FHWA wants to halve project delivery times

FHWA wants to halve project delivery times    The Federal Highway Administration has set a new goal to cut delivery time for highway and bridge projects in half, Administrator Victor Mendez told state transportation officials on Wednesday.
   A typical highway project can take from 10 to 15 years to complete — up to six years for the environmental review process and up to nine years for planning, design and construction, according to transportation planners. Transit projects face similar bureaucratic hurdles.
   The FHWA's 'Everyday Counts' initiative is an effort to convey urgency to agency staff and speed up the approval project for construction projects receiving federal aid, Mendez said at a conference held by the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials in Arlington, Va.
   The Department of Transportation agency has several internal teams studying ways to improve the planning and environmental process. Mendez said the intent is to speed up technical reviews without undermining the environmental process.
   Legal or legislative impediments need to be identified and communicated to the proper authorities to see if they can be removed. There may not always be a solution in such cases, 'but at least we've done what we can to elevate the issue and try to resolve it,' Mendez said.
   The multiyear transportation spending bill proposed last year by Rep. James Oberstar, chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, includes a provision requiring the DOT to establish an Office of Project Delivery to shepherd and track projects through the approval pipeline so they don't languish.
   The FHWA chief also said he is challenging his staff to more quickly identify and deploy innovative safety technologies. A simple device that the agency will soon propose is a safety edge that attaches to paving equipment to pave asphalt on the shoulder at a 30-degree angle to prevent accidents caused by people overcorrecting when they try to steer back onto the road. ' Eric Kulisch