Who would have ever thought that April 20th’s tragic accident on the Deepwater Horizon would result in a months-long continuous flow of oil into the Gulf of Mexico? When I wrote down my initial thoughts, the breech at the bottom of the Gulf was an absolute catastrophe in my mind, but no one else seemed to be paying much mind. I’ve lived near and played in the Gulf of Mexico; It’s one of my favorite places on earth. The damage this spill has and will cause is devastating to me personally on so many levels.

Perhaps our lawmakers “get” that, which is why it seems they are taking this disaster as an opportunity to underscore a clean energy policy push (remember, energy production is the #1 producer of greenhouse gas emissions, transportation is #2). The administration is no longer pressured to capitulate to drilling offshore to achieve a “climate change” bill, since there is no one who would be bold enough to push an offshore drilling platform in this context. Also, please note, I doubt you will hear the vernacular “climate change” associated with this effort any longer. It’s going to be “clean energy” all the way.

This still doesn’t tell me exactly what is going to happen with transportation re-authorization, but it bodes well for more sustainable policies. As long as we get there fast enough. Will we?

In tying these two issues, new policy initiatives to be introduced include replacing the funding source for the Highway Trust Fund (whether that be a VMT or other plan) and a change in how the HTF is allocated, moving toward performance based transportation-methodology.

In order to get traction for a Climate Change Bill, a major concession was made in lifting the ban on domestic drilling in the Atlantic and the Gulf of Mexico. Ironically, as we witness an environmental disaster unfolding in the Gulf of Mexico, it is exactly this concession which will torpedo the Climate Change Bill.

So now what happens to efforts to “green-up” transportation funding policies in the next Transportation Re-authorization? Are the two pieces of legislation inextricably linked? Will necessary reform in funding and allocating the HTF be more difficult to achieve? How? Why? How long can we keep a band-aid on our transportation funding problems?

I am not asking these questions for my health – I am asking these questions because I think you have a good handle on this subject matter, so please prognosticate!

6/16/2010 UPDATE:

Who would have ever thought that this tragic accident would result in a months-long continuous flow of oil into the Gulf of Mexico? When I wrote down my thoughts above, the breech at the bottom of the Gulf was an absolute catastrophe in my mind. I’ve lived near and played in the Gulf of Mexico; It’s one of my favorite places on earth. The damage this spill has and will cause is devastating to me personally on so many levels.

Perhaps our lawmakers “get” that, which is why it seems they are taking this disaster as an opportunity to underscore a clean energy policy push (remember, energy production is the #1 producer of greenhouse gas emissions, transportation is #2). The administration is no longer pressured to capitulate to drilling offshore to achieve a climate change bill, since there is no one who would be bold enough to push an offshore drilling platform in this context. Also, please note, I doubt you will hear the vernacular “climate change” associated with this effort any longer. It’s going to be “clean energy” all the way.

This still doesn’t tell me exactly what is going to happen with transportation, but it bodes well for more sustainable policies. As long as we get there fast enough. Will we?

Take a look at the following video which illustrates the time-lapsed life-cycle of a roadway.  When a decision is made to build a new road, it is a long-term  commitment to an ever-expanding future budget for repair, renewal and rebuilding.  As our network of roads expands (and ages), where is the needed money going to come from?

Today’s headline about the drop in the newly unemployed is good, I guess.  I tend to look at this cynically….after all, we’re boasting about how few jobs were lost, yet the number is not small at all.  I guess it’s all relative.

But herein gives me a chance to point you in the direction of one of my favorite statistics:   Unemployment By Educational Attainment.

You’re smart, so I won’t interpret this data for you, but I will highlight what is most interesting to me:  Unemployment among those with a Bachelor’s Degree or higher is at a mere 4.9% (Nov. ‘09).  Show this stuff to any aimless students in your household; Perhaps it will provide some motivation.

First, I am proud of you.  Life is very busy.  Taking the time to get involved is a big step; After all, it’s not easy to stay focused on external commitments when you have more work than you have hours to execute it. Then add the demands of your personal life, and well, there isn’t much room left.  This makes it all the more important to choose wisely.

