TxDOT-Statewide Podcast

Study after study has illustrated the danger posed by teen drivers because of their inexperience behind the wheel. But the latest study, released earlier this week by the AAA Foundation and AAA Texas, takes a new perspective-the hazards posed by teen passengers riding with teen drivers. For more on the study, I spoke with Doug Shupe, Senior Public Affairs Specialist with AAA Texas. For more information, or to read the study, log on to the AAA Foundation website at www.aaafoundation.org.

Texas Highways Magazine, the official travel magazine of Texas, has been helping grow tourism in Texas since 1974. Combined with award-winning photography, its coverage of major Texas tourist attractions as well as revealing some lesser-known nooks and crannies around the state makes the magazine a leader in its field. In the last few months, however, Texas Highways has taken on a new role in addition to its traditional roles. Quite accidentally, the magazine featured a story on Bastrop State Park that hit newsstands and mailboxes around the state and around the country the same week the park began to burn in last year's wildfires. The response from readers was not only touching, it was enlightening as well, prompting the magazine to follow Bastrop's recovery since the fire in an upcoming edition, chronicling not only the rebuilding of a community, but of a tourist destination as well. For more on this story, we talk with Texas Highways Magazine managing editor Charles Lohrmann. To subscribe to Texas Highways Magazine, or to its social media components, log on to the Texas Highways Magazine website, www.texashighways.com.

By now, just about every Texan knows that the I-35 corridor in Central Texas is the busiest in the state. It’s also in the greatest need of expansion. In the coming years, the Texas Department of Transportation has plans to do more than $1 billion of work expanding I-35, particularly in the 100-mile stretch between the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex and Salado. But the projects aren’t only about improving I-35, they’re about improving communication as well. For more on that improvement, I spoke with Jim Dale, the I-35 Mobility Coordinator. This episode originally aired in December 2011.

On January 14, 2000, TxDOT special jobs crew supervisor Elgin Wendell was called to the scene of an accident where an oversize load had struck and damaged an overpass on I-35 in Austin. As his crews worked to first clear the debris and then assess the damage, an 18-wheeler drove unexpectedly into the coned-off work zone. In the blink of an eye, the speeding rig plowed through several TxDOT vehicles and pieces of equipment and ran over Wendell and his assistant before finally coming to a stop. Wendell survived, and even went back to work for TxDOT, but as he told me, he hasn't ever looked at work zones the same way.

Former United States Secretary of Transportation Norman Mineta left office in 2006, and yet his legacy lives on today. Author of the first of several transportation reauthorization bills in his time in the U.S. Congress and as the Chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, Mineta was Secretary of Transportation when the most recent transportation authorization bill - the now - expired SAFETEA-LU was passed into law in 2005. In the meantime, instead of a writing new federal transportation reauthorization bill, Congress has reauthorized SAFETEA-LU ten times since it expired in 2009. For more on the impact of those temporary reauthorizations and how transportation has changed since SAFETEA-LU was passed into law, I spoke with the former Secretary and current Global Vice Chairman of Hill & Knowlton. Note:This episode originally posted in July 2011.

Do you remember where you were on September 30, 2009? If that date doesn't ring a bell, it should if you're interested in transportation. September 30, 2009 was the last day of the SAFETEA-LU Federal Surface Transportation bill, which in short sets the federal gas tax rate and distributes the proceeds across the country according to the formula in the bill. A little more than two-and-a-half years later, SAFETEA-LU, which was insolvent when it expired, has been extended nine times by dipping into other federal funding. The latest extension came on March 31, which kept SAFETEA-LU alive for another three months. The repeated extensions while Congress wrestles with the creation of a new bill begs two questions: first, what's the holdup, and second, why do we need a federal transportation bill? To help answer those questions, I spoke with Coby Chase, Director of TxDOT's Federal Legislative Affairs Section.

We've all been there at one time or another: at the bitter end of a long road trip, eyes getting heavy as the miles click by, thinking it would be a good idea to pull over but fighting the urge because we want to get to our destination. While understandable, that decision can have deadly consequences, especially in a state as large as Texas, where the next exit, let alone the next town can be miles apart. From that need for rest behind the wheel has come TxDOT's Safety Rest Area program and with it, as TxDOT's Andy Keith told me, the ever-growing collection of unique-yet-functional roadside monuments to all things Texas.

We've all made reference at one time or another to concrete and its inherent strength. Sayings like "hard as concrete" or "set in concrete" are our way of saying something is rock solid and always will be. It's possible that even the ancient Romans had such sayings. In his book, "Concrete Planet: The Strange and Fascinating Story of the World's Most Common Man-made Material," author Robert Courland looks back not only at the history of concrete, but forward to how concrete is still changing the way we shape the world we live in.

Throwing money at problems is rarely an effective solution to those problems, particularly when there is little or no money to be thrown around. That's where the group Transportation Advocates of Texas comes in. And as its chairman Jim Reed told me at this year's Texas Transportation Forum, Texans are much more willing to spend money on local solutions rather than throw money at statewide problems. Find out more about the Transportation Advocates of Texas at their website, www.transportationadvocatesoftexas.org.

It's been nearly 10 years since Texas began discussing the possibility of using public-private partnerships, or P3's as a means for delivering state-level transportation projects. Since then, the Trans-Texas Corridor has come and gone, the economy has gone from boom to bust to recovery, and the population of Texas has grown by 20 percent. With no new sustainable revenue streams opening for transportation, Texas is again looking at public-private partnerships to build transportation infrastructure. Once on the TxDOT side and now on the private-sector side, Phil Russell, Senior Vice President and Director of P3 Delivery at H.W. Lochner, Inc. sat down with me at this year's transportation forum to discuss how P3s have changed.

Former Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell is on a mission to modernize American infrastructure, everything from sewers to highways to air traffic control. It's one of those missions that everyone agrees with until they see the price tag. But, as the former governor told me at this year's Texas Transportation Forum, money spent on repairing and improving our national infrastructure will buy us all a gift that keeps on giving.

Intelligent transportation systems, which range from synchronizing traffic signals to adaptive cruise control, have been on the rise around the world for the past several years. How they affect you depends on where you live and how you move between your destinations.For more on the technology behind today's – and tomorrow's – transportation systems, I spoke with Scott Belcher, President and CEO of the Intelligent Transportation Society of America at the 7th Annual Texas Transportation Forum.

When asked to think about San Antonio, most people picture the Alamo or the Riverwalk. But two years ago, San Antonio was gaining notoriety for something less inviting: wrong-way drivers.Spurred into action by this alarming trend, San Antonio Police Captain Patrick Murnin began studying the problem, and today, that research and the actions that have come from it, are stemming the tide of what was becoming a deadly problem.

Few people have been as involved in transportation in the past few years as Hope Andrade, Texas Secretary of State. Prior to her appointment to that position, the Secretary was a member of the Texas Transportation Commission, including several months as its interim chairman. As she told me during our interview, that time on the commission helped shape her perspective on the role transportation plays in the vitality of the state. Meet the Secretary at the Seventh Annual Texas Transportation Forum, February 15-17 in San Antonio. For more information, or to register, log on to our web site, www.txdot.gov/ttf.

2011 was a big year for the Texas Department of Transportation, and it was a small year as well. In the first full year of the department's "Safety: Mission Zero" plan, the department set record lows for incidents and accidents that caused employees and equipment to miss time on the job. It was also a year in which no TxDOT employee was killed on the job, something that is a very real possibility for many department employees. For more on these safety achievements, I spoke with Jerral Wyer, the director of TxDOT's Occupational Safety Division.