Guest blogger Federal Highway Administrator Victor Mendez: Read all about it! New website devoted to Every Day Counts initiative

We all recognize these are difficult economic times. Now, more than ever, we at the Department of Transportation need to give taxpayers maximum value for every dollar they entrust to us.

That means we need to give the transportation community better, faster and smarter ways to enhance safety, make our communities more livable, support our economy, and sustain our environment. Every Day Counts (EDC) is a first step in meeting those challenges through innovation.

I appreciate Secretary LaHood letting me share a few thoughts with everyone about EDC. Today we’re launching a new website devoted entirely to this innovation initiative. I hope you’ll check out our new site at www.fhwa.dot.gov/everydaycounts/.

On the new site you can watch a video introduction to the Every Day Counts initative

To give you a little background, we launched EDC last fall with two goals in mind: shortening the time it takes to deliver major bridge and highway projects and deploying new technologies into mainstream use faster.

The new website will allow anyone to learn more about the specific strategies and technologies we’ve selected and that we’ll be working with our state and private industry partners to begin implementing these strategies and technologies this fall.

We also see the website as a place where the transportation community can share ideas about what parts of EDC are working well, best practices and innovative ideas to move forward.

Warm-mix asphalt is just one of the good ideas you'll find on our front page

A lot of the initiatives are related to one of the Department’s most important priorities, environmental sustainability. For example, the sooner we can deliver a new highway, the sooner we can reduce a city’s traffic congestion and the resulting greenhouse gas emissions. Or, the more frequently contractors use warm mix asphalt--one of the technologies we’re advancing--the less energy we’ll use to pave a road.

There’s also an internal component to EDC that reflects my personal belief that everyone can make a difference in creating a greener planet. The Going Greener initiative is designed to reduce FHWA’s carbon footprint and make us a greener agency. Based on employee suggestions, every FHWA office has implemented its own green plan including ways to use less paper, consume less energy, and increase recycling.

This is an important moment in the history of EDC as we gear up to implement specific technologies and project delivery strategies. The launch of our new EDC website adds to the sense of pride and excitement all of us feel about this signature innovation in the way projects are planned, built, and delivered to the traveling public.

Comments

[Rob]

"the sooner we can deliver a new highway, the sooner we can reduce a city’s traffic congestion and the resulting greenhouse gas emissions."

While it is true that the immediate benefits of added capacity are decreased congestion, it is equally true that the congestion-relief benefits dissipate rapidly thereby failing to improve commuter experience while at the same time amplifying adverse environmental impacts. Yes, let's green highway repair/replacement. Kudos to FHWA staff greening their respective office and field operations, as well.

My brakes lock-up, though, when greening becomes green-washing. Expanding urban highway capacity isn't a "green" strategy. If it were, and given that we have enough road miles to wrap around the planet several times, we would not be discussing the need to reduce our carbon footprint. We would not be discussing peak oil. We would not be discssuing national security imperatives tied to climate change and over-reliance on both domestic and foreign oil.

Our highway network serves a vital purpose, but continuing our build-out strategy hasn't been the right thing to do for decades, let alone the right thing to do faster.

The Illinois Department of Transportation wrote in its Context Sensitive Designs Manual:

"The mandate given by the National Interstate and Defense Highways Act of 1956 was to build a new national highway system which would move large volumes of traffic safely and expeditiously at the highest design standards. By any measure, that effort succeeded beyond anyone’s wildest expectations. However, that era is over."

[D. Morgan]

As a resident of the Commonwealth of Virginia - specifically in Northern VA - I'm keenly interested in these kinds of initiatives. The Commonwealth makes a lot of great data public. There's a project near my home, and it's delayed. You can see the milestones here: http://bit.ly/dmxrTf

It's already 3+ years late, and VDOT's doing to spend a year working with FHWA to acquire the right of way! I see FHWA is looking to promote ROW flexibilities. How can I, as a citizen keenly interested in seeing this project move faster, learn about these ROW flexibilities and make sure my state and local governments are making use of them to deliver vital transportation projects?

[Becky Vaughan]

Thank you for sharing information about the new Every Day Counts website. Our company produces a warm-mix asphalt technology so we were especially interested to see that it is one of the technologies you will be advancing. We look forward to supporting you on this initiative to bring about sustainable change. For more about us, visit Behind the Screed at http://evotherm.typepad.com/blog/