Better Roads

June 2012

Better Roads Digital Magazine

Issue link: https://read.dmtmag.com/i/85919

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Lattatudes EDITORIAL Editorial Director, Marcia Gruver Doyle, mgruver@rrpub.com Editor-in-Chief, John Latta, jlatta@rrpub.com Executive Editor, Tina Grady Barbaccia, tbarbaccia@rrpub.com Editor Emeritus, Kirk Landers, kirk.landers@att.net Truck Editor, Jack Roberts, jroberts@rrpub.com Construction Editor, Tom Jackson, tjackson@rrpub.com Contributing Editor, Tom Kuennen, expwys@expresswaysonline.com Contributing Editor, Dan Brown, danbrown4@msn.com DESIGN Art Director, Sandy Turner, Jr., sturner@rrpub.com Graphic Designer, Kristen Chapman, kristenchapman@rrpub.com PRODUCTION Senior Production Director, Leah Boyd, lboyd@rrpub.com Advertising Production Manager, Linda Hapner, lhapner@rrpub.com Production Director, Diane Klischer, dklischer@rrpub.com PROJECTS Project Director, Jennifer Brady, jennifer.brady@rrpub.com PUBLISHING/ADMINISTRATIVE STAFF Senior Vice President / Construction Division, Dan Tidwell Executive Publisher Construction Division, Michael Porcaro Executive Publisher Construction Division, Joe Donald Controller, Paige T. Fair ADVERTISING SALES Listing on page 43 AUDIENCE DEVELOPMENT Audience Development Specialist, Stacy Stiglic, sstiglic@rrpub.com HONORS 2011 Jesse H. Neal Award Winner Three-time Jesse H. Neal Awards Finalist Boger Award Honorable Mention Richard E. Lowell President's Award Multiple ASBPE Awards A Road is a Road is a Road printed books … and so on. And at one point in my career I worked on an IBM Selectric II typewriter. (I just rescued one from the dumpster to be junk/art in my offi ce.) As technology made trains and boats and planes better, the old forms became obsolete. And while road building is light years away from a century or even half a century ago, a road is a road is a road, as Ms. Stein might have observed. But as change changes everything and our society evolves in this frantically-paced era T of technological revolution, are our politicians losing interest in roads because they will not evolve as spectacularly and as rapidly as, say, computers, phones or arcane investment opportunities ? Are they thinking roads are "old-fashioned" and maybe boring and as such they should not be seen too often with them? Do they fear that talking about roads marks them as dinosaurs because their speeches won't have cool techno-speak embedded in them? Surely they would prefer it if they could rap about Roads 2.7, eRoads, roadmusic videos or something quirkily misspelled so they can put their man-of-the-moment cred on display? I guess what I'm doing here is still trying to fi gure out why politicians will not seem to do the obvious and place our transportation infrastructure very near the top of their concerns for America's future. Roads are old-fashioned hard work. You have to roll up your sleeves and get dirty 3200 Rice Mine Road N.E., Tuscaloosa, AL 35406 800-633-5953 Mike Reilly, Chairman, CEO Brent Reilly, President David Wright, Chief Administrative Officer Shane Elmore, Chief Process Officer Linda Longton, Vice President, Editorial Stacy McCants, Vice President, Audience Development In Memoriam: H. Pettus Randall II (1911 - 1971) - Founder H. Pettus Randall III (1945 - 2002) - Chairman www.rrpub.com to build, repair or maintain them. They can't do what my iPhone can do, but they are still a part of America's foundation. That's foundation, as in if this collapses we all come tumbling down. My colleagues in this company's trucking magazines like to point out that if you look around at basically anything - be it on a store shelf, your bedside table or in your child's classroom - it was, or its components were, once hauled somewhere by a truck. And I like to make the obvious segue and point out that those trucks hauled it on roads. If you tell people that, many of them (especially politicians?) just nod slowly and smile in a "yes, of course, I knew that" sort of way, eager to get back to their iPad world. Are we taking roads for granted? If we are, it will cost us, he thing about our roads is that they don't go anywhere. Before we had ships, we had roads. Before we had cars and airplanes, we had roads. Before we had computers, we had roads. Before we had e-readers, we had and, shockingly, we'll be surprised, and probably angry. by John Latta, Editor-in-Chief jlatta@rrpub.com Better Roads June 2012 3

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