Texas Department of Transportation Commission Meeting

Intercontinental Hotel
2222 West Loop South
Houston, Texas

Thursday, January 27, 2005

COMMISSION MEMBERS:

RIC WILLIAMSON, CHAIRMAN
JOHN W. JOHNSON
ROBERT L. NICHOLS
HOPE ANDRADE
TED HOUGHTON, JR.

STAFF:

MICHAEL W. BEHRENS, P.E., Executive Director
STEVE SIMMONS, Deputy Executive Director
RICHARD MONROE, General Counsel
ROGER POLSON, Executive Assistant to the Deputy Executive Director
DEE HERNANDEZ, Chief Minute Clerk

PROCEEDINGS

MR. WILLIAMSON: Good morning. It is 9:14 a.m. and I would like to call the January meeting of the Texas Transportation Commission to order here in Houston, Texas. It is a pleasure to have each of you here this morning at this, our first meeting of the new year.

This is the eighth Highway or Transportation Commission meeting to be held here in Houston. It has been almost five years since our last trip. We note, with great pleasure, that while congestion is still a problem, it' s not nearly as bad as it was five years ago, and we' re here to tell you that it will not be nearly as bad five years from now when we return, or in four years, as the fellow suggested, to break the champagne bottle on Interstate 10 as it' s opened up -- unless we use the ribbon-cutting idea you had where we were going to stop traffic for two hours and string ribbon across it.

(General laughter.)

MR. WILLIAMSON: But only you and me come up with that because we don' t live in urban Texas.

Please note for the record that the public notice of this meeting, containing all items on the agenda, was filed with the Office of Secretary of State at 3:11 p.m. on January 18, 2005. The agenda and the other commission documents, such as meeting minutes and transcripts, are also available on our TxDOT website.

Before we begin today' s meeting, for those of you who don' t attend our meetings very often, we place high value on not being interrupted by telephones, pagers, Blackberries and all the other electronic devices people carry these days, so as a favor to me, Ted, would you reach in your pocket, get your phone, Blackberry, whatever you carry, and put it on the silent or vibrate mode. Thank you very much.

As is our custom, we will open with comments from the commission and we will begin this morning with Commissioner Houghton who is on your far left of the dais.

MR. HOUGHTON: Good morning, and I want to thank you for the tremendous hospitality that' s been extended to myself and my fellow commissioners.

How many people in here have heard me speak in the last 24-48 hours? There' s not a whole lot I can say.

(General laughter.)

MR. HOUGHTON: But I can say one thing because officially I want to officially, for the record, extend birthday greetings to three people on the dais, Chairman Ric Williamson, Executive Director Michael Behrens, and the home boy Johnny Johnson, which have birthdays within a week and of this week, I guess Monday, Johnny. And Johnny, I' m not going to talk about your age; I think it' s around the official speed limit but I' m not sure.

MR. JOHNSON: School zone.

(General laughter.)

MR. HOUGHTON: But again, what a dynamic community you have -- I don' t need to tell you that. It' s the economic driver in the state of Texas; we all benefit, even those of us who live in far West Texas in El Paso. And I thank you for having us.

MS. ANDRADE: Good morning. Thank you for being here this morning. And I' m so glad when Ted asked the question how many have heard him speak within the past 24 hours that all of you are still smiling. So thank you for being here. It' s great to be in Houston, it' s a great way to start off our year. And thank you also to those that have come from elsewhere to Houston.

You know, we' ve got a tremendous job in 2005. Yesterday when I was in Austin and I heard the governor' s State of the State Address, he talked about all the jobs that have been created, he talked about all the new opportunities that are coming our way, and so certainly it puts a lot of pressure on us that we have to prepare this wonderful state because people keep wanting to move to Texas.

So Mr. Chairman, I look forward to taking care of the business that we have to take care of today and keeping transportation moving forward in Texas. Thank you.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Do you want to go last?

MR. JOHNSON: No.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Okay.

MR. JOHNSON: As Ted mentioned, this is a home game for me and there' s a certain pleasure and luxury in having an occasional home game. It is wonderful to see so many good friends here and to see this room full.

I mentioned at breakfast and I mentioned again last night, each of you in some form or fashion is a partner in the transportation challenges that we face in this community and in the state, and when we work together, whether it' s the county or the partnership or whatever, we can perform miracles and climb the highest mountain, and when we have separate agendas, it makes the challenges that much more difficult.

I cannot tell you how much I appreciate what you do for the communities that you serve and the greater community at large, because I do think, as Hope referred to, we' re making significant progress on surface transportation, multimodal challenges, and the issues of moving Houstonians and Texans to where they want to go and moving the goods and services through the network of this state to make it one of the economic prides and joys of this country.

Thank you for all you do and it' s great having a home game.

MR. NICHOLS: I' d also like to thank you for giving us the hospitality you have and for you taking the time today to be with us. It' s a very exciting time in transportation.

A lot of us came in yesterday, we got some good tours. It was kind of interesting, we rode the Metro buses and then we rode the train, we saw the Metro board, and it was actually an interesting way to see some of the highway construction projects by riding the train. And one of the things the Metro board taught us as we got on the train, they said, You' ve got to learn the wrist action. And I said, Well, what' s that? They said, As we' re riding the train as it parallels 59, at five o' clock and all the cars are jammed up and stuck as you go by, you' re supposed to kind of do like this.

(General laughter.)

MR. NICHOLS: No, they didn' t really do that. I do look forward to today, though. Thank you.

MR. WILLIAMSON: I echo the remarks of my fellow commissioners. We are pleased to be in Houston, one of the economic centers and economic generation centers of the state, very important to the entire state of Texas.

When we go on the road, we have people who never go to any of our other meetings, so to keep you from being a little bit surprised, the governor places a high value on civilized discourse and a teamwork approach to problem-solving, so the five of us are very comfortable with each other, we tend to be very informal. The commission has an executive director who runs the department and he will conduct most of the meeting. The commission members individually will interrupt guests and witnesses and ask questions and dialogue throughout the meeting, so don' t be surprised.

We do also value frank and candid conversation, so if you have some thoughts about any of our agenda items and wish to share those thoughts with the public, we mightily encourage you to do that. And in that regard, if you' re going to comment on an item that is on our agenda, it' s posted on our agenda, we would appreciate it if you would fill out a yellow card similar to this. We have some up here at the front, I think there' s some at the table in the lobby outside, and we would appreciate you completing this if you' re going to comment on an agenda item.

If you' re not going to comment on an agenda item but you want to share with us your thoughts in general about transportation matters, we ask that you fill out the blue card. Again, it can be found at the table in the lobby outside the door to your left.

Regardless of the color of the card, because our meetings tend to last a long time, we ask that you try to limit your remarks to three minutes, unless you' re an elected member of the Texas Legislature, in which case you can speak for as long as you wish.

In that regard, is there a House or a Senate member present in the room that we were not aware of?

There are lots of former members -- we' re going to have a former member meeting up here after the commission meeting -- Judge Eckels, Judge Willy, Dalton Smith, Ed Emmett, and I' m sure there are others that I can' t see because at 53 I' m failing in my eyesight.

The commission, which usually holds our meetings in Austin, travels to various cities and towns across Texas three times a year. This gives us a chance to see some of the ideas that have been developed by our district employees and to see firsthand some of the issues which each community in the state faces. It gives us a chance to observe how communities are dealing with their transportation challenges and how they' re using their facilities for the best interest of their citizens and visitors.

It' s always a pleasure to hear from local transportation leaders in our host community -- that' s very important to us. We expect that Mayor White is going to be here around 10:15 and we' re going to hear his comments at that time. The way we would like to start the meeting off is recognize our TxDOT District Engineer Gary Trietsch; he' s going to take you and us through a quick presentation.

And then we most normally take breaks in between presentations because there are some men and women here that are here for a particular presentation who have to work for a living and need to get back to their job, and we understand that. So we' ll frequently take breaks, get up, stretch, use the restroom, whatever, while people exit the room.

One of the truly great district engineers in the state of Texas, Gary Trietsch. It' s all yours, Gary.

MR. TRIETSCH: Thank you, Chairman Williamson.

We have several speakers here today and I' d like to start with Jodie Jiles who is chair of the Greater Houston Partnership. He' s got some comments.

MR. JILES: Good morning, Chairman and commissioners. My name is Jodie Jiles -- as Jim Koloft passes by -- and I am representing the Greater Houston Partnership today. I' m also representing the Gulf Coast Regional Mobility Partners, and I would like for our region business leaders, elected officials, and other representatives of both the partnership and the Houston region to please stand. If you would stand if you' re from Houston, because everybody is a leader in here. So if you' re from Houston and you' re in the business community, please stand.

This is Houston' s leadership in its finest form, and we thank you for being here.

(Applause.)

MR. JILES: And by the way, most of the people around the wall are from Houston as well too.

But Mr. Chairman, I' d be remiss if I didn' t start off by saying this is the hometown of Johnny Johnson, one of your commissioners, and Johnny is a business leader and a community servant that leads beyond compare. We are honored to have you in Johnny' s hometown and we are honored to be here with Johnny Johnson representing Houston and the region.

I' m also pleased to have Jim Koloft, who is our president and CEO, here with us. But more importantly, you said it, Mr. Chairman, you said Gary Trietsch.

And Gary, we love you, we appreciate you, and we' re thankful for you, and that' s the bottom line.

Gary has been here a long time and worked through a lot of issues and we are a team and we want to work and move forward as a team.

Mr. Chairman, you stated -- and I got this from a reliable source -- that you' ve gone from being the parent to the partner, from the parent to the partner -- a preacher told me to say it twice if you want to emphasize it, Mr. Chairman, and that' s why I said it twice -- and the bottom line is this Texas Mobility Plan and the emphasis that this commission puts on the Texas Mobility Plan and working together to accomplish good roads and good transportation for this urban area, we appreciate you and we salute you for that partnership, and we look forward to that continued partnership for the good of this community first, and the state second, and we thank you all.

And the bottom line is that we are here to work with you, not "agin" you; we are for you and we' re a team; it' s us, not I or me. And we thank you for being here and we appreciate all that you do for the great state of Texas. Thank you.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Thank you very much.

(Applause.)

