ETAP Podcast: Georgia’s Transportation Investment Act

The latest episode of the Environmental Technical Assistance Program or ETAP Podcast examines the impact of Georgia’s Transportation Investment Act or TIA a decade after its passage – a voter-approved 1 percent sales tax dedicated to funding state transportation and infrastructure needs.

[Above photo by the Georgia DOT]

In 2012, voters in three Georgia regions – River Valley, the Central Savannah River Area, and the Heart of Georgia Altamaha – approved a 1 percent sales tax that would last for 10 years to fund regional and local transportation improvements. Voters in the Southern Georgia Region passed the same transportation tax referendum in 2018. While TIA tax collections continued through 2022 for the original three regions, those collections will continue until 2028 for the Southern Georgia Region.

The Georgia Department of Transportation is responsible for the management of the budget, schedule, execution and delivery of all 1,022 projects contained in the TIA’s “Approved Investment Lists,” and

Kenneth Franks – state TIA administrator – details on this episode of the ETAP podcast how the regional and local impact of those projects. To list to the full episode, click here.

ETAP Podcast: NYSDOT Details Transportation Resilience Efforts

Marie Therese Dominguez (above), commissioner of the New York State Department of Transportation, recently joined the Environmental Technical Assistance Program or ETAP Podcast to discuss how her agency is working to build a more resilient transportation system.

[Above photo by the New York Governor’s Office]

Dominguez talked about how her agency tries to strengthen her state’s transportation system to better withstand severe weather events such floods, droughts, hurricanes, and in New York State’s case, winter storms.

Recently, the U.S. experienced a wave of winter storms that struck many regions of the country extremely hard – including upstate New York in and around the city of Buffalo. Dominguez shared with the ETAP Podcast how NYSDOT worked to help the region respond and recover from that storm, as well as the takeaways from the experience so the agency can apply what it has learned from its storm response to make the transportation network more resilient in the future.

Click here to listen to the full podcast.

ETAP Podcast: The I-24 Motion Test Bed

In this episode of the Environmental Technical Assistance Program or ETAP Podcast, Lee Smith – interim traffic operations division director at the Tennessee Department of Transportation – and Professor Dan Work from Vanderbilt University discuss the I-24 Motion test bed.

[Above image via the Tennessee DOT]

Formally known as the I-24 Mobility Technology Interstate Observation Network, the “test bed” encompasses a six-mile stretch of I-24 in the Nashville-Davidson County Metropolitan equipped with over 300 ultra-high definition cameras. The images from those cameras are then converted into a “digital model” to demonstrate the behavior of every vehicle using the roadway.

[Editor’s note: This test bed is part of the larger I-24 SMART Corridor project directed by Tennessee DOT, which seeks to integrate freeway and arterial roadway elements, along with physical, technological, and operational improvements, to provide drivers accurate, real-time information for actively managing traffic volumes. The agency noted in April 2022 that it completed Phase 1 of the I-24 SMART Corridor project in December 2021 and expects to wrap up Phase 2 by the spring of 2023.]

Tennessee DOT noted the I-24 Motion test bed’s “digital model” is formed anonymously via artificial intelligence or AI trajectory algorithms developed by Vanderbilt University. That vehicle trajectory data allows traffic researchers to uncover new insights into how traffic flow influences individual vehicle behavior – particularly critical due to the increasing automation capability of individual vehicles.

By unlocking a new understanding of how autonomous vehicles influence traffic, vehicle and infrastructure design can be optimized to reduce traffic concerns in the future to improve safety, air quality, and fuel efficiency, Smith and Professor Work noted.

To listen to this episode of the ETAP Podcast, click here.

ETAP Podcast: AASHTO President Roger Millar

At its 2022 Annual Meeting, held in October in Orlando, the Board of Directors of the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials elected Roger Millar (seen above) as its 2022-2023 president.

[Above photo by WSDOT]

Appointed secretary of the Washington State Department of Transportation in August 2016, Millar – a 1982 graduate of the University of Virginia – is a fellow of the American Society of Civil Engineers and a fellow of the American Institute of Certified Planners.

