WASHINGTON – Highway deaths in 2011 dropped to their lowest rate since record-keeping began in 1921, according to preliminary government data released this week. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administrator’s early estimate of last year’s fatalities said 32,310 deaths in vehicle crashes last year was a 1.7 percent decline from the previous year, and is the lowest recorded in 60 years.

Safety experts attribute the drop to several factors, including the decline in driving due to a weak economy, better safety equipment in cars, more seat belt wearing and efforts to cut drunk driving. Overall, traffic deaths have fallen 26 percent since 2005.

Jackie Gillan, president of Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety, said the trend is a good sign, but cautioned against complacency. “You are still losing 32,000 people a year,” Gillan said. “And we still don’t know whether when the economy comes back and is really robust, what that is going to do.” In the past, when “the economy bounces back and people are doing more discretionary driving and things like that,” highway deaths have gone back up, she said.

The number of miles driven on U.S. highways declined last year by 35.7 billion miles, or 1.2 percent, according to the safety administration. There were 1.09 deaths for every 100 million miles traveled down from 1.11 deaths in 2010, and is the lowest rate on record, the NHTSA reported.

The decline is clearly the product of many factors. Miles driven reduced at a lesser rate than the fatalities so attributing the improvement only to the economy would be misleading. I believe continued improvement in the quality of our roads and highways, enforcement efforts and the many changes and improvements in our vehicles also contributed to this new record. When I was the director of UDOT we had a very serious issue with fatalities on SR-6 from Spanish Fork to Price. Over the last ten years the agency has built passing lanes and widened major parts of the highway resulting in a marked reduction in deaths. On the side of safety equipment in cars I am the personal benefactor of air bags having just survived serious injury just last week when a deer and I met late one night on a rural highway in Indiana. 32,000 is good; let’s keep up the momentum. TW

PORTSMOUTH – Maine and New Hampshire have made a significant step toward replacing the Sarah Mildred Long Bridge by 2017 by agreeing to spend $171.7 million on the project. A preliminary study performed by HNTB outlines the cost and proposed work for the new bridge; the current plan calls for building adjacent to the existing span. A traffic bridge would be built a level above a railroad bridge, as is the current bridge.

“We have a broad direction and we’re moving forward,” said Maine Deputy Transportation Commissioner Bruce Van Note. “Both states believe the Long Bridge project is a very high priority. Now we’re in the problem-solving mode. How do we get there?”

Van Note said the two DOT’s have held “very productive and collaborative meetings,” to work on a compromise as Maine’s legislature has been set on a rehabilitation of the current bridge, while New Hampshire officials have argued that no money will be spent on the bridge unless it is elongated to handle the next generation of cargo vessels to travel to New Hampshire ports upriver.

The study cost estimates are $41.7 million more than originally budgeted for the project and both DOTs agree that finding the funding for the project is the first priority. “Securing the funds is an outstanding issue,” Van Note said. “Both states know it. It’s going to require extraordinary federal funding.” He said actual construction will likely begin in late 2014 at the earliest, which is a year later than originally planned because permits for a new bridge will take longer than for a rehabilitated one.

TAMPA – All new roads projects in Hillsborough County, Florida have been put off for the foreseeable future by county officials because of a decline in funding in recent years from a voter-approved sales tax. The county’s share of the half-cent Community Investment Tax approved in 1996, has dropped by nearly 17 percent from the $49.6 million high in 2007. Use of the tax is limited to construction projects such as schools, fire stations and roads. The revenue hit an all-time low of $41.2 million in 2010, and has since come back in the first few months of this budget year, rising five percent since Oct. 1.

The downward trend has weakened the county’s borrowing power, and with the tax set to expire in 2016, the tax does not have the capacity to pay back future bond issues to pay for road and other construction. The county deferred $124 million in planned road work through 2014 because of falling tax revenues. Now those projects and any others needed to accommodate population growth are being shelved indefinitely, according to county chief financial administrator Bonnie Wise.

“It declined for several years,” Wise said. “Now, with the end in sight for 2026, we just don’t have the CIT funds available to fund capital projects. It’s going to continue to be a problem.” The county will continue work on projects already in progress, which are partially funded by a six-cent-per-gallon gas tax.

The brief addresses the panels’ processes, findings, and how their funding recommendations have fared politically.

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The report examines current practices regarding the allocation of geotechnical risk and the level of geotechnical information provided with bid documents, the scope of geotechnical information required after contract award, geo-technical-related performance testing during construction, and contract provisions related to geotechnical design and construction.

