Nelson transportation summit airs concerns and possible solutions to road building delays in Nebraska

Wednesday, March 31, 2010

March 30, 2010 -- Today, Nebraska's Senator Ben Nelson said after a Transportation Summit he held with local, state and federal officials in Lincoln that he's committed to working with them to overcome obstacles and get more Nebraska projects under construction soon.

"Many of the concerns expressed today have been expressed before," said Senator Nelson. "The summit provided a forum to come together and discuss the challenges local communities face due to burdensome bureaucratic processes. Today, Administrator Mendez was able to hear directly from communities in Nebraska about the challenges and obstacles they face. These obstacles not only delay needed projects, they cost taxpayer money. I look forward to working with local, state, and federal agencies to cut through the red tape so that Nebraska roads, highways and bridges can be built."

U.S. Federal Highway Administrator Victor Mendez, who attended the summit, said he would work in partnership with Nebraska officials to address concerns raised at the summit about federal rules, required environmental assessments and red tape encountered.

Mendez offered three possible solutions. First, working together they may be able to define early in the process if a project is eligible for a categorical exclusion. That could save time and effort by identifying environmentally neutral projects early. Second, he suggested that the Nebraska Department of Roads could consider hiring consultants on a temporary basis to work on roads projects that would serve essentially as an extension of the state agency and help play a larger role in local project oversight. Third, groups of cities could work together to do preliminary and construction engineering.

Some see the federal highway agency as imposing too many rules on states, Mendez said. But oversight is critical to protecting the investment of taxpayers, he added.

State Senator Deb Fischer, who chairs the Transportation and Telecommunications Committee in the Legislature, noted that the state is facing a fiscal crisis and a state $300 million road program is now only able to address maintenance projects. She joined Nelson and Mendez on the summit panel, which heard presentations from local groups.

Some of the delayed projects presented at the summit include multiple projects in both Lincoln and Fremont, an overpass project in Kearney, the Heartland Expressway, and bridge projects in Otoe County, among others.

Problems identified included projects and reviews that do not stay on stated timelines, federal rules and procedures that end up holding projects back instead of allowing projects to move forward, smaller projects that require onerous and costly reviews, inconsistent information at different times from the same agencies, poor communication between agencies, and one-size-fits-all regulations that affect rural and urban areas differently.

In addition to the solutions proposed by Administrator Mendez, other potential solutions included allowing local engineers to do both engineering and construction planning for projects, allowing the federal government to give funds directly to counties, regular meetings between agencies to facilitate increased communication of people at all steps of the federal review process so problems are identified early, and a "road show" of all interested parties that meet regularly in different areas of the state to review projects.

All suggestions will be compiled and presented to the appropriate local, state, and federal agencies. In addition, a recording of the summit will be made available to all attending agencies.

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  • Nothing like burocrats in their natural habitat. These people can't even build a road and so many want them to run our healthcare. Amazing.

    -- Posted by Chaco1 on Wed, Mar 31, 2010, at 8:29 AM
  • When is the next election??? I bet the roads will be good all the way to the voting sites.

    -- Posted by edbru on Wed, Mar 31, 2010, at 12:27 PM
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