He also serves as president of the American Society of Civil Engineers’ Transportation and Development Institute, is chair of the Intelligent Transportation Society of America’s board of directors, and is a member of the National Complete Streets Coalition Steering Committee.

An experienced land-use and transportation engineer, planner, and program manager – with an international reputation for innovative approaches to conservation and development – Millar’s key emphasis area during his one-year term as AASHTO president is transportation system resilience.

That includes preparing for and adapting transportation infrastructure to changing conditions and climate-related disruptions like wildfires, flooding, excessive heat, sea-level rise, and extreme storm events.

In this ETAP podcast episode, Millar will discuss how his decades-long transportation industry experience led him to make resilience his key focus area as AASHTO 2022-2023 president. Click here to listen.

ETAP Podcast: The Ray Eyes Future Roadway Developments

This episode of the Environmental Technical Assistance Program or ETAP Podcast interviews Laura Rogers (seen above), deputy director of The Ray, to examine the future of roadways in America.

Founded in 2014, The Ray is a Georgia-based corporate venture devoted to roadway technology testing and collaborates with a number of state departments of transportation across the country. For example, in 2019, it formed a public-private-philanthropic partnership with the Georgia Department of Transportation to create and install a digital testing environment focused on critical interstate use cases, such as crash and weather warnings, for stakeholder engagement and education.

The first phase of work focused on an 18-mile corridor of rural interstate, known as The Ray Highway, and established as a connected vehicle ecosystem with six dual-mode and dual-active roadside radios, a number of cellular V2X or C-V2X equipped vehicles owned by the Georgia DOT connected to Panasonic’s CIRRUS cloud-based data management platform.

Laura Rogers, via The Ray

Additionally, in April, The Ray and consulting firm NGI recently released the NextGen Highways Feasibility Study for the Minnesota Department of Transportation that examined strategies for “co-locating” electric and communications infrastructure in highway right-of-ways or ROWs.

That study focused on the potential deployment of buried, high-voltage/direct current or HVDC transmission lines within Minnesota interstate and highway ROWs – an effort that offers broader implications for highway ROW strategies in other states.

In this episode of the ETAP podcast, Rogers discussed the “safety, condition, and sustainability” concerns surrounding America’s road networks, which she stressed are “vital” to the nationwide movement of goods and people.

Prior to joining The Ray, Rogers served as the sustainability and energy program manager at the Maryland Department of Transportation for six years as part of a long career in the federal and private sectors working on environmental management and sustainability issues.

To listen to this podcast, click here.

ETAP Podcast: Pennsylvania’s New Statewide Anti-Litter Program

This episode of the Environmental Technical Assistance Program or ETAP Podcast interviews Yassmin Gramian and Natasha Fackler, secretary and infrastructure implementation coordinator for the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation, respectively, about the state’s new anti-littering program.

[Above photo by PennDOT]

PennDOT helped launch the new program – formally entitled “PA Fights Dirty: Every Litter Bit Matters” – in August along with several other state agencies.

The creation of this campaign is one of the many recommendations made by Pennsylvania’s first-ever Litter Action Plan, released in December 2021. That plan also won a Pennsylvania Governor’s Awards for Excellence in May.

“Every Litter Bit Matters” seeks to get state residents to ensure that every piece of their trash, regardless of size, is disposed of properly as research shows only 3 percent of Pennsylvanians approve of littering, yet 40 to 50 percent of them admit to littering roadways and other public areas.

“Every Litter Bit Matters” also seeks to educate state residents about “situational littering,” such as leaving trash on the ground next to a full can or in a stadium, as well as reminding them that litter of all sizes stacks up and creates problems, Gramian and Fackler explained.

PennDOT noted that a 2019 Litter Research Study found that Pennsylvania has more than 500 million pieces of litter on its roadways, with more than 85 percent of those pieces measuring less than four inches in size. That study also found that litter-related cleanup costs currently total around $350 million each year.

To listen to the full podcast, click here.

ETAP Podcast: Next Generation Highways

In this episode of the Environmental Technical Assistance Program or ETAP Podcast, Jessica Oh – strategic partnerships director in the sustainability and public health office within the Minnesota Department of Transportation – discusses the “next generation highway” her agency is studying.

