Bush picks Peters to lead DOT

Bush picks Peters to lead DOT    President Bush Tuesday nominated former Federal Highway Administrator Mary Peters to be secretary of transportation, replacing Norman Y. Mineta who left office in June.
   Peters served as head of the Federal Highway Administration under Mineta from 2001 to 2005. She is a vice president at HDR Inc., an engineering firm.
   Political observers had considered Federal Aviation Administration Administrator Marion Blakely and Maria Cino, the acting secretary, among the top candidates to head the Department of Transportation.
   During her tenure at DOT, Peters pushed for greater private-sector involvement in designing, building and managing transportation infrastructure. She encouraged the use of roadside and vehicular technologies to reduce congestion, and new methods for building safer roads and streamlining the approval process for projects.
   Peters’ approach of expanding toll roads and using public-private financing to fund highway construction echoes the approach taken my Mineta in the past couple of years.
   Peters served as director of the Arizona Department of Transportation before joining the Bush administration.