When counseling others on how to position their careers toward their long term goals, I break these types of groups into two flavors:  Professional Associations, and Industry Associations.

Professional Associations are excellent resources for YOU, the professional, to hone your skills and knowledge within your specialization, including continuing education, and keeping abreast of new technologies which may affect you and your clients.

Industry Associations, where clients, peers, competitors, and vendors gather are useful for other reasons.  They are focused on your Client’s business, and allow you an opportunity to learn more about your customer.  Meetings can be an outstanding source of early intelligence regarding future bid opportunities, as well as where potential teaming partners are sized up.

I think participation in both is important in planning your career, with an emphasis in the latter for those who wish to distinguish themselves in business development.  If your objective is technical luminary status, perhaps your emphasis should be on the former.  Regardless, they’re all worthy outlets for your time, and participation will set you apart from the rest.

This third tipping point, in my experience, is at least 90% accurate. I have been reticent to mention it because it is gender-specific to men, but upon reflection, it is too important not to bring to your attention.

Without a doubt, within AE consulting space, the pending or new arrival of a child into the family is a major contributor to job search behavior. I say this is gender-specific, because we gals are not dummies….we are inclined to “stay put” for the FMLA benefits. **

I am neither a psychologist nor a scientist, but if I had to boil it down to biology, I’d guess that this is some type of latent “provider gene” in action, the modern-day equivalent to stepping up the hunt for food to feed a growing family. It might be the first child, it might be a successive child, but I can tell you when I find a candidate with a bun-in-the-family-oven, I know he’s got anxiety about advancing his career.

It’s not overt; He doesn’t recognize it as a factor at all. What is he thinking? If the family is considering becoming a traditional one-income household, his motivations are fairly obvious. However, this behavior occurs equally in families with two income–earners. Is he thinking braces, summer camp and college tuition so early?

I tell these blokes it’s a lousy time to be looking for a career move. So much of the world as they know it is about to change, why shake things up even more? But they don’t listen to me.

Male readers, look back on your own careers, and what lifetime events were in play when you made certain job changes. I guarantee you will be able to correlate a job change, seeking a promotion or other career milestone with the pending or recent arrival of at least one child.

The feedback is the same whenever I share this tidbit of information with managers: They didn’t even know it when it was happening to THEM; then, they begin to catalog life events of those recently hired and recently departed.  I smugly enjoy their epiphanies.

** Why the gents are not equally motivated by this perk is a whole other discussion that we can cover over a few glasses of wine, ladies.

I am a little confused by these objections, because I recall that the pricing for the HOT Lanes was to be congestion based/variable, which, if managed appropriately should preclude a “back up at the HOT lanes terminus.”  On the other hand, I can absolutely understand Arlington’s desire to access the operational projections so that they can plan accordingly for the traffic which may flow into their streets as a result of the project. (It’s only mildly ironic that a more highly functioning interstate highway might cause inner city traffic engineers some panic.)

As for the perceived competition the Capital Beltway HOT Lanes will present for mass transit (and carpooling) proponents, isn’t one of the requirements of the project that high occupancy vehicles get to ride the HOT lanes at reduced cost (and in the case of transit vehicles, at no cost)? Is roadway P3 really in competition with Mass Transit?  I’d really like to know how much of this controversy is based on valid concerns and how much of this bruhaha is political fear-mongering.  Anyone on the inside care to chime in?

If you missed the part about WHY we need a new means for funding the maintenance and growth of our transportation infrastructure, then let’s recap:  

First, the Highway Trust Fund (HTF), which pays for much of our roadway development, is depleted.  At the same time, the revenue to the HTF from gasoline taxes – already not enough – only promises to decline as fuel efficiency increases.   Concurrently, much our infrastructure is at a critical juncture in it’s life cycle — in need of major repair or a complete rebuild.

It’s the perfect storm:  Less money when more is sorely needed.

