allow improvements to move forward with much greater efficiency.”

Mica wrote that “states will be given more flexibility to determine their greatest transportation needs and priorities, with fewer mandates coming from bureaucrats in Washington. Less federal bureaucracy will translate into less waste, and this will help increase the value of available resources.”

House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Doc Hastings, R-Washington state, today announced that his panel will hold a markup Wednesday that will include the energy portion of the American Energy Infrastructure & Jobs Act. House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, announced in November that royalties from expanded domestic oil and natural-gas production would help provide new revenue for the Highway Trust Fund. (see Nov. 18 AASHTO Journal story)

“Expanding access to America’s abundant offshore and onshore energy resources will create millions of new American jobs, lower energy prices, and generate new revenue to help pay for infrastructure improvements,” Hastings said in a statement. “When new energy resources are developed, we’ll need updated infrastructure to bring it to market. This creates a link that will allow for both American energy jobs and American infrastructure jobs to be created simultaneously.”

Media reports this week indicate the House Ways and Means Committee, which has jurisdiction over all revenue provisions in the reauthorization legislation, will hold a markup next Friday. That session has yet to be formally announced by the committee.

House Railroads, Pipelines, and Hazardous Materials Subcomittee Chairman Bill Shuster, R-Pennsylvania, told a Transportation Research Board seminar Wednesday that once all three committees approve their portions of the bill, they will be merged together and debated on the House floor the week of Feb. 13.

The Senate is considering a two-year, $109 billion highway and transit reauthorization bill, which cleared the Environment and Public Works Committee in November. (see Nov. 10 AASHTO Journal story) The Senate Finance Committee is expected to mark up the revenue provisions of that measure next week. (see related story)

Also this week, more than 1,000 organizations sent a letter to Congress urging prompt action on a highway and transit reauthorization bill, and the Americans for Transportation Mobility coalition announced it will launch an advertising campaign in February in support of such action. (see related story)

Congress’ debate of a multiyear highway and transit reauthorization bill dominated the surface transportation policy sector’s headlines in 2011 for the second straight year and drew the greatest interest among AASHTO Journal readers. During a year in which Republicans took control of the House of Representatives with an austere fiscal agenda, budget and appropriations stories were also highly consumed leading up to the Fiscal Year 2012 highway obligation limit being cut almost $2 billion after House leaders originally called for a dramatic one-third reduction in federal surface transportation investment.The AASHTO Journal reviewed 35 most-read articles this year (measured by unique pageviews) to determine 2011′s top 10 transportation news topics most popular with our readers:

1. Reauthorization: Efforts to pass a new federal surface transportation authorization bill moved slowly ahead this year, resulting in two short-term extensions of the 2005 highway and transit law known as “SAFETEA-LU,” which expired Sept. 30, 2009. AJ readers put 18 reauthorization stories in the top 35 this year.

House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman John Mica, R-Florida, began the year holding field hearings across the country to prepare for drafting reauthorization legislation. U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood asserted in January that he was confident a multiyear bill could be passed by Congress and signed into law before the congressional summer recess began in August. The Obama administration proposed in February a $556 billion, six-year reauthorization bill but didn’t identify any means of paying for it. February ended in uncertainty with only a week left until federal appropriations and authorization were set to expire.

President Barack Obama signed legislation in early March extending highway and transit programs for seven months after the House and Senate passed the seventh SAFETEA-LU extension.

The Senate Finance Committee weighed several options in May to pay for a long-term reauthorization, and that same month the bipartisan leadership of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee released the outline of draft legislation (“Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century”) that would reauthorize the nation’s surface transportation system for six years at a level of $339 billion.

House T&I Committee Republicans responded in July by unveiling a six-year, $230 billion reauthorization proposal, which was immediately objected to by Democratic committee leaders for cutting highway and transit investment by a third. Senate Democrats also objected to the low funding amount proposed. Senate Environment and Public Works Committee leaders produced in late July a two-year, $109 billion reauthorization bill outline and held a hearing at which Nevada Transportation Director Susan Martinovich testified as then-president of the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials.

