TxDOT-Statewide Podcast

A recent survey by the Center for Excellence in Rural Safety at the University of Minnesota highlighted a glaring dichotomy: motorists' feelings of security on rural roadways are almost completely at odds with the facts. This week's episode is the first of a two-part series on rural roadway safety, as seen from a national perspective and from our perspective here in Texas. For more on the national perspective and its implications, I spoke with Lee Munich, director of the Center for Excellence in Rural Safety. For more information on the Center for Excellence in Rural Safety, visit their website at www.ruralsafety.umn.edu.

Every little bit helps, and in this case, the U.S. Department of Transportation awarded Texas $15 million this week to begin preliminary engineering and environmental studies for developing a proposed high-speed rail line between Dallas-Fort Worth and Houston. The concept rail line would connect two of the nation's biggest metropolitan areas with trains reaching speeds in excess of 150 mph. The process itself, however, won't be quite as fast. For more on the latest chapter of high speed rail in Texas, I spoke with Bill Glavin, director of TxDOT's Rail Division. For more information about transportation by rail in Texas, log on to the TxDOT web site and click on the locomotive icon in the lower left hand corner of the home page.

Everything's bigger in Texas, including the number of people killed each year on Texas highways. But recently that number is declining thanks in no small part to TxDOT's Click-It-Or-Ticket program, which in the last decade has pushed seatbelt use in Texas past 90 percent. For more on the Click-It-Or-Ticket program, which celebrates its 10th anniversary this year, I spoke with Tom Vinger, a spokesman for the Texas Department of Public Safety. Click-It-Or-Ticket enforcement begins Monday, May 23 and runs through Sunday, June 5. For more information on the Click-It-Or-Ticket program, log on to www.texasclickitorticket.com.

When disaster strikes in Texas, whether it be hurricanes, extreme winter weather, or raging wildfires, the Texas Department of Transportation plays a role in battling those conditions. We've talked at length on this podcast about hurricane and winter weather preparedness, but as more than one million acres in Texas have burned or are burning, what is TxDOT's role in the ongoing massive firefighting effort? To find out, I spoke with Carla Baze, TxDOT's Emergency Management Coordinator.

More than half of Texas' 80,000 centerline mile highway system is made up of the mostly rural, narrow Farm-to-Market roads. Built mostly in the 1950s and 1960s, these roads are some of the oldest in the state and were built for an era when the speed limit and traffic volumes were much lower than they are today. Making these roads safer for today's motorists has posed a challenge, but one TxDOT is up for. For more on TxDOT's renewed commitment to traffic safety, particularly on rural roadways, I spoke with Carol Rawson, director of TxDOT's Traffic Operations Division.

With gasoline prices on the rise for the fifth straight week, we're all feeling a pinch at the pump. But what does it really cost to drive your car? The answer, which is calculated through a multi-variable formula in a report by the American Automobile Association, or AAA, is nearly 60 cents per mile for the average motorist. For more on the report, I spoke with AAA-Texas spokesman Dan Ronan. For more information on the AAA report, log on to www.aaapublicaffairs.com.

Distracted Driving is not a new phenomenon. Before cell phones and ipods there were radios and noisy kids in the back seat. But in the past few years, distracted driving has taken a deadly turn. With the advent and mainstreaming of texting, in-car distractions now not only rob our attention from the road, but require hands to be taken from the steering wheel. As a result, TxDOT and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, have partnered to launch the "Talk. Text. Crash." Campaign as part of National Distracted Driving Awareness Month, aimed at raising awareness of the dangers of distracted driving, particularly when that distraction is texting. To find out more, I spoke with Terry Pence, Director of TxDOT's Traffic Safety Section.

Work zone ahead. Flagger ahead. Be prepared to stop. Traffic fines double when workers are present. These are just a few of the signs you might see in any work zone along Texas highways. But for some motorists, those warning signs aren't enough to get their attention. As a result, there were more than 15,000 wrecks in Texas work zones in 2009, which resulted in more than 100 fatalities. And here's the kicker - four out of five of those fatalities were drivers or their passengers, not construction workers. To help raise awareness of the caution required of both workers and motorists in work zones, TxDOT is teaming up with the Federal Highway Administration to support National Work Zone Awareness Week, which begins Monday. For more on National Work Zone Awareness Week, I spoke with Jerral Wyer, Director of TxDOT's Occupational Safety Division.

Five years into its existence, TxDOT and the Central Texas Turnpike Authority are considering the SH 130 Toll Road in the Austin area to be a huge success ... except with truckers. As a result, the Texas Transportation Commission, TxDOTs governing body, voted in February to reduce the toll rate for trucks on the SH 130 and SH 45 toll roads in hopes of luring some of the trucks away from the congestion on I-35 throughout the greater Austin area. For more on this decision, I spoke with Mark Tomlinson, the Director of TxDOTs Texas Turnpike Authority.

If you received an itemized bill for the highway system in Texas, most of the items you'd find wouldn't surprise you. The department spends millions each year on asphalt, gasoline, and equipment repairs just to keep the roadways open. And then you'd see a $47 million item for ... litter clean-up? Could that be right? To find out more about that cost and what TxDOT is doing to bring it down, I spoke with Brenda Flores-Dollar, the program director for the Don't Mess With Texas program.

When gasoline prices spiked three years ago, many Americans fought back by purchasing more efficient vehicles. With gasoline prices on the rise again, Americans looking for fuel efficiency have more options this time, such as hybrid and electric vehicles that were all but unavailable three years ago. While increased fuel efficiency is good for the family checkbook and our dependence on foreign oil, it's hard on transportation agencies that depend on per-gallon fuel tax revenues for their core funding. With the system's breaking point coming more and more into focus, I spoke with futurist Garry Golden, of New York-based Future Think, on what the possible solutions might be.

For the past 27 years, Griff Smith, the photo editor for Texas Highways Magazine, has travelled throughout Texas looking for that perfect shot. And he's found hundreds of them. Now, beginning Saturday and lasting through the end of June, the very best of Griff's photos, entitled "Griff Smith's Texas: 25 Years of Lone Star Photographic Moments" will be on display at the Sam Houston Memorial Museum in Huntsville. For more about what's on display, and some of his favorite moments behind taking the photos, I spoke with Griff on the eve of the grand opening.

Planning an infrastructure network based on steady economic growth is a challenge, mainly focused on keeping up with demand. But what happens to that network once that growth slows, or even declines, leaving large parts of the system unused and all of it underfunded? While state transportation agencies across the nation grapple with this problem, Matt Rose, President and CEO of Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad and who was just named to President Obamas Council on Jobs and Competitiveness, told me during this years Texas Transportation Forum that the railroads have been down this road before, and learned some hard lessons that have shaped the way they plan for the future.

Among the many distinguished guests we welcomed onto the Podcast during this past January's Texas Transportation Forum in Austin was Mike Behrens, the previous executive director of the Texas Department of Transportation. Since his departure three years ago, the department has been through a lot of changes, not only in how it's organized from the ground up, but in how it's managed and how it conducts the business of providing a world-class transportation system.

Now that Super Bowl XLV is in the record books and the roadways have cleared from the storm that hit in the days leading up to the game, its only natural to take stock of the situation and think about the week that was. And what a week. For more on TxDOTs role in making sure Super Bowl XLV could happen, I spoke with Steve Simmons, TxDOTs Deputy Executive Director.