So, how do we raise more money for the work which needs to be done?  Here are some scenarios swirling around policy war rooms today:

• Reconfigure the gas tax to an ad valorem tax: Setting the gasoline tax as a percentage of fuel purchase instead of a flat, cents per gallon tax would be a better way to index revenue to road use and inflation. However, this idea presents a future conflict of interest to a nation which seeks to incentivize sustainable energy solutions and reduce its dependence on oil.  How can we justify funding mobility from the sale of fossil fuels?
• Toll roads: This classic model will have a new spin in that your toll road might be leased to a private company that has been selected to operate and maintain the road for a specific number of years.  They will recoup their operating costs through tolls to the user, and will be responsible for upkeep and performance as well as all services provided on the facility.  In some cases, the investor will also design, build, operate and maintain the roadway, for which they will be awarded a much longer lease (we’re talking greater than 50 years).  In the business we call this Public-Private Partnership, PPP, or P3, and it’s already a successful model in many U.S. states.
• Vehicle Miles Traveled (VMT): Given the advent of more fuel efficient vehicles, this idea is meant to recapture monies lost in gasoline sales.   It seems to be a more effective use tax, since it is fairly applied by actual miles driven than by gasoline consumed, and may be a better behavioral incentive for eliminating trips, combining trips, or exercising mode choice.  Since mileage tax is collected by the states, this proposal gets sticky when drivers cross state lines, but I am certain since I’ve last read up on the topic that they have come up with a solution to this problem.  (Anyone?)

In the United States, one can expect that in the future there will be a more direct correlation between transportation mode of choice and individual burden/cost.  This means there will be a different and very direct price to fly, drive, bus, rail or bike it.  The user will certainly weigh this price against available time and budget, then make choices accordingly.  The biggest change will be in the cost to drive…and it may change the way you move forever.

How do you believe these hypothetical changes will affect your own travel behavior?  What cultural/societal shifts do you predict will occur as a result of such changes?

Special Thanks to Contributing Researcher & Writer Crystal Pendergrass, civil engineer/jobseeker, and to Contributing Editor, Donald Galligan, AICP, all around nice guy.

Yes, there is a formula to allocate funds by state based upon a) gas tax revenues contributed, b) miles of highway and c) population, but — like the tax code — there are loopholes and exceptions. 

First, it is important to know that HTF monies are not given away with zero commitment at the state level.  For each project, there is a required state match (how the match is raised varies from state to state).  Typically, the match for capital projects or purchases is 80/20, with 20% being the state obligation.  Therefore, generally speaking, the 18.4¢ per gallon that each driver pays into the fund is matched at the state level by approximately 3.7¢.

Since 1983, 2.86 cents of each gallon’s tax is reserved for the Mass Transit account.  With a 20% match by the state, this amount becomes to 3.43 cents per gallon.  However, by law this is only to be used on capital expenditures…i.e., buying buses and other equipment.  The match is actually 50/50 when it comes to transit operations. 

So, buying buses and rolling stock is possible, but finding the money to put them to use is very difficult, and must be hobbled together from many sources.  Unless a locality makes transit a priority, the lack of funding to operate the system keeps it small and, as a result, less convenient than jumping in the car.

(By now, you know where this is going, and it might get me flamed on these pages for being mode-biased.  I will state here and now that I like and need my car; I just wish I had more choices available to suit my destinations and my schedule.  I would surely excercise those choices!)

Meanwhile, when it comes to highway funding match, all states are not treated equally.  States with a large amount of Federal land (which accounts for a lot of states west of the Mississippi), are awarded HTF money on a sliding scale.  The sliding scale decreases the local match requirement for highway projects, but does not do the same for transit. 

In Idaho, for example, the local match requirement for highway projects is only 7.34 %, but it is still 20% for transit capital, and 50% for transit operations, resulting in a built in bias toward roads.  Why would a region chose to augment alternative modes of transportation when they can build roads at a fraction of the cost (to their own budget)?

Obviously, the HTF is in crisis;  I am not suggesting that transit needs a bigger part of that pie…the 15.54 cents per gallon that funds roadway projects has to cover a lot of ground (see page 11 in the link).  The solutions to our problems lie not only in the ways that we spend money on transportation projects, but also in the ways we raise that money.  We will explore the latter issue in a forthcoming post.