After summer recess, Congress returned in September and approved a six-month surface transportation extension valid until March 31, 2012 — the eighth SAFETEA-LU extension. Mica told reporters in October that his long-term reauthorization bill would now maintain current funding levels over six years after he was given permission from House Republican leadership to seek additional revenue.

House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, pledged in early November to move a multiyear reauthorization bill by year’s end packaged with expanded domestic energy production. During the following week, the Senate EPW Committee unanimously approved its two-year highway reauthorization legislation after releasing the measure’s full text. Two other Senate committees with jurisdiction over reauthorization (Finance and Banking, Housing, & Urban Affairs) did not mark up their sections this year, and the question of how to generate additional revenue to offset the bill’s costs remains the key undetermined provision.

The year concluded in December with the House of Representatives pushing back its reauthorization work until 2012 and the Senate Commerce, Science, & Transportation Committee approving four safety, freight, and research components that will be folded into the portion passed earlier by the EPW Committee.
2. Budget & Appropriations: Nine budget and appropriations stories ranked in the top 35 most-read AJ articles this year. With Republicans now in control of the House and Obama announcing his opposition, congressional leaders announced in January that earmarks would be banned. The Congressional Research Service noted in a report that the earmark ban could change how highway and transit dollars are allocated. This Congress also began with the House approving a rules change that could lead to reduced highway and transit investment.

In early February, House Appropriations Committee Chairman Harold Rogers, R-Kentucky, outlined a plan to reduce budget authority that governs funding for transportation and housing programs by $11.5 billion, a 17% cut from present levels. A week later, the House Appropriations Committee released a continuing resolution that would cut transportation investment.

Obama said in April that the nation shouldn’t sacrifice important infrastructure projects while reducing the deficit. The president’s remarks came two weeks after the House Budget Committee proposed a 30% reduction for transportation in FY 2012 and a week after transportation suffered significant spending cuts in the final FY 2011 appropriations measure passed by Congress.

Rogers set appropriations bill allocation amounts in May that would reduce transportation and housing spending more than $1 billion below FY 2008 levels. In the final transportation and housing appropriations legislation enacted in November, cuts were less drastic but Congress still trimmed the highway obligation limit by almost $2 billion and zeroed out federal support for high-speed and intercity passenger rail projects.
3. Regulatory Reform: The U.S. Department of Transportation submitted to the White House in June a “Preliminary Plan for Retrospective Review and Analysis of Existing Rules,” which focuses on amending 70 regulations. The plan was prepared in response to an executive order issued in January by Obama, in which he challenged agencies across the federal government to review rules already on the books and remove those that are out of date, unnecessary, excessively burdensome, or in conflict with other rules.
4. Bike Routes: AASHTO and the Adventure Cycling Association announced in May that AASHTO’s Special Committee on U.S. Route Numbering approved six new U.S. Bicycle Routes: USBR 1 in Maine and New Hampshire; USBR 20 in Michigan; and USBR 8, 87, 95, and 97 in Alaska — the first national bike routes to be established since 1982.
5. Traffic Safety: Dangerous risks involved when motor vehicles roll through red lights while making right turns were featured in a video released in April by the Traffic Safety Coalition The video, “Stop On Red — It’s the Law,” uses actual red-light-running crash footage and close calls with pedestrians to remind drivers why a complete stop on red is always necessary before turning. In the video, the coalition advocates for more cities to install what it dubs “safety cameras” — devices that photograph red-light runners so vehicle owners can be fined.
6. Project Delivery: It takes too long to get things done using federal transportation dollars, AASHTO Executive Director John Horsley told U.S. Department of Transportation officials during a public meeting in March in Washington. In advance of the meeting, AASHTO staff developed 19 recommendations on regulatory changes that the association recommends to speed up project delivery.
7. Job Creation: Two days after the Senate voted against proceeding to a debate on Obama’s $447 billion American Jobs Act, the president and Boehner discussed transportation and infrastructure during a phone call in mid-October. Obama received 50 senators’ votes in favor of proceeding to debate the American Jobs Act, short of the 60 needed; 49 senators, including all Republicans, voted to block the measure from advancing. The legislation, S 1660, would appropriate $50 billion for transportation projects and $10 billion to capitalize a national infrastructure bank.
8. Bridge Closure: Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels in September ordered the immediate closure of the Sherman Minton Bridge, which carries Interstate 64 over the Ohio River between New Albany, Indiana, and Louisville, Kentucky. Indiana and Kentucky transportation officials were informed of the discovery Sept. 8 of a concerning crack in the critical load-carrying element of the bridge. The bridge remains closed until repairs are completed in Spring 2012.
9. Livability: An April report from the Federal Highway Administration that focuses on the agency’s implementation of livability principles found that states are making significant strides incorporating those principles into their policy and community planning efforts.
10. Highway Trust Fund: The Highway Trust Fund’s Highway Account might be unable to meet obligations in a timely manner sometime during Fiscal Year 2012 and the Transit Account will run dry sometime during FY 2013, the Congressional Budget Office projected in a report released in January. (More recent projections bumped back the Transit Account’s insolvency date to FY 2014.) Congress did not take any actions this year to address the issue.