MR. TRIETSCH: Next, David Wolff who is chair of the Metropolitan Transit Authority. David.

MR. WOLFF: Mr. Chairman and commissioners. It was a pleasure being with several of you yesterday; I hope you enjoyed the tour and that it was kind of informative.

On behalf of Metro and the 4.4 million people in the Houston metropolitan area, we welcome you and thank you for the hard work that you do for all of Texas. We have a history of a strong and productive relationship with TxDOT that goes back over 25 years.

As the chairman of the Metropolitan Transit Authority of Harris County, I want you to know that mobility remains the single greatest concern of the people of Houston. We believe that the solution to this problem is cooperative in nature, it is not roads versus transit, that' s why you are the Texas Department of Transportation.

Our goal is improved mobility through a fully integrated multimodal regional transportation system. And I' m here today to ask for your assistance as we carry out several initiatives as this region grows to 6.6 million people over the next 20 years.

We are pursuing (a) the conversion of our 100-mile network of HOV lanes to high occupancy toll lanes and the dualization of these HOV facilities. Of very great importance, we ask you to work with us on the introduction and development of commuter rail in suburban corridors that will expand our service area into those rapidly growing areas outside of our current service area. We believe that these can be tied in to our light rail system at our intermodal facilities, one of which is now being studied in cooperation with a grant from TxDOT.

We' re also looking to preserve space that would allow us to ultimately introduce high-speed rail service in the I-10 corridor with the capability to expand beyond our urban region.

We' re very confident of our ability to work with TxDOT because we have accomplished great things with you in the past: the 100 miles of high-occupancy vehicle lanes that move over 120,000 trips per day, relieving the pressure off of the main lanes; the development, working with TxDOT, of Transtar; the contribution which we make, that is Metro, of $100 million a year to a general mobility program allowing Harris County, the City of Houston, and 14 smaller cities to provide much needed mobility projects, many in cooperation with TxDOT.

And we are also installing, at the cost of $120 million, modern traffic control signal systems at 1,300 intersections throughout the metropolitan area which will promote the movement of cars, buses, trucks, et cetera.

As an example of the approach we are taking, we have hired a new president and CEO who is with me today, Frank Wilson. Frank was previously the commissioner of transportation for the State of New Jersey. With that responsibility, he ran the commuter rail lines into Penn Station, he oversaw the Highway Department in New Jersey, he oversaw one of the most famous toll roads in the United States, the New Jersey Turnpike. Prior to that, he was the number one person at BART in San Francisco.

I told people that when we were recruiting our new CEO that I was very pleasantly surprised with the response that we had from people around the country. In Houston we see so many of the problems that we have on a day-to-day basis but those are the problems of growth and there are many cities around the country who would gladly change places with us. There were many people running authorities in the older cities in the United States who wanted to come to Houston and have the opportunity to run Metro.

And so I think this is something we have to keep in mind when we look at the congestion and the mobility problems we deal with caused by people wanting to come to Houston because of the opportunities which were mentioned by Commissioner Andrade and because they want the opportunity to have a better life, and it' s our responsibility to help them get that.

As you saw yesterday, the 7-1/2 mile light rail line which we opened has quickly established a new means of transportation within our urban core. The Houston Chronicle reported on January 17 that the Metro Rail Main Street line is the number one light rail line in the nation on a boardings-per-mile basis. We have daily ridership of 33,000 people per day. This is way above our first-year forecast, and in fact, we are already beginning to approach the forecasted level for the year 2020.

With one-sixth the mileage of DART, our neighbor to the north which runs a very successful light rail line, we are carrying more than one-half of their daily passenger boardings, and we' re very proud of this for what it means for our future.

I thank you for the opportunity to address this commission, I appreciate the great work you do. Having a similar job, I know the amount of work and stress and the demands, and I think you' re doing a great job.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Thank you, David. Hang on a second, will you.

MR. WOLFF: Yes, sir.

MR. WILLIAMSON: I failed to ask members, any dialogue with Mr. Jiles? With Mr. Wolff, anything?

(No response.)

MR. WILLIAMSON: I want to thank you for your remarks, and I want to emphasize publicly what I emphasized with you privately last night. This governor has a different viewpoint of transportation. As I told you, he' s not a fan of buses, but he believes a robust commuter system has to be a part of solving the state' s transportation problem. And we are probably spending more time and more money every month seeing where we can fit, as partners, with our great urban areas in Texas on solving the commuter matter than we spent in all the years prior to this governor' s election.

So our door is wide open for suggestions, proposals, entrepreneurial ways of helping a robust commuter rail system in this area spring up and grow quickly.

Our staff has been studying -- and we' re not ready to publish it and stand behind it, but we' re getting pretty close -- we' ve been studying an approach to the level at which the taxpayers of this state subsidize highways. There has always been this great canyon of agreement between the road guys and the transit guys about the level of subsidy for transit that' s out there, but the reality is we subsidize a lot of roads in the state -- in fact, we may subsidize near 90 percent of our roads.

And so it seems to me that if the Department of Transportation can give an objective viewpoint of what the road subsidy is in any given situation, it begins to lay the groundwork for a civilized discussion about if you have a limited resource, how much of it do you put into a subsidized road and how much of it do you put into a subsidized commuter line.

I want to say again, I don' t think our guy will ever be interested in subsidizing buses, he thinks that' s a city responsibility, but he has some intense interest in the relationship between road construction and a robust commuter system. So the door is open.

MR. WOLFF: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Thank you for being here.

The Jersey Pike, huh?

MR. WILSON: A minor toll road.

MR. TRIETSCH: Frank Wilson probably has the best credentials of anybody I' ve ever heard. And I think you can tell from Mr. Wolff' s comments, Metro is not your typical transit agency. They do a lot of different things and they make a very good partner.

I' d like to kind of lay the groundwork for my two heavy hitters from Galveston and Harris County, so my presentation will be a power point, and as I told you last night, it' s not as good as what you saw last night, you' ll have to put up with me. But we' ve entitled this "Expecting The Unexpectable." See, we are expecting the unexpectable.

(General laughter.)

MR. TRIETSCH: Actually, I can make this a whole lot shorter and maybe save some time. You saw most of the pictures last night on the video. I think the points I would like to leave you with is that in this region, a coastal region, there are a lot of things that happen: flooding, hurricanes, with major traffic incidents. I mean, we' ve had bridges burn down, we' ve even had a bridge hit by a ship twice in the Houston Ship Channel. And it even snows in Galveston and Brazoria County.

(General laughter.)

MR. TRIETSCH: That little picture up by Galveston was snow on the beach. But here' s some of the things that have happened to the Houston District in the past few years, and it goes on and on.

Houston is an international city with world trading partners. We have 83 consuls' offices in the city; we are the fourth largest city and soon to be the third largest city.

The mundane facts: a little over 3,000 centerline miles of roadway, ranked 17th of the 25 districts; we' ve got about 10,000 miles which is fourth. But here' s what David referred to: we' re going to add over 2 million people in the next 20 years in this region.

You mentioned this morning about being a billion dollars in 2003; we hit a billion dollars last year -- I call $960 million a billion dollars, you know, I' m an engineer, rounding off. We' re going to hit a billion dollars, probably 1.1 or so, this fiscal year, but you can look back in > 94 we were under $400 million.

And that last bar is what we' ve paid out to date, but we' ve made over $600 million in contractor pay-outs in 2004, and in 1996 it was under $100 million.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Gary, can I stop you just a minute?

MR. TRIETSCH: You bet.

MR. WILLIAMSON: For those in the audience who, like many of us before we get exposed to this world, might be a little confused by this different analysis, what you' re basically telling the audience is "this is what we spent in my district, cash paid out."

MR. TRIETSCH: That' s right.

MR. JOHNSON: On construction.

MR. TRIETSCH: Just on construction, doesn' t include maintenance.

MR. WILLIAMSON: When I came on the commission in 2001, one of the very first controversies that I was exposed to was it seemed like the never-ending argument about is Houston and Dallas getting enough money, and I know that my friends at The Houston Chronicle were skeptical that we were paying enough attention to the Houston area. And we tried to explain that the nature of highway construction planning is such that it kind of rotates around the state; we spend less money planning in Houston while we execute a plan in Jacksonville and finish a plan in Weatherford, and that cycle drops those dollars. We assured Houston leadership that by early 2003, because of more cycles, it would cycle back to Houston and now we see the results of that.

Is it accurate, Mike, to say that we' re spending more money in the Houston District right now than we are in any other district in the state?

MR. BEHRENS: Yes, sir.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Thanks, Gary.

MR. TRIETSCH: Appreciate that.

Next slide. One of the reasons we' ve been able to do this, we couldn' t do it without our other partners, the consultants, the private sector industry. As you can see, back in 2000 we were paying out under $10 million a year. Again, these are actual cash dollars, how much we were actually spending. We' re spending over $50 million a year now. Seventy percent of our design work, the stuff it takes to get a project to contract, are now being done by the private sector. Could not even begin to do this kind of workload to let a billion dollars a year without their help.

We' re actually one of the smallest districts when it comes to physical size. We' re the third smallest district; we' ve got 2.2 percent of the land, the six counties here, of Texas. But with population and volume, we' re almost a quarter of the state, so that big red blob is our six counties kind of blown up a little bit. We didn' t make it to El Paso but we can get to San Antonio and to Dallas. For the people of the audience that don' t know what the Houston District is, it' s these six counties.

Quickly to go through some of our major projects, obviously the Fred Hartman Bridge, Pierce Elevated, the removal of the Baytown Tunnel. What' s interesting, it costs more to remove it than it did to put it in 1951. And obviously we' re proud of the arched bridges, the gateway to Houston. And the first TxDOT railroad project, in conjunction with the Houston Port Authority, to build a 9.3 mile line, $12.1 million using Congestion Mitigation Air Quality funds.

We do think we' re a good citizen. Down on Bolivar in > 87 we had a place on the beach that was about to wash the roadway out, and further north has already been washed out, so we did this project, working with the Corps, working with the General Land Office and many others, $3 million to create wetlands and marsh and put the granite boulders to protect the shore.

Obviously we' ve got a lot going on right now. The largest single contract in the state of Texas, $262 million, the West Loop and the Katy Freeway. And I apologize to Jay Nelson, I told him it would not go above what the High Five was, and if the contractor had bid what we estimated, it wouldn' t have.

