“This federal authorization is critical. [We] can’t do it the way we have been doing it. We laugh at national vision. We don’t have any coherence in terms of our overall transportation policies. And I am really … I believe there is clearly an element of evolution. You can’t automatically after 50 years throw out the baby with the bathwater.”

Scott says in the end it comes back to the numbers. Performance metrics need to be established so we can answer questions like what are we doing to reduce vehicle miles traveled, carbon emissions and our dependency on foreign oil. She says it might be heretical, but as an industry we need to stop talking about need and start talking about outcomes.

“These are significant public investments and we must be prepared to stand up and be accountable and transparent for moving the bar.

“And I think we need to be real clear on a national level about what bar are we trying to move.”

More Related Information:
Archived Article: Manager’s Forum — Accident Preparedness