Cyber Monday: Give the Gift of a Safe Lift

I was brave this weekend – I woke up at 4 a.m. to tackle the Black Friday sales. It was hectic and exhausting and stressful and at times scary. The shopping malls and stores will continue to be zoos as all of us procrastinators finish (or start) our Christmas shopping. So why battle it?

We have the perfect gift for that friend who has everything except a sober ride home from the party. Send a Designated Driver Gift Card and serve as their sober driver this holiday season to ensure they make it home safe and avoid a DWI arrest.

The gift cards, distributed by the Missouri Coalition for Roadway Safety, can be sent electronically or printed at saveMOlives.com. Gift card-givers merrily offer to be a sober chauffeur to the recipient. Recipients are asked to return the favor.

This holiday season, give the gift of a safe lift. It will cost you nothing – and could save the life of your friends and loved ones. Friends don’t let friends drive drunk.

Send a Designated Driver Gift Card at http://www.savemolives.com/play/drivercard.htm

"Government Doesn't Usually Act This Way"

"Government doesn't usually act this way." -- Jim Manis, Gambrill Gardens

Thanks to the quick-thinking of some MoDOT employees, a senior independent living facility in the St. Louis area will have a happier Thanksgiving.

When Gambrill Gardens' 24-passenger transit vehicle was deemed unsafe and taken off the road, the staff sent out a plea for help. Sure, there's a usual process of applying for grant assistance, but that would take time, and residents needed the transportation now.

Cue MoDOT. Employees in the multimodal operation's unit of MoDOT used some quick-thinking and offered Gambrill Gardens a way to purchase an older, but still useful, vehicle. The vehicle was part of a group of rural and small urban transit vehicles that had been replaced with federal recovery act funds.  Most of the vehicles replaced have 200,000-300,000 miles and are no longer suitable for use.  However, a few still have some useful life, and Gambrill Gardens was happy to put one of these to use.

The turnaround time from the request? Only two weeks.

"Government doesn't usually act this way," said Jim Manis with Gambrill Gardens. "It is not the new vehicle we eventually would like to get, but it really helped us get through this emergency."

Photo above (left to right): Shirley Tarwater, MoDOT multimodal operations transit employee, Jim Manis, Gambrill Gardens director of fun development, Chris Brundin, MoDOT multimodal operations transit employee, Diedre Rombach, Gambrill Gardens director of activity and Mike Cicchese, Gambrill Gardens executive director, show off the 24-passenger transit vehicle that solved Gambrill Gardens' transportation need.

Working Together Improves Rail Safety in Winfield

Recently, a highway-rail crossing north of the town of Winfield, Mo. presented a quandary to the staff of MoDOT’s Railroad Section. The highway-rail crossing at Trackside Drive and the BNSF Railway Company railroad tracks had been the site of four serious accidents over the last 12 years, including three injuries and one fatality.

The warning devices at the crossing needed to be upgraded, but because the roadway there was privately owned, MoDOT was unable to spend state and federal safety funds to make an improvement.

Rail Section staff approached BNSF, the city and Victor Pipe Company, a local business and owner of the roadway, to discuss possible solutions. With the cooperation of all parties, the city agreed to annex that part of the roadway crossing the tracks, making it eligible for federal and state safety funds. In addition, MoDOT District 3’s office, Lincoln County and Victor Pipe Company agreed to assist with roadway improvements and signage.

“We appreciate the cooperation displayed by the city of Winfield, Victor Pipe Company, BNSF, Lincoln County and MoDOT’s local district to make this project a reality,” said Rod Massman, MoDOT’s railroad administrator. “It’s through these types of partnerships that we are able to achieve the maximum benefit from the finite amount of funds available to improve rail safety.”

Now the crossing has state-of-the-art flashing lights and gates warning devices, making it much safer for the public and railroad crews.

Don’t Be a Turkey This Thanksgiving

Every year around the holiday season, we send out safety information about how traffic crashes, and thus fatalities and injuries, go up during this period. And yet, every year we have more people killed and injured. So what can we say except…don’t be a turkey…drive sober and buckle up!

If you get to all of your holiday destinations this year, that’s something to be thankful for, because in 2008, between Thanksgiving and Christmas, 94 people died in traffic crashes in Missouri and 5,163 were injured.

That’s why the Missouri Coalition for Roadway Safety is using advertising messages to urge drivers not to drink, or to call a cab or designate a driver from Nov. 23 through Dec. 20.

Even if you are not involved in a crash, consider the consequences if you are caught driving while intoxicated: you could have your license suspended, or even lose it, incur thousands of dollars in fines, and end up spending your holiday in jail.

One other sure recipe that can turn a joyful holiday into a tragedy is failure to buckle up. Regular seat belt use is the single most effective way to protect people and reduce fatalities in motor vehicle crashes.