(General laughter.)

MR. TRIETSCH: The West Loop, a series of three projects, the total reconstruction of the West Loop while under traffic; the Katy Freeway, the Tri-Party Agreement with Harris County, TxDOT and the Federal Highway Administration. And here are the Katy Freeway projects let to date and we' ve got two more, and in another five-six weeks, we will have virtually all but the last project, the $38 million let on the Katy Freeway and we' ll have 23 miles of it under contract and under construction.

What you saw yesterday, the Spur 527 and Southwest US 59. And probably the project that I' m very, very proud of is rebuilding the Galveston Causeway. I hadn' t been down here long and we had to let an emergency contract to kind of structurally prop it up, and although it was safe and sound, it just looked awful. I mean, it was like you' ve got Band-aids all over your hand holding that thing together, and we were finally able to get this project under construction, and next year about this time, 14 months from now, we' ll be switching truck traffic on half of the new bridge.

We' re still trying to provide better service with our ferry system, and right now no matter how many ferries we have, how many people, we' ve only got the two landings, so a $30 million project to add a landing on each side, the Bolivar and the Galveston side.

Transtar, you' ve heard over and over again, three of the last four years it' s won the US DOT award for top website for traffic management. The Green Ribbon Project, basically this is from very selfish reason, it' s not only the hardscape, the walls, the bridges, but it' s also the landscaping. We' ve worked with locals, the Buffalo Bayou Association and others, but I say I' m doing this all from very selfish reasons: if I can reforest and replant, maybe in ten years from now my mowing will be about 20 percent of what it is now. And obviously you' ll hear over and over again we couldn' t do this without our mobility partners.

Quickly just future projects, the Grand Parkway and US 290, unfortunately, another billion dollar project but we are working with Harris County Toll Road Authority and seeing what we can work out to cut that price, at least on our end of it.

With that, I think that' s the last slide. We do have traffic problems but as we were taking Commissioner Houghton around yesterday, it stops congestion every place. We are making progress but we do have major infrastructure that we' re going to have to rebuild, we showed him a little bit of that. And the East Loop, the North Loop, where some of our heaviest truck traffic, the pavement is literally worn out and we' re replacing some of that now and will continue to do that the next couple of years.

With that, I' d like to introduce -- unless any of you have any questions.

MR. JOHNSON: I' d like to make a comment, Gary. I don' t want to interrupt you, but looking at the video last night and also this slide show reminds me of how complex this district is and how complex your job is. And I don' t want to embarrass you, Gary, but four weeks from tomorrow Gary Trietsch is going to be awarded the Engineer of the Year Award, and Gary is quick to point out that the award should actually go to the entire Houston District, all 1,500 employees, and he' s right in that regard. He' s like a good football coach, in that he knows who blocks and tackles and who' s responsible for his success.

But I' ve got to say one thing, Gary, we have one hell of a coach here and it' s an award that you richly deserve.

(Applause.)

MR. TRIETSCH: Thank you.

MR. HOUGHTON: I want to thank you for your hospitality yesterday. I got to see, from the ground this time, Houston; last time it was from a helicopter. And I do have one question: Why did you take out the tunnel underneath the channel?

MR. TRIETSCH: Actually we had to. It was in there by permit and the permit back in the late > 40s said that when we no longer were using it, we had to remove it, and one of those things you sign thinking that will never happen.

(General laughter.)

MR. TRIETSCH: But the other part of it, not only because that' s what was in our Coast Guard -- I think it was the Coast Guard or Corps of Engineers permit, but the other thing was, and if you get a chance to read the Chronicle this morning, just about to complete the widening and deepening of the Houston Ship Channel and the ships were literally scraping the top of the tunnel while it was still in use.

MR. HOUGHTON: That' s disconcerting.

MR. TRIETSCH: So that' s another reason. And we actually didn' t take it all out, parts of the ends are still there but the part that' s directly under the channel did come out. I' ll send you a video we made on that too, that whole process.

MR. HOUGHTON: I' d like to see it. It didn' t leak like the Big Dig in Boston, did it?

MR. TRIETSCH: Not that badly but they all leak. It' s kind of like depressed freeway sections in Houston: they will flood eventually some day.

MR. HOUGHTON: Again, thank you, Gary, very much.

MR. TRIETSCH: I' m going to introduce my next two speakers. I' ve asked Harris County Judge Robert Eckels and Galveston County Judge Jim Yarbrough to come up and say a few words. I could have asked any of the county judges, any of the mayors we work with, but these are two of our very good partners and I think their comments will probably echo the region.

So Robert, I' ll let you start out, and Jim, I' ll let you do clean-up.

JUDGE ECKELS: Thank you. And again, Gary, I appreciate your service, and I really do appreciate the commission being here today. We are honored to have you in Houston and it has been too long, Ric; come back next month. I like that picture of the traffic sitting up there while we' re talking to the Highway Commission. They' ll remember it.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Okay, Robert, just go ahead and tell them about the resolution that you tried to pass transferring the capital down to Houston.

(General laughter.)

JUDGE ECKELS: That was my predecessors a while back. We' re just going to try to make the economic capital of Texas Houston, and we' ll come up to Austin once or twice a year for whatever work that we need up there. The allergies that bother me every time I get close to the capital, I don' t know what that is.

I am, again, really pleased to have you here and pleased to be here with our partners, Metro and the City of Houston, TxDOT, of course Gary Trietsch. He' s a great district engineer and I know that that billion dollars has been good training, he really needs to try the $2 billion year and I' d encourage you to try that in the very near future.

I' m also pleased to have Commissioner Johnson here. You' ve served us well for a number of years and have really enjoyed getting to know and work with him as a commissioner on TxDOT. And your service to our community and to the state is much appreciated, commissioner, and we' re glad to be working with you. And I still am pleased that you changed that Johnson Grass name out there a while back.

We have, again, a number of partners we' re working with and those are evidenced by the kinds of big projects you saw. Gary mentioned the Katy Freeway is a 21-mile expansion project, and it' s being constructed both with TxDOT and Harris County in partnership, much accelerating the construction of that. We' re looking forward to the 290/610 interchange and on out on 290 and continuing to build those partnerships further, congestion-relief projects in this region, particularly in light of the financial constraints we' re all under, and we look forward to continuing those partnerships.

Our E-Z Tag program for the Toll Road Authority now has over a million tags in place. We do have that now interoperable with other systems around the state and look forward to continuing to expand that and those partnerships.

The Grand Parkway State Highway 99, the 170-mile loop around the Houston metro area is the third outer beltway. The TxDOT folks have been working together with us on the project and in January -- in fact, at our last meeting the commissioners court authorized further studies to determine its viability and the extent of our partnerships, as well as where that road alignment might go to have a minimal impact on the community and the greatest benefit to this region.

I also here am wearing the hat of the Interstate 69 Alliance, and we are very concerned about the connectivity between the Port of Houston and the economic engine that is our community with international trading partners in Mexico to the south and up north to the industrial Midwest. That project continues to be a major concern for this region. We are pleased that it has been selected as one of the four priority segments of the Trans-Texas Corridor.

We fully support the Trans-Texas concept, and in fact, we' re an organization made up of folks all along that route that was one of the first groups to endorse that concept, and again, look forward to continuing to work with you on developing both that corridor and the impacts it will have on this Houston region.

We also have in our community currently a freight rail/commuter rail study, working with TxDOT and Metro, the Port of Houston and Harris County, and the Port right now being the lead funding agency, following in with TxDOT. We do appreciate the partnership and the working together with this organization. And Gary, as we look at both freight rail crossings and frequencies of freight train crossings, safety issues on freight rail crossings, you' ll probably hear later about concerns of schools and neighborhoods and access for emergency vehicles, but also tying in with the commuter rail prospects that was mentioned earlier by representatives from Metro.

Long term we' re also working on high-speed rail projects, not only serving this community but linking Houston, Dallas, Austin, San Antonio and the high-speed rail projects out there.

I also chair the TPC for this region, the policy council, and want to thank you and the staff beyond Gary that work so closely to help us coordinate our projects, not just here but across the region, through not just the Houston District but the district to our east out of Beaumont.

Finally, I would be remiss if I did not mention a little bit of the funding issues of the Houston region with the Port, manufacturing and industrial, financial and distribution centers in this area that is a large economic engine that drives much of the economy of the state. We are very concerned about the congestion and the impact that congestion has on that economic engine. It is a concern that I know that this commission shares.

No highway commission has done more to build creative solutions and partnerships with us at a difficult time to reduce congestion in this region, and we do appreciate and are very cognizant of the spending that we are seeing in the Houston District now.

We are going to remind you again about its impact on the state. I know you' re aware of that, and let you know we do appreciate very much the activity you' ve had in this community. But at the same time that you' re spending money in this community, we, like everybody else, want more. At the same time you' ve been much more sensitive to the needs and the concerns of the community, I think, than in the past.

Often TxDOT is viewed as an agency that has its way and just blows through and doesn' t listen to the community as much, but recently we had a little dust up on 249 with the concerns of the citizens and Representative Hamric convened a meeting and Chairman Williamson drove down. I think that really had a big impact on the folks out there and it is reverberating throughout the region that they' re seeing a different TxDOT than they have in the past. The commission, Gary, the leadership has indicated a real interest in trying to work with the community.

Finally, I will tell you that we do have great partnerships around this region. Judge Yarbrough will follow up with me. We had a meeting yesterday looking not only at the congestion needs of this community but also hurricane evacuation routes and the need to be able to move people in the event of a major disaster.

You are working closely with us through Transtar and other operations on intelligent transportation systems that can help with those evacuation routes, shorter term solutions of notifications into the community, and the longer term we do need help with projects like the Highway 146 projects and other routes coming out of the Galveston-Brazoria area into and through Houston and into points across the state of Texas.

I do want to thank you, Chairman Williamson, particularly, and Johnny Johnson for your help in getting the 330 Loop at Baytown. That serves an industrial base and truck and transportation needs; it' s also a major evacuation route for us and it is an important part of our project.

Judge Yarbrough will follow up and talk a little bit more about the specific hurricane evacuation route needs, I think, and interest in the suburban counties. Judge Willy is here and some commissioners from other counties.