The state gas tax went up 3.9 cents per gallon on New Year’s Day in North Carolina. Drivers now pay 38.9 cents per gallon to help fund the state’s highways and bridges — the highest state excise tax in the nation and ranking North Carolina sixth highest for total state gasoline taxes (some states assess both an excise tax and a sales taxes on motor fuels), a newspaper reported.Every six months, the North Carolina Department of Revenue calculates and sets the state gas-tax rates using a formula that adjusts a portion of the state’s gas tax to the wholesale price of gasoline.

More information is available from The Star of Shelby at bit.ly/Star122611 and the North Carolina Department of Revenue at bit.ly/NCDOR122811.

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration announced Dec. 22 a final rule revising the hours-of-service safety requirements for commercial truck drivers. It reduces by 12 hours the maximum number of hours a truck driver can work within a week.Under the old regulations, truck drivers could work on average up to 82 hours within a seven-day period. The new rule limits a driver’s work week to 70 hours. But after originally proposing lowering the daily driver time limit to 10 hours, FMCSA decided to maintain the previous 11-hour daily maximum.

“Trucking is a difficult job, and a big rig can be deadly when a driver is tired and overworked,” U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said in a statement. “This final rule will help prevent fatigue-related truck crashes and save lives. Truck drivers deserve a work environment that allows them to perform their jobs safely.”

Organizations representing trucking companies and truck drivers reacted negatively to the new regulations. The American Trucking Associations called them “unjustified” and predicted they will do nothing to improve highway safety, but could instead increase the risk of truck-involved crashes.

“From the beginning of this process in October 2009, the agency set itself on a course to fix a rule that’s not only not broken, but by all objective accounts is working to improve highway safety,” ATA President and CEO Bill Graves said in a statement.

As part of the rulemaking process, FMCSA held six public listening sessions across the country and encouraged safety advocates, drivers, truck company owners, law enforcement, and the public to share their input on hours-of-service requirements.

“This final rule is the culmination of the most extensive and transparent public outreach effort in our agency’s history,” FMCSA Administrator Anne Ferro said in a statement. “With robust input from all areas of the trucking community, coupled with the latest scientific research, we carefully crafted a rule acknowledging that when truckers are rested, alert and focused on safety, it makes our roadways safer.”

The new rule will ban truck drivers from working longer than eight hours without first taking a break of at least 30 minutes.

“The changes are unnecessary and unwelcome, and will result in no significant safety gains,” Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association Executive Vice President Todd Spencer said in a statement.

Commercial truck drivers and companies must comply with the new rules by July 1, 2013. More information is available from FMCSA at www.fmcsa.dot.gov/HOSFinalRule.

