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It’s stopping, looking and listening

by Barry Henderson

Is it possible that the Tennessee Department of Transportation has really turned over a new...uh...asphalt spreader? The Bredesen administration’s Commissioner of Transportation, Gerald Nicely, has been making most of the right moves, meaning the public-interest moves, not the public-be-damned moves, since his appointment a year-and-a-half ago, and there’s no reason to think of the departmental turnaround as a hollow gesture, other than the lengthy TDOT record of doing as it and the road-building industry pleases.

Goodness knows, I’ve heaped as much abuse, if not outright invective, on TDOT as anybody. The state’s “department of troglodytes,” etc. In a way, it would be a shame to lose such a ready whipping boy, but for the interim, let’s assume the new TDOT is praiseworthy for its seeming turnaround. Here’s what I mean:

The department has been listening to local leaders and politicians and real people almost since Nicely walked in the door. It’s held hearings on proposals from Mountain City to Mud Island, and it’s made some changes based on what it hears. That’s been a refreshing change in the way TDOT does business, and the department is putting the same concept into a 25-year plan to take long-term transportation needs into account. The public is being asked to comment on those needs by mail, phone or email, or by obtaining a form from the TDOT website, www.tennessee.gov/tdot and filling it out. The department has also formed a broad-based, 48-member steering committee and expects to form nine regional 20-to-30 member working groups so that turning up the state’s disparate areas’ special needs won’t be left out of the process.

The plan is to address highways, of course, but also waterways and mass transit, rail, air, pedestrian and bicycle travel. It aims to be comprehensive, but it fails to mention one vital facet of public input—a scientific opinion survey or surveys.

It’s one thing to get the ideas of those who are willing, indeed waiting for the chance, to comment. It’s quite another to find the ideas that exist out there on the minds of people who aren’t inclined to go to meetings, attend hearings, fill out forms, or compose commentaries.

I, for instance, am a long-time advocate of rail and light-rail travel as an alternative to reliance on motor vehicles, private or public. And I know of many more people who are almost religious about the same subject. But I wouldn’t want opinions of my own or of any other axe-grinder to be lent disproportionate weight simply because we are actively espousing one transportation alternative or another.

The public view should be sought through random polling as well as solicited comment. There’s time to come up with a good survey, if the department is willing to commission one, even though the schedule is fairly tight for such a tall order. The department is giving itself a year to come up with the 25-year plan, a 10-year component of that plan and a one- to three-year program of selected priority projects.

Just the notion that TDOT is thinking about what other, ordinary people think they need is extremely important. It is also a refreshing departure from the past, when engineers and the road lobby decided for us all. For this plan, the department will take into account demographic and economic projections, as well as assess engineering challenges and possibilities, and costs. But the people will be heard. Bravo!

Internally, the department is also showing new independence from the influence of powerful road-builders. It turns out that a computer analysis of state highway construction contracts concluded last year occasioned Nicely and Gov. Bredesen to ask the state’s attorney general and the TBI to investigate the possibility of bid-rigging practices among some of the state’s road builders.

WTVF-TV, Nashville’s NewsChannel 5, broke the story last week after conducting its own investigation. It calls the story, “Tennessee’s High-Dollar Highways,” and, in interviews with Commissioner Nicely, the station put him on tape saying, “It would imply that people are getting together and working on bids before they are actually opened.” The TV watchdogs looked into five years worth of contracts and found that more than 10 percent of the total value, or $360 million worth of contracts, went to sole bidders. One of the road superintendents interviewed suggested that four or five major players have “pretty much regionalized the asphalt industry,” bidding on contracts in their own territory but staying out of each others’ territories.

Finding patterns that indicate collusion and proving that there is an actual conspiracy are two different things. The Tennessee Road Builders Association issued a statement saying it supports the commissioner’s effort and welcomes a full and complete review to alleviate Nicely’s “concern about the integrity of the low open bid system.” Hope they mean it. Both the association and the commissioner. It could bring them respect where ridicule prevailed.

June 3, 2004 • Vol. 14, No. 23 © 2004 Metro Pulse