The Harris County commissioners have got an aggressive project of relief for congestion in this community through the county, and we look forward to continuing to coordinate that with the state and the realization that the solution is not a state solution or a county solution or a city solution or a Metro solution, but it' s a transportation solution for this region.

So thank you very much.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Commission members, for Judge Eckels?

JUDGE ECKELS: We have a power point presentation, but after Gary' s, I' m just going to leave you the disk.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Before Judge Eckels became Judge Eckels, he was one of the best House members in the Texas Legislature.

JUDGE ECKELS: The intelligence of both went up as I left, is that what they say?

MR. WILLIAMSON: I think the legislature suffered and Harris County gained when you left.

JUDGE ECKELS: I appreciate that.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Hey, let me ask you two questions. The governor and the commission have been focused on looking at rail from a different perspective for close to two years now. We wouldn' t want to use this public forum to criticize our Congressional leadership, but how would you suggest we approach the majority leader and the senior senator and get them to understand that addressing the rail problem is addressing the road problem, and while Amtrak may be a lot of fun to play with, we really don' t much care about Amtrak down here, we care about getting UP out of our backyard? How would you suggest we do that?

JUDGE ECKELS: I believe that large steps have been taken in that direction. Congressman DeLay, Majority Leader DeLay has been a strong advocate of the partnership we put together on the freight rail study. We have had extensive meetings with him, with TxDOT officials down here, Gary working closely, new meetings and a new willingness of Metro to engage and listen to the concern, I think not only of the congressman but also of the community in this region that many have represented.

And I think you heard that in the comments today with our discussion of commuter rail options, ways to build more than they could do on the light rail project alone. So I do think that those steps are being made. In my discussions with Congressman DeLay, I think he' s open to ideas that make sense for traffic.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Maybe you' re the open door to that deal.

JUDGE ECKELS: We' ll continue to work with; I' m happy to do that. He, I think like everyone else, wants to see the money spent on places that make a difference, and I believe he' s coming around to the consideration that Metro is serious about making a difference, not just about building a train of some kind.

I do hope that Metro in their discussions will continue to look at ways to learn both of the good and the bad things of the current project. I think we' re still seeing that trains and cars don' t mix particularly well; you see a little bit of traffic problems east and west through the main street corridor downtown. By and large, the train is probably functioning as it was designed to do, but whether that design is adequate to really solve congestion problems of this community is ultimately the things that we' ll continue to work on.

And I think when all those issues are resolved that you' ll see an enthusiastic Congressional delegation supporting this like they support other projects. I-10 is a great example of the Congressional delegation trying to clear the hurdles so that we can get creative in partnerships to do more for this community. I believe we' ll see the same thing on this.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Well, any suggestions you have for us we' d appreciate because sometimes we kind of wonder what we' re doing wrong.

The other thing is thank you for your compliments to the department. As you remember, the employees are as open or not open, depending upon who the governor is and who his or her commission members are, and it' s our view that this governor is more interested in transportation than any governor before him.

JUDGE ECKELS: I would not argue that one bit. I think Governor Perry has shown tremendous vision in building a creative solution to a continuing problem, building partnerships that have never existed before, a willingness and an ability to work between TxDOT and the community and the local governments that is very refreshing. So I' m very pleased with that.

I know that Mike has had a lot to do with that since you brought him on as the director. We' ve had good relations with TxDOT in the past, but it' s been much better in the last few years.

MR. WILLIAMSON: We appreciate your acknowledging that; it really makes us feel good. It' s good to see you, Robert.

JUDGE ECKELS: Thank you. And I will, again, leave this Interstate 69 disk so you' ll have time for other folks.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Thank you. Judge, we won' t put you through the same boiler.

(Applause.)

JUDGE YARBROUGH: We' re not only glad you' re here, I' m glad I' m here. And Mr. Chairman, we do want to thank you for bringing the meeting to Houston. We couldn' t survive without TxDOT and what you do for us. And Commissioner Johnson not only helps us on road projects but in his capacity as a member of the CCC, he' s helped Galveston County on erosion and beach-related issues, and we appreciate that very much, Commissioner, as well.

I want to just echo the comments, the analogy of a great head coach was appropriate. Gary Trietsch is just a pleasure to work with. Again, we could not do things in Galveston County by ourselves; we understood that a long time ago. For a long time in Galveston County we' ve understood that TxDOT is looking for partners, not dependents, and the people of Galveston County have routinely approved bond issues for road construction back 35-40 years ago and do that on a frequent basis even up most recently in 2002.

So we try to take our dollars and stretch them with the region. We' ve got a great partnership with Robert Eckels and Judge Willy -- I know the judge is here. Evacuation is a concern of ours. We met yesterday extensively with partners in the region to talk about how we can better prepare this region for evacuation because we' ve got so many new people in the area that may not understand what hurricanes are all about.

And so we' ll be working within the system to try to maybe rearrange some priorities and take some bottlenecks out of 146, Highway 3 and some areas over in Brazoria County, leading into the Houston and Harris County highway system. And we' ll be working with Gary and our partners to try to move those priorities up the list.

We also want to take the opportunity to thank you for not only the commission' s work but the department' s work, working with the legislature to come up with new ways of doing business. The pass-through toll and things like that are things we' re exploring in Galveston County and want to take advantage of, looking for ways to leverage the resources and come up with new ways to bring dollars into our region, into our projects quicker, and so we appreciate having those tools available to us.

Again, my main purpose here today is to not only thank Gary but the staff he' s put together to help us on our projects, and I know I speak for the surrounding counties, Harris and the City of Houston, to thank the commission for your aggressive leadership. And we know there' s never enough resources, and I may get run out of the room, but quite honestly, in Galveston County we get our fair share and we appreciate it. Thank you.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Thank you for saying that.

(Applause.)

MR. WILLIAMSON: I guess, Judge, no one wanted to ask any questions, and we appreciate those kind words.

Is the mayor available yet?

(No response.)

MR. WILLIAMSON: Where do you want to take this, Gary? Do you want to take a short break?

MR. TRIETSCH: You can just go ahead.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Okay. I' ll turn it over to Executive Director Behrens.

MR. BEHRENS: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Our agenda item number 2 is an award that' s going to be made and there' s a lot been discussed this morning about partnerships in this area. Amadeo Saenz, our director of Engineering, is our liaison with the National Highway Quality Initiative and they' re going to recognize one of the partnerships that' s happened here in Houston in the past year. Amadeo?

MR. SAENZ: Thank you, Mr. Behrens. Mr. Chairman, commissioners, for the record, I' m Amadeo Saenz, assistant executive director for Engineering.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Amadeo, I need to interrupt you for a moment.

MR. SAENZ: Yes, sir.

MR. WILLIAMSON: As you might imagine, this is the largest engineering firm in the state of Texas and we are a rules-driven body, and I just realized that our legal staff reminded me that we need to approve our minutes before we go on to other business.

So thanking a great legal staff, we will continue our other business pending Mayor White' s arrival, and we need to approve the minutes of the December commission meeting. Do I have a motion?

MR. JOHNSON: So moved.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Do I have a second?

MR. NICHOLS: Second.

MR. WILLIAMSON: I have a motion and a second to approve the commission meeting minutes from the December meeting. All those in favor will say aye.

(A chorus of ayes.)

MR. WILLIAMSON: All opposed, no.

(No response.)

MR. WILLIAMSON: Motion carries.

Please, Mr. Saenz.

MR. SAENZ: Thank you.

For this item, though, I am basically speaking as a representative of the National Partnership for Highway Quality as I am on the steering committee for that organization.

The National Partnership for Highway Quality continues to be the only national organization that looks to uniting the federal, state and private industry into looking at how to develop projects and develop partnerships in these projects to get these projects done much faster and much more efficient.

Our vision is to have total commitment to transportation quality and customer satisfaction in every state. Our mission is to champion the ever-improving highway quality and customer satisfaction with partners and stakeholders.

As part of our program, we have an annual awards program and the program that we had for last year, 2004, was the "Making a Difference" Award. These "Making a Difference" Awards are offered to teams that advance highway quality in relation to highway design, construction or maintenance, and that could also include financing.

As part of having a state quality initiative, I also chair the State Quality Initiative for TxDOT and we at that level have also had the same type of awards program, and then of course, our champion award programs are then submitted to the national level for the national competition.

And I' m very pleased to announce today that the Houston District, we had submitted a project which was called the Tri-Party Agreement -- and I think Mr. Trietsch talked about it -- which deals with the development of the Katy Freeway project.

The Katy Freeway project is the largest project that has ever been undertaken by the Houston District -- I think I' m correct -- and as such, that project, the reconstruction of the Katy Freeway, involved a lot of elements that have been incorporated into the project. For example, we' re now going to have managed lanes or what I would call HOT lanes on the Katy Freeway, so that required a lot of coordination with Federal Highway Administration because we want to take advantage of some of the tools that are available to us.

So this required also, of course, the project being a major project that required some additional partners and also some additional vision so that the district and the state and of course working with the Harris County Toll Road Authority, the county and of course the city and Metro, looking at how you build something that won' t only be there for today but also be there for the future.

So a Tri-Party Agreement was put in place where Federal Highway Administration, Harris County Toll Road Authority, and TxDOT at the Austin level and the Houston District identified how we could better fund these projects. And of course, Harris County Toll Road Authority provided some additional funding to help the project gain whatever funding we needed, as well as helped with some additional funding that they would allow us to have and use to allow us to develop the project much faster.

This project was submitted under the Partnering category of the "Making a Difference" Award, and I' m happy to see that it received a silver award from the National Partnership for Highway Quality.

I' d like for Gary Trietsch, Judge Eckels, Dan Reagan, and I guess Mr. Behrens, if you could come down so I could present the awards.

MR. WILLIAMSON: For those of you in the audience who don' t recognize Mr. Reagan, he is the Texas -- do we call it a region or division -- Division. Mr. Reagan is the Texas FHWA person with whom we work on all of our transportation projects, and one of the mindsets we' ve tried to develop in the last four years, at the governor' s instruction, is to view the federal government not as our enemy but as our partner, and Dan Reagan has done an outstanding job in accepting that as our way of life. We appreciate Dan being so active in our business.