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• 2012 MDOT Research Needs Workshop
• High RAP Content in Pavement Surface Layers
• Shrinkage and Durability Study of Bridge Deck Concrete
• MDOT Implementation Plan for GPS Technology in Planning, Design and Construction Delivery
• Calendar of Events

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Volume I explores why the research plan is needed, how it was developed, and what the plan includes. This volume also describes the research management plan that will guide the conduct and implementation of the research.

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Three U.S. representatives from Washington are questioning the planned height of the Columbia River Crossing in Oregon, which is currently 95 feet. The Republican lawmakers say that because a 116 feet clearance is required for U.S. Army Corps of Engineers dredging vessels, the height problems could affect river shipments all the way to Idaho.

“If the USACE is unable to gain safe passage for their dredges, it could result in river closure, with the loss of millions of dollars per day to the regional economy,” according to a letter signed by Washington Reps. Jaime Herrera Beutler, Doc Hastings and Cathy McMorris Rodgers and Idaho Rep. Paul Labrador.

“We have been advised that the CRC’s own consultant warned that a clearance of 125 feet was needed in order to avoid impediments to navigation,” the letter continues. “Was this information taken into account for design purposes?”

The representatives’ letter to Columbia River Crossing project manager Nancy Boyd asks whether planners have taken into account that the river carries more than $3 billion in cargo each year as the fourth largest river in North America. Lawmakers also requested an updated cost from the current $3.5-billion estimate with the increased bridge height.

In an email, Boyd said, “We have been working closely with the Coast Guard and the Army Corps since 2005 and will continue that collaboration as we finalize our permit application.” She noted that the project also must take into consideration the air clearance required for the Portland International Airport and Pearson Field.

SPRINGFIELD – Illinois Transportation Secretary Ann L. Schneider unveiled “Transforming Transportation for Tomorrow,” the state’s first multi-modal transportation improvement program. The new program document combines IDOT’s newly proposed six year highway program with the proposed multi-year programs for public transportation, rail and aeronautics.

The six-year plan contains an anticipated level of $9.2 billion, including $1.8 billion for the 2013 annual program alone. The plan includes $6.5 billion in federal and $2.2 billion in state funding. The costs include the final $1.2 billion targeted from the state’s Illinois Jobs Now! capital plan and $454 million in local funds. The highway program will create or sustain nearly 120,000 jobs through 2018 and spark economic development throughout the state. The highway program includes maintenance of 2,302 miles of road and replacement or rehabilitation of 508 bridges.

In addition, state highways will see $6.6 billion in improvements over the life of the program, with $2.6 billion targeting the local highway system. In the state portion of the program, $3 billion will be for reconstruction, resurfacing, widening and other safety projects; $1.5 billion for bridge needs; $1.4 billion for congestion mitigation and $756 million for new roads and increased access for economic development.

Enacted in 2009 to include a $14 billion, six-year transportation improvement plan, Gov. Quinn’s Illinois Jobs Now! program has invested more than $9.5 billion in the state’s highways system alone from 2009 through 2011.

DETROIT – Michigan’s Supreme Court has denied an appeal by the Ambassador Bridge owners’ to regain command of the $230 million Gateway Project under dispute at the bridge. The brief ruling upheld the earlier ruling from the Court of Appeals which denied the Detroit International Bridge Co.’s appeal of a local judge’s ruling to give control of the project to the Michigan Department of Transportation to finish.

In a five-line ruling Friday, the Supreme Court rejected the bridge company’s appeal, “because we are not persuaded that the questions presented should be reviewed by this court.”

The Gateway project is designed to ease border congestion by connecting the Ambassador Bridge directly to local expressways with new ramps and roads. MDOT and DIBC agreed in a 2004 contract to jointly construct the project. MDOT sued DIBC in 2009 however, saying the bridge company had not built its portion of the project. Instead, according to MDOT, DIBC built a duty-free facility and a ramp for a second new bridge that is in conflict with Gateway. Since a Wayne County Circuit judge turned control of the project over to MDOT, the department has demolished the Pier 19 “bridge to nowhere” ramp.

MDOT spokesman Jeff Cranson said the department is satisfied with the court’s action. “We are still very much on schedule to complete this thing on a rapid pace,” he said. The full project is expected to be completed this September.

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. – The Illinois executive inspector says the state transportation department paid $3.1 million in road funding toward a summer jobs program in Chicago under pressure from Gov. Rod Blagojevich during his administration. State transportation Secretary Ann Schneider says she approved the payments as Blagojevich’s Transportation Department finance director under urging from the governor’s office for rapid payment of the $3.1 million to five nonprofits participating in the jobs program.

She said she approved the checks from the state’s highway fund despite proof that participants were performing ineligible, non-transportation-related tasks such as rearranging furniture and working at golf courses. The $7.8 million program was part of Blagojevich’s response to an increase in Chicago shootings in 2008. The governor’s Department of Human Resources was in charge of the program and used IDOT’s road fund to pay for it.