While state transportation departments around the nation are preparing for winter weather, Gov. Scott Walker has proclaimed Monday, Nov. 21, as Snowplow Driver Appreciation Day in Wisconsin to acknowledge the critical role of snowplow drivers in keeping the state’s roadways functioning even during the coldest, snowiest months of the year.Walker’s proclamation notes that before, during, and after winter storms, Wisconsin’s snowplow drivers apply years of knowledge and skill in a determined effort to keep roadways safe for all motorists and maintain the mobility of commerce to support the state’s economy.

The proclamation encourages motorists to exercise caution whenever they encounter snowplows and to limit travel during storms to allow snowplow drivers to complete their jobs safely and efficiently.

“Removing snow and ice from more than 100,000 miles of roads and streets in Wisconsin is a tremendous challenge,” Wisconsin Transportation Secretary Mark Gottlieb said in a statement. “Snowplow drivers often work extraordinarily long hours during the worst imaginable weather conditions to maintain safe roads and keep commerce flowing. They do their jobs, and we can do our part.”

The Wisconsin Department of Transportation is using Snowplow Driver Appreciation Day to remind motorists to call 511 or go online to www.511wi.gov to check road conditions; take it slow when there’s ice or snow; stay at least 200 feet behind a working snowplow; and be careful when passing a working snowplow — a snowplow can create a cloud of snow that could obscure your vision, and the roadway behind the snowplow is in better condition than in front of it.

Minnesota Issues Snowplow Safety Video Urging Drivers to “Stay Back — Stay Alive”

The Minnesota Department of Transportation released a new public service announcement this week that reminds motorists of the hazardous conditions they will face on the roads when snowplows are present.

MnDOT’s 30-second PSA features actual radio chatter from snowplow dispatchers, video of snowplows in action, and photos from vehicle and snowplow collisions. The announcement’s message is “Stay Back — Stay Alive.”

“It’s imperative that motorists understand and fully realize the hazards and potential harm that can come from following snowplows too closely or otherwise failing to drive for winter conditions,” Minnesota Transportation Commissioner Tom Sorel said in a statement “Snowplows weigh up to 17 times more than a typical car or SUV, and in a vehicle versus snowplow crash, the snowplow is going to win.”

The PSA is available at bit.ly/MnDOTsnowplow.

Twelve transportation projects — including six managed by five state transportation departments — were honored Tuesday as recipients of the 2011 National Roadway Safety Awards. Winners were chosen in the categories of Infrastructure Improvements; Operational Improvements; and Program Planning, Development, and Evaluation.The awards competition showcases exceptional highway safety projects across the country and provides a platform for winners to share their success stories with other communities. The competition is sponsored by the U.S. Department of Transportation, the Federal Highway Administration, and the Roadway Safety Foundation. Awards were presented Tuesday at a ceremony on Capitol Hill.

“These awards are a small way for us to thank those of you who have increased the odds of our loved ones getting home safely,” Greg Cohen, Roadway Safety Foundation executive director, said during the ceremony. “The roadway safety itself — the engineering work and the planning work — often just doesn’t get recognized. So we’re here as a foundation to make sure it does.”

U.S. Deputy Transportation Secretary John Porcari congratulated the winners and gave them their awards during Tuesday’s event.

“There is an old expression that the real judge of a person’s character is doing what’s right when no one is looking,” Porcari said. “The men and women of the organizations we’re honoring today — and so many of your colleagues around the country — live by this motto. You’re doing the right thing, whether the public directly knows you’re doing this or not.”

Porcari noted it’s hard to prove a negative.

“You don’t get credit for the accidents that don’t occur, the lives that are not in danger,” he said. “But on behalf of our 314 million citizens around the country, thank you for everything you do. You really make a difference.”