MR. SAENZ: I will congratulate you on this. Of course, this is not the first award the Houston District has received from the National Partnership for Highway Quality. The State of Texas and especially the Houston District has probably been represented and has been an award-winner for many, many years, so we thank you all.

(Applause.)

MR. NICHOLS: Can I say something?

MR. WILLIAMSON: Mr. Nichols.

MR. NICHOLS: I wanted to add a few more comments related to what just transpired on that award. Shortly after I got on the commission, everyone knew that the Katy Freeway needed to be expanded from end to end, yet there was not the resources or money to do all of it in a reasonable period of time. With the resources we had, the rules and laws that were in place, we were looking at probably a year 2020, possibly a year 2025 completion of that project.

We knew and the people that were just standing up knew that the only way we could get there was some variation of what is now occurring, but in the early stages I know as an observer, as a commissioner I was sometimes called into those meetings, and those people that were just standing up here were faced with overwhelming obstacles. There were state laws that prohibited what is occurring, there were state constitution provisions that prevented what is occurring, there were rules at the federal level, Federal Highway Administration, that prohibited what is occurring, but the direction and the mindset was we are not going to allow that project to wait till 2020 or 2025.

And each time, without fail, they kept their heads together, they kept their cool, they kept the direction, they worked from a statewide perception and a national perception to help change around the direction that the Federal Highway Administration had, that the legislature and its constitution that we lived under, all that was changed through this whole process, and they kept together and kept going.

And I will tell you it is an amazing thing that not only has allowed that project to move so fast on such an accelerated schedule, but helped set the tone for many other projects around the state, kind of became a model. So I just wanted to make sure that everybody understood that. Thanks.

MR. BEHRENS: We' re going to go to item number 5 while we' re waiting for the mayor. Amadeo, if you could come back up here. This is a minute order -- for the audience, this is some of our normal business that the commission takes care of -- this is to present a minute order recommending the appointment of two board members to the Austin-San Antonio Intermunicipal Commuter Rail District. Amadeo?

MR. SAENZ: Thank you. Again, good morning. I' m Amadeo Saenz, assistant executive director for engineering.

For item number 5, the minute order before you appoints two members to the Austin-San Antonio Intermunicipal Commuter Rail District. Article 6515C-1, BTCS allows the establishment of an intermunicipal commuter rail district and grants the powers necessary to provide commuter rail service between the Austin and San Antonio areas. This statute requires the Texas Transportation Commission to appoint two members to the district' s board of directors.

On December 19, 2002, by Minute Order 109121, the commission appointed J. Tullos Wells and Mariano Camarillo to the board of the district for a two-year term. Due to exemplary service of the current commission appointees, staff recommends that the commission appoint Mr. Wells and Mr. Camarillo as members to this district for a second two-year term. The candidates are recommended for your approval.

MR. WILLIAMSON: First of all, let' s explain to our friends in Houston that the Austin-San Antonio Rail Committee that they sit on was set up by the legislature to basically begin the process of seeing how we could establish a commuter line between San Antonio, New Braunfels, San Marcos and Austin. Correct?

MR. SAENZ: That' s correct, sir.

MR. WILLIAMSON: And since that time we' ve looked at not just a new line but actually how we can work with the Union Pacific and maybe even do a business transaction with the Union Pacific if we can get the law changed.

MR. SAENZ: Right. We have been working with the commuter rail district and looking into the possibility of trying to relocate the Union Pacific so that they could also take advantage of trying to utilize some of the footprint that currently is being used by Union Pacific and establish commuter rail.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Same concept that we know is going on here in the Houston area --

MR. SAENZ: Very similar, yes, sir. --

MR. WILLIAMSON:  -- with relocating rail and using the existing footprint to accomplish other purposes.

John, you know Mr. Wells personally. Is he here that you know of?

MR. JOHNSON: I have not seen him.

MR. SAENZ: I don' t believe Mr. Wells is here; Mr. Camarillo is here.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Well, we wouldn' t want to pass up the chance to grill Mariano. He knew it was coming.

MR. SAENZ: I was going to wait for you to approve him and then ask him to come up, but if you want to grill him, that' s fine.

MR. WILLIAMSON: So just exactly what are you doing to advance the governor' s rail program, Mr. Camarillo?

MR. CAMARILLO: Well, hopefully a lot of positive things. For the record, my name is Mariano Camarillo. I' m a resident of Austin, Texas, a native of San Antonio. I serve with Tullos Wells on the Austin-San Antonio Rail District.

It seems like a very quick two years since the appointment. During that period of time for many of the other fellow members of the board, it was a little bit of an educational process, but we feel we' ve moved rapidly. We' ve employed two different engineering firms at this particular point. In fact, this coming Wednesday, I believe it' s February 2, we will review the feasibility study which is probably one of the more significant milestones of this project to date and will actually begin reviewing things like ridership numbers and some of the alternative rail lines proposed for that Austin-San Antonio rail line.

So that' s the progress that we' ve made. I chair the Project Management Oversight Committee, I also chair the Finance Committee, just doing the things that you asked me to do two years ago and those were to make judicious judgments. I' m carefully looking at not only how we can take advantage of the current stream of federal and state funding, but looking at how we can use our business partners in Austin and San Antonio and all of the metropolitan districts in between there to fund this and hopefully become an integral part of the Trans-Texas Corridor.

MR. WILLIAMSON: I get the pleasure of dialoguing with Mariano because we' ve been friends for about 21 years now. When I was a freshman member of the legislature, this young man was working for Comptroller Bullock at the time, and took me under his wing and taught me a little bit about state budgets and I' ve never forgotten it.

It' s good to see you and we appreciate all your hard work.

MR. CAMARILLO: Thank you very much.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Any other questions, members? Hope?

MS. ANDRADE: Mr. Chairman, on behalf of Mr. Tullos Wells, he' s from my hometown and I know him well. We' ve worked on many projects in San Antonio together, and I think the State of Texas and the rail district is fortunate to have Mr. Wells volunteer another two years.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Very good. Thank you.

MR. SAENZ: Staff recommends approval of these recommendations.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Is there a motion?

MR. HOUGHTON: So moved.

MS. ANDRADE: Second.

MR. WILLIAMSON: I have a motion and a second. All those in favor of the motion will signify by saying aye.

(A chorus of ayes.)

MR. WILLIAMSON: All opposed, no.

(No response.)

MR. WILLIAMSON: Motion carries. Thank you, Amadeo; thank you, Mariano.

(Applause.)

MR. WILLIAMSON: Mayor, we welcome you, sir. Were you out there operating the wrecker?

MAYOR WHITE: There you go.

(General laughter.)

MR. WILLIAMSON: When I was a freshman in the legislature, he came and chewed on me too.

MAYOR WHITE: And listen, we just love to have you in Houston. I mean, I tell you, members of the commission, a lot of people say I got hired principally to try to find practical ways to enhance mobility in the community -- that' s what the surveys showed -- and I know that' s your mandate across this great state of ours, so it' s great to have partners with TxDOT because we' re going to be graded by a lot of the same people on a lot of the same things.

And I thought I' d share with you just a couple of observations about sort of post mortem some good things that we' ve been doing with TxDOT this last year, and then I' d like to highlight, if I could for you, four issues where we need to put our brains together and we want to be what resource we can for members of the commission and for all the other folks in this community that have been working together on our regional transportation issues.

I' m going to highlight those four things that maybe cause us, if we look back over the last two decades, to say that these are things that in the next two decades will be more of the nature of new challenges. They haven' t just appeared overnight but because of the greater density and the growth and the blessings of our urban area of attracting so many people, we' re going to have to be thinking about some things a little differently.

The first two observations of great effective work that we' ve done together is imagine this: Okay, so I' ve just come into being mayor and Spur 527 which is carrying a lot of the traffic downtown is to undergo renovation. And what you saw at that time -- Gary remembers this -- nightly stories on every broadcast channel saying that basically Houston was going to fall apart and neighborhoods would be destroyed, the entire 610 was going to fall apart and neighborhoods inside 610.

We didn' t bash TxDOT, we worked constructively with TxDOT together on a plan that involved things like changing an exit so there would be more exit opportunities, communications with those responsible for local government. We convened all the station managers, all the publishers, had daily meetings with traffic reporters and others so that people knew in advance what the preferred commuting alternatives were, brought TTI in to review what we' d done, and constantly improved.

We were improving signage throughout the first week based on what I saw from the helicopter and what other people were looking at, and it was some said the biggest non-story of last year, even though, as you know, it was a major undertaking if you' re talking about 40,000 people coming into the city of Houston where you' re decreasing the number of lanes coming in.

We did it because we worked together, we did it constructively, looking at the solution. There was one little, I guess, hiccup that didn' t have to do with regional but it sure would have been nice if we would have had a few more of the heavy trucks that we could have helped during peak periods find alternative routes that would have increased public safety and mobility where TxDOT Legal had a little issue. But on 99 percent of the things that we tried to do together, we were successful.

Second example, not much publicized, but TxDOT, an enormous undertaking, you know, on that Katy Freeway improvement which is proceeding on a construction schedule which has been kept on schedule by your excellent professionals within this TxDOT region.

We had a problem when you' re narrowing lanes in one of the most congested areas and you don' t have shoulders and even if you had shoulders, if you' re narrowing lanes, it was critical that we do incident management right on that. That' s where we started the Safe Clear Program back in I guess it was March that coincided with when the lanes were narrowed during the construction of that segment where vehicles were removed quickly so we wouldn' t have traffic backed up for miles and miles.

We sat with the people who were doing it, reorganized the way we did towing on that particular part of the freeway. The traffic reporters and others, they' re just commuters, saw that the disaster that was predicted when we narrowed the lanes did not occur, in part because we did a much better job of incident management on the freeways which ultimately gave us what was a pilot program for what we could do better on our freeways, all done with TxDOT. And what the people thought would be a disaster, we changed it to something where actually you had traffic moving at some times of the day faster than it used to be, because of the incident management, with fewer lanes.

So I give you that as a spirit of cooperation what we can accomplish that' s in all of our interest who are mobility advocates if we work towards a solution and make changes as we go along to try to adjust in real time and not get defensive and take advantage of the power of local government and local government officials to work with you and to mobilize the community.