So, please make sure the only belt left unbuckled during the holidays is the one at the dinner table, not the one in your vehicle. And, if you’re drinking, just don’t drive. We want everyone to Arrive Alive.

To learn more about impaired driving or other safety programs, visit saveMOlives.com.

Experience the Thrill of Riding Amtrak's Missouri River Runner

As a child, I remember the thrill of riding Amtrak® for the very first time. After my Mom and I got on board, I eventually found my way to the top of a bi-level viewing car so I could look out at the awesome panoramic view of the countryside as it flashed by. It was an exhilarating experience; one I will never forget.

You can build the same type of fond memories for your family by choosing to take Amtrak’s Missouri River Runner across the Show Me State. It provides a comfortable ride on your way to discover Missouri’s natural beauty as it passes next to rugged bluffs, alongside the mighty Missouri River, through the country and by quaint, historic communities, many of which owe their very existence to the railroad.

See where the Missouri River Runner can take you on one of MoDOT’s newest YouTube videos at http://www.morail.org/. From Kansas City to St. Louis, there are plenty of great things to see and do along Missouri’s passenger rail corridor. Get on board the Missouri River Runner and experience all of what these great communities have to offer.

MoDOT Selling Off Property in Sales Blitz

It’s an all out property-selling blitz! This real estate needs to go, go, go!

Yes, it sounds like a sales pitch, because it is. MoDOT has 23 highly marketable properties on the block and now’s the time for interested purchasers to pounce.

The MoDOT real estate blitz only lasts through the end of the week, so anyone interested needs to go to www.modot.org/realtyforsale, pronto.

The blitz is an effort to sell as many of these properties in as short a period of time as possible. MoDOT wants this land in the hands of the right owners who will put it to good use. Whether you have land next to these areas, or you just want to create a new dog park, you have the chance to submit a bid or a sealed bid during the auction.

Who knows what you could get it for? What’s even better is that all the money generated from these sales goes back into building roads. It’s a win for everyone.

For more info, go to www.modot.org/realtyforsale … and do it now!

Feast and Famine

Roberta Broeker is MoDOT's chief financial officer. Her post today clarifies MoDOT's current state of funding and why there are challenges ahead.

This year has been both feast and famine in federal transportation funding. In February, the President signed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. At a national level, it’s a massive bill totaling $787 billion dollars. Of that, $48 billion was allocated to transportation. When you crank through the math, $788 million of additional transportation dollars came to Missouri. That was broken up into $525 million to the Commission to administer (about two-thirds of the federal funds we receive in an average year); $93 million sub-allocated to the Kansas City, St. Louis and Springfield metropolitan planning organizations; $19 million for transportation enhancement projects, the bulk of which we divvied up around the state and let our local planning partners pick the projects; and $151 million to other transportation modes.

We worked fast and furious to select projects and get the federal funds obligated, because the time lines imposed by the bill were short AND because the goal was getting people back to work.

Fast-forward to September 30 and the end of SAFETEA-LU, the multiyear bill that apportioned and controlled federal transportation spending across the nation. Built into SAFETEA-LU like a ticking time bomb was an $8.7 billion rescission of federal funds. What does that mean? The bill starts out telling states how much money is apportioned to them over the life of the bill, but then also the increments in which we’re allowed to “obligate” it to specific projects. It’s a way of managing the checkbook at the federal level, preventing states from spending all their money in the early years of the bill.

There was widespread speculation that before September 30, 2009 arrived, Congress would do away with the rescission, and let states have that money to build projects. Ultimately, that didn’t happen. For Missouri, that meant $202 million of potential projects were wiped off the books. We didn’t have to cancel any projects because we were allowed to parcel the rescission among the programs where there was still a difference between the amount originally apportioned to Missouri and the amount we’d already obligated to specific projects.

But in that unobligated difference were a world of possibilities. As I’ve read newspaper stories from around the state, local officials have commented on bridges that will be delayed for a year or more, and the need to regroup and figure out how to get planned projects off paper and make them reality.

As if that weren’t bad enough, the “continuing resolutions” Congress has passed to keep the federal program operating after SAFETEA-LU’s expiration have made finances even tighter. Continuing resolutions aren’t anything new. After the previous federal bill expired in September 2003, we had twelve continuing resolutions before SAFETEA-LU passed in August 2005. But they gave states slightly more money than in the expired bill. Due to the fiscal year 2009 rescissions, the two continuing resolutions we’ve had so far (one for the month of October, and a second one that runs through December 18) have given us federal funds not at the SAFETEA-LU level, but at that amount less rescinded amounts. So when you compare federal funds available for the first 75 days of this federal fiscal year to what we expected (level funding from last year), MoDOT and local planning partners have $57 million less available to obligate than we planned. That’s a difference of 30 percent.