State transportation departments who received 2011 National Roadway Safety Awards:

• Minnesota DOT – “Using Micro Surfacing to Reduce Wet Weather Crash Rates” and “Minnesota County Road Safety Plans”
• California DOT — “California’s HSIP Application and Evaluation Tool for Local Roadways”
• Florida DOT — “Making Roadways Safer for Motorcycles”
• Mississippi DOT — “Mississippi Cable Median Barrier Safety Initiative”
• Utah DOT — “Evaluation of Moveable Barriers in Construction Work Zones”

Though these projects and many others have proven to work and save lives, Porcari reminded the audience that more progress is still needed to further reduce automobile injuries and fatalities.

“We’ve achieved the lowest number of roadway fatalities nationwide since we started keeping track 60 years ago, and that’s great,” Porcari said. “But what it points to is we have even harder work ahead. … We need to work together to continue to bring that number down.”

More information on the National Roadway Safety Awards is available at bit.ly/2011roadsafety.

Fatal crashes involving a large truck fell 31% from 2007 to 2009 and crashes resulting in injury declined 30%, according to the “2009 Large Truck and Bus Crash Facts” report recently released by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration.In 2009, 3,215 large trucks were involved in fatal crashes, a 21% decrease from 2008 and the largest annual decline since records have been kept, according to the report. Combined with the second-largest annual decline from 2007 to 2008, the number of large trucks involved in fatal crashes declined 31% from 2007 to 2009.

American Trucking Associations President and CEO Bill Graves praised the efforts of the nation’s truck drivers, safety directors, and law-enforcement officers for their contribution to the continued progress in the industry’s safety record.

“These safety gains,” Graves said in a statement issued Wednesday, “are the result of many things: sensible regulation; improvements in technology; slower, more fuel-efficient driving; the dedication of professional drivers and safety directors; as well as more effective enforcement techniques that look at all the factors involved in crashes.”

FMCSA’s report states the large truck fatal crash rate fell to 1.0 per 100 million miles traveled in 2009, down from 1.1 in 2008. Since 2000, the fatal crash rate for large trucks has fallen 55%. The passenger vehicle fatal crash rate dropped 25% during the same time period.

“These results deserve to be heralded as tremendous progress and very good news for American motorists, our industry, and our industry’s regulators,” Graves said.

The 80-page report is available at 1.usa.gov/FMSCA11025. Excel files containing data for each of the report’s 71 tables and charts are available individually at 1.usa.gov/FMSCA71.

With the start of winter three weeks away, motorists, highway maintenance personnel, public officials, and journalists now have a new website to turn to for information on safe winter roads.The site, safewinterroads.org, was launched last week by the Salt Institute with a focus on two statistics:

1. More than 116,000 Americans are injured and 1,300 killed every year on snowy or icy pavement.
2. Snowstorms cost state economies as much as $700 million per day if roads become impassable.

“When a snowstorm hits, it’s more than just an inconvenience to motorists,” Lori Roman, the institute’s president, said in a statement. “Lives are at risk if drivers must travel roads that are inadequately salted and cleared. State and local economies take big hits as commerce slows to a winter crawl.”

The Salt Institute scoured its archives, boiled down research to the most essential points, and presented the information in a central place online. The new website has sections on safety, commerce, the environment, and sensible salting.

In a home-page video, Salt Institute Vice President Morton Satin visits a salt storage facility to explain how salt is not only about safety, but “dollars and common sense.” He also emphasizes the need for best practices that protect the environment.

More than 70% of the nation’s roads are located in snowy regions, those areas that receive more than five inches average snowfall annually, according to the Federal Highway Administration.

“Snow and ice reduce pavement friction and vehicle maneuverability, causing slower speeds, reduced roadway capacity, and increased crash risk,” according to FHWA’s Road Weather Management Program. “Over 1,300 people are killed and more than 116,800 people are injured in vehicle crashes on snowy, slushy, or icy pavement annually. Every year, nearly 900 people are killed and nearly 76,000 people are injured in vehicle crashes during snowfall or sleet.”

FHWA notes that winter road maintenance accounts for roughly 20% of state DOT maintenance budgets. State and local agencies spend more than $2.3 billion on snow and ice control operations annually.