Now, if I could, let me just say one lesson from that that' s a generic lesson is flexibility, and I commend TxDOT and those who give the TxDOT district a lot of flexibility, because I want to tell you they have respect from the professionals. Mr. Trietsch is known as a straight-shooter. We' ve disagreed on some things but we' ve always had that good working relationship, and I think if we have empowerment of our local transportation professionals like Gary and Art Story and Mark Marcot and others that work with us, some of the professionals at Metro, and we tell them what we want to accomplish, we will find that they can come up with some of the budget allocations and the ordering of priorities that we need within this particular region.

Now, here' s the four points that I' d like to make new and different. We have a lot of traffic on these freeways and TxDOT funded and participated in major thoroughfares within our community. We can' t defer maintenance, we need our fair share of maintenance funding -- by fair share I' m not saying some quoted, that' s not what I' m saying. What I' m saying is that when it comes to maintenance funding, we need to use objective criteria that are based upon need, just as the type of businesslike approach that I know the governor has advocated, that I have advocated within this.

We' re having the number of heavy trucks increasing even faster than the number of automobiles, and as you know, for an area of the state where we increased job growth at a higher percentage rate than the other major urban areas, and in absolute terms, we' re a growing community; we want to grow. And so none of the mobility issues, if we do nothing, they' re going to get worse, if we do nothing, if we don' t improve and we don' t add capacity and do some of the other things that I' m talking about.

But the preservation program, I don' t know whether it' s true or not but there' s some lore of things based on lane miles. Well, there are some lane miles that are used more than other lane miles, and the heavy truck traffic and other traffic we get, there' s a direct function in the amount of maintenance that we' ll need based on that. And if we use some principles in allocating that within the TxDOT districts and among TxDOT districts that are based on the kind of objective criteria that would lead to the maintenance needs, we need to do a better job, I' d say, throughout our public infrastructure.

I know I' ll take responsibility on city streets. Too often maintenance has not been enough compared to the construction, and I would say if TxDOT helps us and takes a look at that so that we maintain what we have and we expend, those are going to be some of the best dollars that we expended. And preventive maintenance is far less disruptive than if you have a major problem that you have to come in and correct.

Second, I' ll use some jargon that you' re familiar with but then plain words too, intelligent transportation systems, Transtar, and I look at it this way, that we have this remarkable public investment in our paved infrastructure in this community. Replacement costs, I don' t know what it would be, commissioners, $100 billion? I mean, an unbelievable $40 million it cost.

And just how I put this by analogy, I used to do a lot of work in the refining petrochemical business, our company serviced some of those firms, and I' ll tell you the best money spent was optimization of the capital expenditure within those industries, and industry after industry it' s found that the best money spent is optimizing the use of that large capital investment.

That means that everything from -- and I get a little credit for, we' ve retimed most of the traffic signals in the city of Houston in a period of one year based on optimization programs. There' s two corridors that are right next to where we are right now, the Westheimer corridor and the Richmond corridor, and studies that we did that TTI helped design showed that in that signal optimization we reduced the peak traffic by 17 percent; the time of peak traffic commute in that corridor from the Beltway to 610 by 17 percent, non-peak by 14 percent by looking at the optimization of the signal timing.

And this broader lesson is that what we do to manage the traffic on these things that we' ve built is a very high return on the investment in the public, and it gets higher and higher as the alternative of lane expansion in a built environment gets more and more costly. Do you see what I' m saying? Costly in terms of right of way easement, costly in terms of disruption of existing patterns, costly in terms of destruction of neighborhoods.

So the monies that we spend managing on that infrastructure is so critically important, and the safety of the people along that infrastructure. We have an obligation. Probably everybody in this room has been touched in their life by somebody in their family or somebody who is a friend or loved one who has gotten hurt out there.

So when we talk about programs to ensure compliance with traffic rules and regulations and removing vehicles to where people can be hit, that' s all part of the obligation we think we have to manage that traffic and mobility on the existing infrastructure.

And when there are incidents on that infrastructure, the TTI and others and other organizations in other states can give you the statistics about the extreme congestion that is caused by that, and that is a huge cause of congestion. Just listen to the drive-time radio in the morning and you' ll understand where the congestion is that' s where the wrecked or stalled vehicles are. And usually there is a cause, when there is a wreck, often that is caused by something else that is happening on that freeway that causes people to back up and take their eye off or traffic to stop moving suddenly, and that' s what we' re trying to address.

Now, when we deal with the Transtar program, there is a meeting that we' ve had and the continuing discussions between Metro, TxDOT, the county, the city, how should we within this region then go about managing the signalization and optimization of signalization. It is really a regional issue when you come to think about it, and it affects the infrastructure that we all have a responsibility for.

I' m not going to prejudge what that is, I know that there are good professionals working on it, but I know what it' s not. It can' t be that you just turn it over to one jurisdiction or another jurisdiction and say here' s your baby. I think we all have an interest in making sure that this is properly funded and managed and probably with something that transcends just the boundary of one local jurisdiction.

Yes, you' ve heard me say it. I' m not one of these people coming up and saying give the city this. What I' m saying is that we' ve got to organize this regionally and put it on a system of funding which is sustainable and have somebody in charge that' s accountable to it, and I think that' s what the professionals at all levels think we ought to be doing, and I think you' ll be seeing some plans and proposals that come up through that process involving the local entities.

And I would ask you to be supportive of the consensus reached among the local professionals concerning the best way we go about managing funding that program.

Third issue I' ll raise is just -- well, I' ve already raised it once before -- incident management, what we do in order to make sure that the arteries are safe, that people aren' t backed up in traffic, that there' s not miles of rubbernecking. And some of it also has to do with this safety/traffic congestion. If you go through on the built infrastructure, how you manage that, you see that some of the same things that impair safety are also the same things that cause congestion. And let me give you an example of that.

Right out here, not far from where we' re sitting, is -- I don' t know what they call it, Gary, the number one most congested exchange, 610/59 interchange. We made a tremendous improvement, TxDOT did that, I was blessed to be at at the beginning of the year where there was one where we went from South Post Oak. Talk to anybody in town and all you have to do is say have you ever been stuck at this place, and everybody will raise their hand.

Well, there are some things about that, let me just give you an example of it. And I' m not telling you I know the solution but I' ll just give you an example of the type of creative things that is both the biggest cause of accidents and the biggest cause of congestion, non-accident related congestion, and that is you have a bunch of people changing lanes within a fairly short period of time. And traffic engineers throughout this world have developed systems where people commit to a lane and then you don' t have as much doing what all of us have done.

Have you ever taken a car and nosed in front of another car because your lane isn' t moving as fast and tried to get into that lane and watched it? Well, when you' re nosing that car into that other lane, trying to get across that lane, then that backs up traffic. And then if you' re like me, as soon as you get in there, the lane you' re in starts moving.

(General laughter.)

MAYOR WHITE: But this is not just anecdotal. Through helicopter observations of this and modeling of it by TTI, it is demonstrated that if you can have some systems and procedures -- maybe it' s not cones, maybe it' s what they have done in other places; Dubai, for example, uses things you can pull up in the lane markers, instead of getting on and then they have to cross five lanes within one mile to get off, have to make the mature decision that you' re going to have to commit to a lane or get on a little earlier.

That' s the kind of common sense thing that we need to be thinking about. Does that mean that changes like that will occur without question or controversy? Of course not. I had an uncle and aunt who refused to ever ride a plane because they were that way, they didn' t want to change.

But we' ve got to manage these freeways and major thoroughfares and streets in a way that allows us to use these great facilities designed by great people in the best public interest, and we ought to be thinking together of ways to get things done. And for people who say you can' t do this or that, then ask them for ideas so that we can use common sense approaches to addressing this issue.

I' ll tell you this, we put a lot on economic development. The congestion that is in about one mile of the radius of where you are right now, if you take the one mile to the west and you take this place along the freeway, real estate values and commercial activities have stagnated in parts of this area, certainly commercial office buildings, because of the mobility issues created by the high level of congestion on the Westheimer corridor and the 610/59 corridor. What we do to move this traffic along and take practical measures will make a real difference.

Finally, I really appreciate the attention and leadership given to this body and others in the community to freight rail. Monthly I talk to the chairman of the Surface Transportation Board of the United States. We have over 700 at-grade rail crossings within this city, 700 at-grade rail crossings in this city, some right by major thoroughfares. You take an exit from here, you take a left under the overpass right here, and head down there and you' ll run into one of them that' s right where you have trains going right at grade in a major commuting thoroughfare within this city.

Now, I' m not saying you start there. There' s others actually on a cost-effective basis. But the work led by George Demontrond and the Mobility Partners group that involves the other regional authorities, a good working relationship with the other county judges in this area, and at the professional level by Art Story at the county to come up with a practical rail plan that we can include in the TEA transportation. I know that TxDOT is providing some of the funding for that study.

Congressman DeLay and I, in a joint meeting with the heads of our two major rail carriers and others who were professionals, including a TxDOT representative, last November, the majority leader was pretty clear about the deadlines that our region needed to meet in order to get the federal funding request in there, and has a real commitment. I' ve met with him since that time to evaluate the progress of that.

This is a fast time deadline we' re talking about; we need to work together. If we look at what we' ve done in Chicago -- which you have been well briefed on, I' m sure -- they have something within this same TEA appropriations bill that is along the lines that people have been talking about within the city, both taking a use, Commissioner, with those existing rail corridors and seeing what you can do with those rail corridors, moving one of the corridors that may need extended capacity out of some of the more densely residential areas and freeing that segment for commuter rail, removing some of the bottlenecks that we have.

We have trains parking across our city streets regularly, every day, major streets because they say there are bottlenecks within that system. Some of it is railroad accountability which we' re working on a little bit with the members of Congress and just the way they do their operations, but some of it is designing the system so that we optimize the flow of traffic, don' t create a safety hazard for our citizens. And those kind of enhancements will not come free.

On behalf of the local government entities, we' ve had some talk within the county and city, the participation, the rails will participate, we' ll have federal funding. As in Illinois their local participation was almost all state participation but we' re not just pushing it at the state level that we come up with a plan with multiple funding sources in order to promote rail safety, make available commuting corridors for the future within our city, and continue to keep our traffic moving.

Thank you so much for being with us here today.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Thank you, Mayor.

