Better Roads Digital Magazine
Issue link: https://read.dmtmag.com/i/96390
Lattatudes betterroads.com /BetterRoadsMagazine @betterroads Editorial Editor-in-Chief: John Latta Get ���em Dirty Editorial Director: Marcia Gruver Doyle Executive Editor: Tina Grady Barbaccia Editor Emeritus: Kirk Landers Truck Editor: Jack Roberts Construction Editors: Tom Jackson, Tom Kuennen, Dan Brown editorial@betterroads.com Design & Production Art Director: Sandy Turner, Jr. Graphic Designer: Kristen Chapman Advertising Production Manager: Linda Hapner production@aggman.com Construction Media Senior VP of Market Development, Construction Media: Dan Tidwell VP of Sales, Construction Media: Joe Donald Promotions & Marketing, Construction Media: Mike Porcaro sales@constructionmedia.com Corporate Chairman/CEO: Mike Reilly President: Brent Reilly Chief Process Officer: Shane Elmore Chief Administration Officer: David Wright Senior Vice President, Sales: Scott Miller Senior Vice President, Editorial and Research: Linda Longton Vice President of Events: Alan Sims Vice President, Audience Development: Stacy McCants Vice President, Digital Services: Nick Reid Director of Marketing: Julie Arsenault 3200 Rice Mine Rd NE Tuscaloosa, AL 35406 800-633-5953 randallreilly.com Better RoadsTM magazine, (ISSN 0006-0208) founded in 1931 by Alden F. Perrin, is published monthly by Randall-Reilly Publishing Company, LLC.�� 2012. Executive and Administrative offices, 3200 Rice Mine Rd. N.E., Tuscaloosa, AL 35406. Qualified subscriptions solicited exclusively from governmental road agencies, contractors, consultants, research organizations, and equipment and materials suppliers. Single copy price $5.00 in U.S. and Canada. Subscription rate for individuals qualified in U.S. and Canada $24.95. Foreign $105.00. Special group rates to companies qualified in quantities over five names. We assume no responsibility for the validity of claims of manufacturers in any advertisement or editorial product information or literature offered by them. Publisher reserves the right to refuse non-qualified subscriptions. Periodical circulation postage paid at Tuscaloosa, Alabama and additional entries. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by an information storage retrieval system, without written permission of the copyright owner. For quality custom reprints, eprints, and editorial copyright and licensing services please contact: Linda Hapner, (224) 723-5372 or reprints@betterroads.com. POSTMASTER: Send all UAA to CFS. (See DMM 707.4.12.5); NON-POSTAL AND MILITARY FACILITIES: send address corrections to Better Roads, 3200 Rice Mine Road N.E.,�� Tuscaloosa, AL�� 35406. F rom the days when SAFETEA-LU���s expiration was way in the future, until today, I���ve followed Washington���s every move on reauthorization and visited the capital regularly to talk to people that mattered, of���cially or unof���cially, in the process. You know the ugliness that came with SAFETEA-LU���s demise and zombie-like life extensions and the knock-down, drag-out battle among our ���nest in the Capitol working out the new surface transportation legislation, MAP-21. It was like watching a slow train wreck; and it was our train. You probably know that in September 2014, MAP-21 is set to expire. Know also that a lot of insiders fear we���ll see the extension game come back to Washington, settle in and again be the reality-avoidance dance (disguised as work) of choice for our elected representatives. And they fear that whatever legislation eventually replaces MAP-21 would retain it���s core weakness ��� insuf���cient funds. So what can de done differently? Well, if you are talking Washington, not a lot. But there is something back home where you are that can affect Washington on this issue. Some of the most knowledgeable and most strategically and tactically capable people in the transportation infrastructure lobbying business in D.C. privately agree that companies that get elected representatives out to jobsites make a difference. I emphasize this: ���make a difference.��� Here I am urging you to get your senator or congressperson out to the workface, and I do so only because it can actually in���uence the post MAP-21 legislation. Lobbyists tell me that when they visit an elected member of Congress they can usually tell if that member is familiar with the work that happens at road and bridge jobsites. That member ���gets��� it more often than not. That member, who will run for re-election one day, understands the job-creating and community-bene���tting power he is seeing. The SAFETEA-LU zombie period, the general reluctance among politicians to support the bill they eventually passed, had a lot to do with their unfamiliarity, their uncertainty with what happens at bridge and highway jobsites. But, apparently, if they see it, if they know it, if they understand the work and the people working, they can support spending and reforms for transportation infrastructure because they ���get��� its actual worth. They know that, in either party, they can position themselves as as a good local guy with that support. So get them out there to the biggest, noisiest, nastiest job site you have. Get ���em dirty. Get their hair full of smoke, their shoes covered in mud, their hands oily, their senses pounded by heavy yellow iron, their suits smeared by John Latta, Editor-in-Chief with grease, and introduce them to your work, and your jlatta@randallreilly.com workforce. Better Roads November 2012 3