Road ahead for infrastructure investment

Find out what’s in store for state DOTs as they plan their future investments in projects ranging from roads to rail to transit to ferries. Start your Friday morning off from 09:30 to 10:45 in East Wing E217, with the State DOT Roundtable. This annual executive level session will focus on the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA). There will be two roundtable panels: the first will address policy issues while the second will focus on implementation.
December 9, 2021
John Barton will moderate both sessions
John Barton will moderate both sessions

The policy panel will be a high-level discussion covering what is in the IIJA and how technology can be considered and adopted; how DOTs will address equity issues, for example, how to provide mobility solutions for people who can’t/don’t own cars; and how DOTs may organise and prioritise their work as a result of the new federal legislation.

Implementation Panel

Panelists include Roger Millar, secretary, Washington State DOT; Julie Lorenz, secretary, Kansas DOT; Scott Marler, director, Iowa DOT; Shante Hastings, deputy secretary and chief engineer, Delaware DOT; Jim Tymon, executive director, AASHTO; and Laura Chace, president and CEO, ITS America

The implementation panel will share ideas, best practices, success stories and suggestions on how to accelerate the deployment of these new technologies as they move beyond pilot programs to implementation.

This will be a more granular discussion about how to implement transportation goals via new infrastructure solutions that combine innovative technologies and practices. The panel will dive into issues such as how the new legislation will assist DOTs in ways prior legislation and funding did not; how its enhanced funding will allow DOTs to reprioritise or fast track projects; how IIJA will impact and help overcome some of the traditional issues such as data sharing, compartmentalised or siloed divisions, workforce challenges; and what lessons and examples DOTs can learn from other sectors to best build, manage, and operate its infrastructure with equity and sustainability in mind?

Lessons and examples

The session will be moderated by John Barton, senior VP HNTB, and panellists include Kevin Thibault, secretary, Florida DOT; Ed Sniffen, deputy director of highways, Hawaii DOT; Diane Gutierrez-Scaccetti, commissioner, New Jersey

DOT; Dallas Hammit, deputy director and state engineer, Arizona DOT; Justin Reese, deputy secretary, New Mexico DOT; Jim Tymon, executive director, AASHTO; and Laura Chace, president and CEO, ITS America