Members, questions or comments?

MR. JOHNSON: I have an observation. Mayor, thank you for being here and thank you for an enlightened approach to some of what I would call commonsensical and entrepreneurial issues that face the mobility challenges that we have in this community and communities like this across this state and many other places in the country.

One of the ironies is the at-grade crossing that you referred to by going out the building, getting on the frontage road and turning left, I was stopped this morning on my way here by not one but two trains making a crossing there, and so I' m very familiar, as are a lot of my neighbors, with that.

My observation is this, and then I have a question I want to ask Mike Behrens about one of your points.

I believe that what you present here that TxDOT, and from my experiences, that the other partners in the community will be very eager to work together to solve because I think we' re all of us in the same boat. And by working together -- I' m being repetitious of something I said earlier -- I think we can solve these challenges and add a dimension of a commonsensical, entrepreneurial approach that is not something that requires a lot of high-technology or rocket science or great piles of money to solve, that we just look at situations and figure out a way to solve these incidences and everything else that occurs on our major corridors that we can go a long way to doing some of these things.

I think statistically the numbers that you report in the Richmond corridor, the improvement in traffic flow just by doing the light-timing, I think that' s an example of things that can be done here and everywhere.

Mike, the first point the mayor brought up had to do with our preservation plan, and I remember at the meeting that it was presented we talked about the use of lane miles being one of the drivers of that, and the observation that I made that a lane mile on I-10 in Colorado County compared to a lane mile in Bexar or Harris County is not a fair comparison because of the amount of traffic and the type of traffic that goes over it, and I believe you agreed wit that.

And also we talked about the safety issues that the mayor alluded to and are also a factor in a lot of our preservation decisions. My recollection was that we were going to start using pavement scores more and more as a driver in the determination of our preservation plans. Are we indeed doing that? Have we started that process?

MR. BEHRENS: We haven' t actually implemented or used that formula in distributing funds, but we are looking at pavement scores. Of course we looked at, as the mayor alluded to, the impact of trucks, and of course, unfortunately we have more and more trucks across the state of Texas. We' re looking at, of course, rainfall and all of those things.

But where we' re having good success is with our pavement scores in other parts of the state that will give us a chance to redistribute to maybe where we' re having more problems. And I think like we had discussed earlier, we' ll be using that as some of our criteria.

MAYOR WHITE: Thank you.

MR. JOHNSON: Thank you, Mayor.

MAYOR WHITE: And I appreciate your comment, Mr. Commissioner.

And if I could, before concluding, there was one note here that I think we had polled a lot of -- I' m not just speaking for the city, I asked for input from a lot of different organizations and entities because I know the influence of this body. And it' s sort of like, I don' t know, I thought maybe I shouldn' t talk about this because it really doesn' t directly affect the commission, it has to do with the Toll Road Authority which has been taking some heat and the city doesn' t run it, but I just want to use this as an illustration.

We need the different legal entities, TxDOT, the county, the city, Metro, others, and I know the professional leadership and those who are knowledgeable such as you understand it, but sometimes we need to improve the understanding of the political leadership, and maybe opinion leaders as well, that mobility is our mandate, and that a dollar expended by, let' s say, a toll road authority to reduce congestion in a toll corridor, if it' s cost-effective, that makes sense, that a dollar expended to optimize the utilization of a TxDOT-funded infrastructure makes sense, that every time a mass transit can remove one percent of the commutes along a heavily congested corridor, the marginal impact of that can be very considerable for something that operates at capacity.

In some of the meetings that we' ve been having and the traffic professionals and managers have been explaining things -- and I won' t give a specific case -- I know, for example, both on the 45 and 290 considerations, we broke through some loggerheads when we thought through well what would be the first thing that we did if it was based upon mobility criteria. That might not always be the first thing that' s planned to be done because people perceive within their funding silos that they must do this or that or the other thing.

Too often we will increase capacity before we remove the bottleneck. You know that you can make congestion wider by increasing lane miles without increasing the exit capacity, but if you were going to do it by engineering criteria, you' d look first where there was the bottleneck and then you would build backwards. That' s not always done.

And if we think about how in each of our entities we fund regional plans that are based upon the highest mobility scoring, then I think we will be so much better off and a benefit to me, and you' re being accountable for mobility. We have places in town -- I tell you I hear it every day -- where people are shocked that they' re actually seeing a reduction in congestion.

The traffic reporter, the person on one of the highest-rated TV stations two days ago saying how' s it going in the newsroom. Well, on the traffic reports these days we' re constantly improving the Safe Clear Program, and you hear about but it' s gotten a lot slower because of the lack of wrecks and traffic backups through rubbernecking, and citizens are noticing that too, even some people who have some constructive criticism of the program, and the same thing happened with traffic signals.

If we do things that people can see and touch and feel, then those of us who are mobility advocates and all of what we work for is going to be so much better. Thank you very much.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Other questions or comments for the mayor?

(No response.)

MR. WILLIAMSON: I want to thank you for working with us so closely over the last year or so. You' ve been a real pleasure. I think you' re doing an outstanding job down here, and we stand ready to help you any time.

MAYOR WHITE: Thank you, sir, and thank you all for being here.

(Applause.)

MR. WILLIAMSON: For many of you in the audience, you have attended to witness this portion of the meeting. What we' re going to do is take a 15-minute break and then we' re going to come back and go through what we refer to as our normal or regular agenda that may or may not be of interest to you. If you want to learn a little bit about how state government makes billion-dollar decisions, well, you can come back and watch; if you don' t, we want to thank you for being with us this morning, we hope you' ve learned something.

We shall return from our break in 15 minutes.

(Whereupon, a brief recess was taken.)

MR. WILLIAMSON: We will return from our short recess and proceed with department business. Mr. Behrens.

MR. BEHRENS: We' ll start with agenda item number 3 which is our rules portion of the agenda, and we' ll have agenda item 3(a) which is a rule for proposed adoption, and this is in the area of Management, and I' ll ask Richard Monroe, our general counsel, to present that.

MR. MONROE: Good morning, commissioners. For the record, my name is Richard Monroe, general counsel for the department.

If you approve this minute order, you will approve for publication and for public comment a proposed rule setting up an advisory committee for the corridor, the Trans-Texas Corridor. The makeup of the committee is set out on page 1 of 7 of Exhibit B, along with its purposes and the duration which will be at the pleasure of the commission, or not beyond the completion of the Trans-Texas Corridor, as set out on page 6 of 7.

Once again, this will be for publication for public comment. I would recommend approval of the minute order.

MR. WILLIAMSON: I think not so much commission members but the public that' s interested in this approach, just so we kind of understand the flow of events, if we approve the minute order, we' ll send it out and what we' ll in effect be asking the Corridor Watch, the River of Trade, the mayor of Georgetown, the mayor of Dallas, we' ll be asking them to comment on how they think we should set the advisory committee up.

MR. MONROE: Yes, sir.

MR. WILLIAMSON: And you' ll be taking input from commission members as well.

MR. MONROE: Along with anyone else in the public who cares to comment.

MR. WILLIAMSON: So during the next 30 days, what we' ll be doing is I guess we' d even take suggestions from other government officials and the media and whoever else might care to comment about it.

MR. MONROE: Yes.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Okay, questions or comments, discussion with Mr. Monroe about this, members?

Someone asked me in the last day or two, Richard, what I saw the time frame as being, and I told them I couldn' t speak for the commission but that it was my hope that we would get something adopted pretty quick and move forward. It would be possible, would it not, to get our final rules adopted and perhaps even committee members appointed before the end of the legislative session?

MR. MONROE: Oh, yes, sir, I would certainly hope for that.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Okay. Do I have a motion?

MR. HOUGHTON: So moved.

MR. JOHNSON: Second.

MR. WILLIAMSON: I have a motion and a second. All those in favor will signify by saying aye.

(A chorus of ayes.)

MR. WILLIAMSON: All opposed, no.

(No response.)

MR. WILLIAMSON: Motion carries.

MR. MONROE: Thank you.

MR. BEHRENS: We' ll go to agenda item 3(b)(1) which will be rules for final adoption, and we' ll start out with, again, some rules on Management and Contract Management. Richard?

MR. MONROE: Yes. Speaking of publishing for public comment, we' re now concerned here with final adoption of rules which have been published for comment. Now, no comments were received on these rules.

What these rules do is establish procedures for the cases that come before our own Contract Appeals Claims Committee. The rules were necessitated both by a recent court decision of the Texas Supreme Court, and frankly, some of our experiences over the years that showed us that we needed to tighten some things up.

I would recommend approval of the minute order approving the rules as they were published.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Any witnesses on this one?

MR. BEHRENS: No, sir.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Okay, members, questions or comments of Mr. Monroe?

MR. NICHOLS: The only comment I had -- which is not to Mr. Monroe -- is that the contractor claims process that the Department of Transportation has is probably one of the best in the nation. It' s solved a lot of problems without a lot of litigation and it' s been a great system, so the fact that we did not receive any objectionable comments from the contracting industry tells me they' re satisfied also with the process.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Good. Anything else, members?

(No response.)

MR. WILLIAMSON: Do I have a motion?

MR. JOHNSON: So moved.

MR. HOUGHTON: Second.

MR. WILLIAMSON: I have a motion and a second. All those in favor of the motion, signify by saying aye.

(A chorus of ayes.)

MR. WILLIAMSON: Opposed, no.

(No response.)

MR. WILLIAMSON: Motion carries.

MR. MONROE: Thank you, commissioners.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Thank you, Mr. Monroe.

MR. BEHRENS: Agenda item 3(b)(2) are also rules for final adoption, and these are in the area of Contracting for Architectural, Engineering and Surveying Services, and will be presented by Mark Marek.

MR. MAREK: Good morning, Mr. Behrens, commissioners. For the record, my name is Mark Marek; I' m the director of the Design Division for TxDOT.

This minute order adopts amendments to Sections 9.30 through 9.39, 9.41 and 9.42, and New Section 9.43, and the Repeal of 9.40 and the old 9.43 to revise the procurement of Architectural, Engineering and Surveying Services.

These changes do not significantly change the procurement process externally to the firms interested in doing business with TxDOT. The major revision to the rules is the removal of the pre-certification work categories. These categories will be posted on the department' s website instead. Subsequent changes to the work categories for our firms will be made through Texas Transportation Commission minute order will which allow for public comment.