[Above photo by Minnesota DOT]

The Ray and consulting firm NGI released the NextGen Highways Feasibility Study for the Minnesota DOT in April; a study that examined strategies for “co-locating” electric and communications infrastructure in highway right-of-ways or ROWs.

The study focused on the potential deployment of buried, high-voltage/direct current or HVDC transmission lines within Minnesota interstate and highway ROWs – an effort that offers broader implications for highway ROW strategies in other states.

In April 2021, the Federal Highway Administration released guidance clarifying the highway ROW “can be leveraged by state DOTs for pressing public needs relating to climate change, equitable communications access, and energy reliability.”

Projects listed include renewable energy generation, electrical transmission and distribution projects, broadband projects, vegetation management, inductive charging in travel lanes, and alternative fueling facilities, among others.

“At the heart of this study is the need to examine the energy transmission infrastructure we will need in order to electrify our transportation network; part of a broader effort to decarbonize the U.S. economy,” Oh explained during the podcast.

“The concept we’re evaluating looked specifically at burying [electric power] transmission lines in the highway ROW,” she noted. “Only three states allow for that now. Yet the use of existing distributed ROW could contain the visual impact of expanding our electric grid while lessening the need to acquire more land to support more transmission.”

Building transmission capacity in existing highway ROW could also reduce project-siting timelines by seven to 10 years, Oh added, while reducing the need to work with hundreds of landowners on a project down to dealing with a single state department of transportation.

“There is a great benefit for communities if they allow transmission capacity to be built in the highway ROW,” she emphasized.

To listen to the full podcast, click here.

ETAP Podcast: Electric Vehicles and State DOTs

This episode of the Environmental Technical Assistance Program or ETAP Podcast talks with Dr. Shihab Kuran (seen above) about the key role state departments of transportation play in helping establish a national electric vehicle or EV charging network.

Kuran is the co-founder and CEO of Power Edison as well as co-founder and executive chairman of its sister company EV Edison – companies offering innovative renewable energy, EV charging, and mobile energy storage solutions for the grid.

Kuran explains a “vision” for a peaceful world with universal access to clean and sustainable sources of energy, food, and water drives his efforts in the EV sector. In this ETAP podcast episode, Kuran discusses a variety of approaches and solutions for meeting the electric grid demand generated by EV charging – how state DOTs can support those efforts.

To listen to this podcast episode, click here.

ETAP Podcast: Native Language Road Signs

This episode of the Environmental Technical Assistance Program or ETAP Podcast touches on the topic of creating more road signs featuring more of the indigenous languages spoken in the United States with representatives of the Iowa Department of Transportation and Minnesota Department of Transportation.

[Above photo by Jimmy Emerson]

The United States is a country with over 150 indigenous languages still spoken today within its borders. With 5.2 million Indigenous people residing in the country today, speaking those 150-plus languages, why aren’t more of our road signs printed in these native languages? That is what teams from Iowa DOT and Minnesota DOT – along with a variety of indigenous partners – set out to change.

This ETAP podcast discussion involves Brennan Dolan, cultural resources team lead and tribal liaison for the Iowa DOT; Ed Fairbanks, retired tribal liaison for the Minnesota DOT; and Mary Otto, tribal state relations training manager with the Minnesota DOT.

To listen to this podcast, click here.

ETAP Podcast: COMTO and Equity in Transportation

In this episode of the Environmental Technical Assistance Program or ETAP Podcast, April Rai (seen above) – president and CEO of the Conference of Minority Transportation Officials (COMTO) – provides an overview of efforts to promote equity in the transportation sector.

[Above photo by COMTO]

Though equity in transportation has become a major topic of interest in the past few years, it is not a new issue.

For example, COMTO – founded in 1961 – has sought to ensure opportunities and maximum participation in the transportation industry for minority individuals, veterans, people with disabilities, as well as minority, women, and disadvantaged business enterprises over the last 50-plus years.

In this podcast episode, Rai talks about how equity in transportation is becoming a “mainstream concern” and how COMTO seeks to show how equity heavily intersects with other key topics such as environmental justice, workforce diversity, public involvement, and more.

To listen to this podcast, click here.