Special Thanks to Contributing Writer and Editor, Donald Galligan, AICP, Transportation Planner and all around nice guy.

“Job Seeker” is a difficult role to play involuntarily, but it is a job, and it needs to be treated like one.  My advice to all job seekers, regardless of industry, is the same:  Get out from behind the computer. 

There was a time when looking for a job online was the “new wave” of the job search.   That was in the mid-90s for those who missed it.  I know, because I was a greenback, un-networked, recruiter at the time and I used online resources to help me identify candidates I had no other way of sourcing.   In the infancy of the Internet, places like CareerMosaic and Monster.com were cutting-edge, early adopter territory which allowed companies and search consultants like me to reach way beyond the limits of the traditional tools of the time.   Likewise, it was the savvy job seeker who hit these portals and found themselves plucked like cherries into rewarding career baskets.  Quality was high, volume was (relatively) low. 

As the ‘Net has matured, job boards have proliferated.  There are TENS of THOUSANDS of them.   This level of maturity in the market makes it hard for companies to decide where to spend their dollars and even harder for prospective employees to determine where they can best be “found.”   

But, I am not here to bash job boards, because they should play an important role in every firm’s recruiting efforts.  It’s in this particular market, in today’s context, where I must tell candidates to avoid job-board dependency. 

I know it feels good at the end of the day to say you have “sent out ten resumes and cover letters.”   Only the magic of the Internet can allow you that level of productivity.  However, despite auto-responders and other types of electronic communication that some companies try to put in place acknowledging an applicant’s efforts (most don’t even bother), the anonymity of the internet is killing your morale in so many other ways. 

As a Job Seeker, you have zero control after you hit “Submit” … You don’t know the timeline, you don’t know much about the job and you don’t know if anyone has even looked at your inquiry.  Of ten resumes – was even ONE seen by a decision making body?  The chances are slim.    

So here are three things you should do to exercise real control in your job search:

1. Get Involved:  If you haven’t yet, start your commitment to your profession by signing up to participate in your industry associations.  Don’t just go to meetings, join committees, and volunteer your (currently ample) time.  Be active and involved in your profession even when you’re not drawing a paycheck.
2. Professional Development: Sign up for as much professional development as you can possibly afford.  Since you’re not “learning from experience” during this period, learn from a teacher.  Demonstrate that you’re taking responsibility for your own professional advancement.
3. Become Active in Your Larger Community, in business and at home: Take an active role in issues which speak to your passions, whether they are focused at a community or regional level.

This is not rocket science; you know this is what you should be doing.  However, it’s not WHAT you do; it’s HOW you do it. 

Here’s the real key:  Don’t make the mistake of getting out from behind the computer and doing the same things you do when you’re sitting in that chair….searching for jobs.  If you attend all of these events and pass out resumes and introduce yourself as Jerry or Jane Job Seeker, the conversation will automatically focus on what you don’t bring to the table:  a paying job, or status as a collaborator. 

Instead, get involved with the whole purpose of giving what you have to offer to others.  Make Social Deposits, Not Withdrawals.  Find out with every contact, what someone else is trying to achieve, and how you can help them in their pursuits.  Some examples somewhat specific to my industries….

• Perhaps you know someone at the agency who can help get that permit out of review purgatory? 
• Perhaps you know of a DBE/WBE which might make an excellent teaming partner in pursuit of a competitive bid?   
• Perhaps you, during your networking at other events/meetings, will meet someone who is a perfect fit for a job in which you yourself may not be qualified? 
• Perhaps you have the time to research the answer to that question your busy contact is contemplating.

Your mantra should be to keep your eyes and mind open and be **ridiculously** generous with your time and connections. 

This may not land you an immediate job; you can still go home and hit the job boards.  However, circulating in the flesh and blood with a genuine mission to create value (as opposed to simply serving your own needs) is an activity which will emblazon you upon the minds of people who will be anxious to return the favor one day. 

What you will gain from following a plan based on these principals is a solid network of relationships…and you’ll all have each others’ backs for years to come.   Hitting the “Enter” key twenty-two times a day will never come close.