Also, these amendments increase contract limitations where population growth has resulted in the addition of districts to the definition of Metropolitan Districts. The amendments to Section 9.39(a)(3) add a procedure for an emergency selection process.

One comment was received from industry relating to the amended Section 9.34(b)(1) concerning the disqualification of a firm where there is knowledge that the firm or an employee of the firm has a record of unprofessional conduct, including but not limited to whether the firm or an employee has been sanctioned for a violation of rules of the licensing board.

The comment acknowledged the right of the department to disqualify the proposer in the case of a breach of ethical or professional obligation. They raised questions about the firm' s ability to perform appropriately on a project contract. However, the broad nature of the proposed language was questioned with respect to having a technical violation of licensing rules by a single individual to cause the entire firm to be disqualified.

It should be noted that the proposed language is a permissive condition. A firm may indeed have an individual with a technical violation with respect to the rules of the licensing board and still be a qualified firm to do business with TxDOT.

Even though it is not the department' s intent to subject an entire firm to disqualification for a single individual' s technical violation of licensing rules, there can be instances where the position of the individual within the firm and their actions in representing the firm make the disqualification decision appropriate with respect to the firm' s ability to perform appropriately on a project contract.

While the department must exercise reasonable judgment, the department needs the flexibility represented by the language in this section to determine the firm' s qualifications to enter into future contracts and perform appropriately on those contracts. Therefore, no change to these amended rules as originally proposed are recommended.

Staff recommends approval of this minute order.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Questions or comments, members?

MR. JOHNSON: A question, Mark. I' m assuming or I' m interpreting by what you said that the comment that was received actually is handled in the fact that the language says that it allows us to disqualify and does not say that we shall disqualify.

MR. MAREK: Yes, Commissioner Johnson, that is correct.

MR. JOHNSON: Thank you.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Other questions or comments, members?

(No response.)

MR. WILLIAMSON: Mark, I' ve got a couple. Could anyone argue after final passage of this that we' ve done anything that will diminish the ability of smaller engineering or surveying firms to compete directly with TxDOT for their business?

MR. MAREK: No, sir, I do not believe it will.

MR. WILLIAMSON: What' s the breakdown on dollar basis? Do you happen to know between, say, the ten firms we do the most business with in the engineering area and everyone else in the state as far as percentage of the state' s money?

MR. MAREK: No, sir, I do not. I can pass that information on to you through some research.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Is that something you' ve got handy, Amadeo?

MR. SAENZ: [Inaudible.]

MR. WILLIAMSON: Send each commissioner, if you would -- before the next meeting, take the ten largest firms each year for the last five years by dollar volume paid and then give us a percentage of total dollars, and that will be sufficient.

We have passed a lot of rules lately, the last year, having to do with consultants, and we have a legislative item that has to do with consultants, and I' m a little bit curious about some basic information that I need to have and I suspect the public might want to know about as far as the relationship between that money and those firms and how that changes over time.

MR. MAREK: We can certainly do that, Mr. Chairman.

MR. NICHOLS: In relationship to what you just asked and clarifying that, you' re referring to dollars issued on contracts or actual billing?

MR. WILLIAMSON: Which would you recommend?

MR. NICHOLS: I would think the actual contracts issued, and not the notice to proceed and not the actual billed but the actual total dollar on the contract would probably be the best way to go.

MR. WILLIAMSON: I just don' t want to give the impression in passing rules that we' re either favoring or somehow punishing or hurting those firms -- and I' m of the impression that those ten firms probably do most of the business with us. I don' t want to give the impression we' re favoring them or that we' re damaging them at this moment in time.

MR. MAREK: Well, there was certainly no intention of the staff in working on these rules to favor in any way.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Any other questions or comments, members?

(No response.)

MR. WILLIAMSON: Do I have a motion?

MR. HOUGHTON: So moved.

MS. ANDRADE: Second.

MR. WILLIAMSON: I have a motion and a second. All those in favor of the motion will signify by saying aye.

(A chorus of ayes.)

MR. WILLIAMSON: All opposed, no.

(No response.)

MR. WILLIAMSON: Motion carries.

MR. MAREK: Thank you.

MR. BEHRENS: We have agenda item 3(b)(3) which is final rules concerning Right of Way and Utility Accommodation. John Campbell.

MR. CAMPBELL: Good morning. For the record, my name is John Campbell, director of the Right of Way Division.

And as I understand it, this item is going to be deferred for action by the commission. I' ll present it for your edification only, not for your consideration.

This minute order, item 3(b)(3) provides for the repeal of 43 TAC Sections 21.31 through 21.51 relating to Utility Accommodation, and proposes the final adoption of New Sections 21.31 through 21.51 of the same title.

This represents the first comprehensive update of the Utility Accommodation rules of TxDOT since 1993, so it has been a long-term and arduous undertaking.

The amendments were necessary to reorganize the rules for clarity, to allow for the use of updated utility construction methods and materials, and improve the state' s management of its real property right of way assets by, first of all, encouraging a better quality of utility plans for incorporation onto the TxDOT right of way, and secondly, to help us improve the accuracy of the location information for these facilities as built.

The basic chronology of the process that we' ve gone through in dialogue with industry and other interested parties on this spans about two years to this point. This first came up for our addressing to change the Utility Accommodation rules at the same time that we were going through the Access Management effort, and at that time we heard and understood the commission' s desire that we attempt a more open process of advising industry of what our intentions were.

So we conducted a series of regional forums with the utility industry in which we set out to tell them here' s our first draft of what we propose to do, and at that time allowed them to comment and give us some suggestions as to the changes they' d like to see.

We then arrived at our normal rules process, and at the October commission meeting we passed preliminary approval of this set of rules. We' ve now had the opportunity to continue to hear a lot of concerned discussion from the utility industry basically over what are we going to do and how are we going to incorporate the various features of their comments.

So I think that we' ve had a serendipitous occasion to continue to make sure that we do the best job of incorporating industry input, so we' re supportive of the fact that we' re deferring action on this until we can be even more confident that we' ve fully incorporated public comment.

MR. WILLIAMSON: We have some witnesses, John, but I want to ask you a few questions before I bring them up.

MR. CAMPBELL: Certainly.

MR. WILLIAMSON: What' s different between the comments they' re offering now and the comments that they offered during the time period you were attempting to solicit their comments?

MR. CAMPBELL: I don' t think there' s anything really fundamentally different about the comments; they devolve into just a couple of categories: the first is always the concern that we' re going to impose undue additional cost on the utility.

MR. WILLIAMSON: By making them do what?

MR. CAMPBELL: Excuse me?

MR. WILLIAMSON: By making them do what? Your statement was we' re imposing undue additional costs. How?

MR. CAMPBELL: By the impression that we' re going to raise the standard, particularly that we would require an engineer' s signature and seal on utility plans. These rules include a provision in which we may require up to that level of professional certification of the plans, but the intent was more towards the end of us certifying the actual location of these things.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Who would acquire the engineer for that certification, us or them?

MR. CAMPBELL: It would be the utility. The utility responsible for designing the facilities would also be responsible for securing the engineer that would develop those plans.

MR. WILLIAMSON: And would that hold true of the surveyor as well?

MR. CAMPBELL: Yes, sir.

In the case that TxDOT would reimburse or be a participant to the cost of these things, we do now and have historically incurred those costs as eligible, so that if a utility had to design the plans and they had to hire a professional engineer to do it, that' s an eligible cost for our participation. So we' re not imposing a standard unequally, we would have the same standard when we are paying as when the utility industry is paying.

MR. WILLIAMSON: Okay, we' ll have another shot at John here in just a second, but members, do you have any questions or comments with John right now?

MS. ANDRADE: I have a question for John. When we receive comments from the industry, what do we do with those? Does that start a dialogue between us and them?

MR. CAMPBELL: Well, actually in the formal process, yes. We receive the comments and then we go through the effort of actually trying to address the substance of those comments. In this case we also held an additional public forum during the comment period so that we could get also face-to-face input.

The dialogue that you referred to really occurred and started with the utility industry after those early initial informal meetings. So we had had a dialogue but obviously the interest is still building and probably the awareness of it is still building, too, in the industry.

MS. ANDRADE: And we started this two years ago?

MR. CAMPBELL: It was about two years ago, I think December of > 03 when we first started our series of informal sessions.

MR. NICHOLS: Just for the public more than us, the intent of this rule, even though we' re going to defer it today, is so that we will know where the utility is in the right of way.

MR. CAMPBELL: Yes, sir.

MR. NICHOLS: And the question really becomes -- it' s a simple request to know where it is, but the implementation of that request is really where the concern is from the utility companies.

MR. CAMPBELL: Absolutely.

MR. NICHOLS: So I' ll wait till I hear their comments.

MR. WILLIAMSON: So prior to the adoption of this rule, we had utilities in the right of way owned by the people that we didn' t know where they were.

MR. CAMPBELL: That' s the case, yes, sir.

MR. WILLIAMSON: And is there any linkage between liability and insurance claims or culpability in requiring the engineer' s or surveyor' s or architect' s stamp?

MR. CAMPBELL: I think that it imposes, perhaps, the misunderstanding of what we' re attempting to do. Let me explain.

When we require an engineer' s seal, the impression is that we' re attending to manner in which you design the facility, the industry standards for that, and that' s where it could be confusing.

The intent of us laying that out as a standard which we might go up to was not for us to try to say we know better than industry what the safe conditions of installation are, but to say that with that industry standard as a minimum standard, TxDOT may impose stricter standards towards the end of protecting our facilities, protecting our right of way, or being able to identify and manage what' s in our right of way.

So the confusion was that when we start to say that we' re going to require an engineering seal that we' re suddenly stepping into the shoes of the utility and saying that we know better than the utility how you should construct this facility. Not the intent but definitely the impression.

MR. HOUGHTON: So the seal is going to guarantee that you know where the utility is or the pipes, the wires.

MR. CAMPBELL: I think as a practical measure, a certification probably more likely by a surveyor gives TxDOT what we intend to get, and that' s a more accurate, a more reliable indication of where we are in three-dimensional space. So the seal, no, would not do that.

MR. WILLI