“We were trying to slow it down to make sure there were commonplace safeguards in place, but there was a great deal of pressure to get this done in a very short timeframe,” Schneider said in an interview with the Associated Press. Auditors agreed to a repayment of $644,000 – largely from unpaid payroll taxes -, saying that while much more money was likely misspent, proving it would mean long legal fights over individual timesheets.

A new type of asphalt binder that was developed to improve pavement durability and resistance to rutting and shoving is being tested by the Georgia Department of Transportation (GDOT) at the junction of two busy state highways in Henry County.

GDOT approved the substitution of Kraton highly modified asphalt binder (HiMA) for the binder originally specified for a Superpave hot mix overlay that was recently installed by C.W. Matthews Contracting Co., Inc. at the intersection of Routes 138 and 155 in Stockbridge.

The agency is concerned about pavement rutting and shoving at the intersection, which is located at the foot of a hill and experiences repeated hard braking by motorists. Vehicle travel has risen dramatically in recent years in Henry County, which is part of the fast growing Atlanta Metropolitan Area, while Stockbridge is the county’s largest city.

“The population has been growing in the Stockbridge area, and those two state highways serve as corridors to several Interstates,” said Peter Wu, P.E., who is responsible for technical assistance in GDOT’s Office of Materials and Research. “This means there’s a lot of traffic going through that intersection – about 25,000 vehicles a day – and about 1,400 of those are trucks,” he said. Wu explained that paving was part of a larger contract awarded to C.W. Matthews to reconstruct the intersection, including widening and adding turning lanes in each direction. He added that specifications originally called for a Superpave overlay using a performance graded PG 76-22 asphalt binder but GDOT area office personnel agreed to allow the use of HiMA at the request of C.W. Matthews on behalf of Kraton Polymers LLC, which developed and manufactures its newest SBS polymer modifier and wished to demonstrate its effectiveness.

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Maryland Department of Transportation’s first female CEO has announced her departure after 25 years of service to the state of Maryland.

Beverly Swaim-Staley will be stepping down July 1 after almost three years as MDOT Secretary. Prior to her appointment by Gov. Martin O’Malley, Swaim-Staley served as Deputy Transportation Secretary from 2007-2009, a position she also filled from 1999-2003. She has also served as Chief Financial Officer for MDOT and Executive Director of the Maryland Aviation Administration on an interim basis.

“It has been an honor to serve the citizens of Maryland throughout my professional career,” Swaim-Staley said in a statement. “I chose to make transportation the focus of my government service because I believe it is one of those key areas of government where you can make a positive impact on the lives of citizens across the state. I thank Governor O’Malley and the citizens of Maryland for this tremendous opportunity. I also thank the thousands of employees throughout MDOT who made our collective progress possible.”

Swaim-Staley serves on AASHTO’s Board of Directors and is Chair of AASHTO’s Standing Committee on Finance and Administration. Also within AASHTO, Swaim-Staley is a member of the Climate Change Steering Committee and the High Speed Intercity Passenger Rail Leadership Group. She is also President of the Board of Directors for the Northeast Association of State Transportation Officials.

CPR is a series of engineered techniques developed to manage the rate of pavement deterioration in concrete streets, highways and airports. It is a non-overlay option used to repair areas of distress in concrete pave­ment without changing its grade. This preven­tive procedure restores the pavement to a condi­tion close to or better than original and reduces the need for major and more costly repairs later. Further, CPR addresses the causes of pavement distress, minimizing further deterioration.

CPR techniques include:

• Slab stabilization
• Full-depth repairs
• Partial-depth repairs
• Dowel bar retrofits
• Cross-stitching longitudinal cracks or joints
• Diamond grinding
• Next Generation Concrete Surface grinding
• Joint and crack resealing

Read the Newsletter ]]> http://www.tsp2.org/2012/05/04/news-from-the-international-grooving-grinding-association/feed/ 0 http://www.tsp2.org/2012/05/01/performance-assessment-of-road-equipment-state-of-the-art/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=performance-assessment-of-road-equipment-state-of-the-art http://www.tsp2.org/2012/05/01/performance-assessment-of-road-equipment-state-of-the-art/#comments Tue, 01 May 2012 18:36:10 +0000 John O'Doherty http://tsp2.pavementpreservation.org/2012/05/01/performance-assessment-of-road-equipment-state-of-the-art/ Continue reading →]]> VTI, the Swedish National Road and Transport Research Institute, has released a report that explores the monitoring methods, maintenance measures, and acceptable end user service levels of road equipment in seven European countries: Belgium, Croatia, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden and UK. The report is written in English.

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