Legislature(2007 - 2008)CAPITOL 17
02/19/2008 01:00 PM House TRANSPORTATION
| Audio | Topic |
|---|---|
| Start | |
| Overview: Northern Region | |
| Adjourn |
* first hearing in first committee of referral
+ teleconferenced
= bill was previously heard/scheduled
+ teleconferenced
= bill was previously heard/scheduled
ALASKA STATE LEGISLATURE
HOUSE TRANSPORTATION STANDING COMMITTEE
February 19, 2008
1:04 p.m.
MEMBERS PRESENT
Representative Kyle Johansen, Chair
Representative Anna Fairclough
Representative Craig Johnson
Representative Mike Doogan
MEMBERS ABSENT
Representative Mark Neuman, Vice Chair
Representative Wes Keller
Representative Woodie Salmon
COMMITTEE CALENDAR
OVERVIEW(S): NORTHERN REGION
- HEARD
PREVIOUS COMMITTEE ACTION
No previous action to report
WITNESS REGISTER
STEVE TITUS, Director
Northern Region
Department of Transportation & Public Facilities
Fairbanks, Alaska
HOWARD THIES, Director
Northern Region Maintenance & Operations
Department of Transportation & Public Facilities
Fairbanks, Alaska
ACTION NARRATIVE
CHAIR KYLE JOHANSEN called the House Transportation Standing
Committee meeting to order at 1:04:46 PM. Representatives
Fairclough, Johnson, Doogan, and Johansen were present at the
call to order.
^OVERVIEW: NORTHERN REGION
1:04:56 PM
CHAIR JOHANSEN announced that the presentation today would be
the last Department of Transportation overview. The committee
would not be meeting next Thursday or possibly Tuesday. At the
following meeting, it would hear from Alaska Marine Highway
System staff.
1:05:25 PM
STEVE TITUS, Northern Regional Director, Department of
Transportation & Public Facilities (DOT&PF), introduced Howard
Thies, the Northern Region Director of Maintenance and
Operations. He thanked members for the opportunity to speak to
the committee and said his goal is to inform members of who does
what in the Northern Region and to describe some of the
challenges faced by those employees.
1:06:05 PM
MR. TITUS told members the following:
I am a registered professional civil engineer. I have
over 30 years of experience in engineering in Alaska.
My folks brought me to Alaska in 1959 as a ten-year
old kid - I didn't have much choice, one of the best
things they probably ever did for me. I am a Lathrop
High School graduate, a [University of Alaska
Fairbanks] UAF graduate, a Vietnam veteran, and I've
worked as a consultant, for a consultant. I've been a
general contractor and worked for general contractors
and I've also worked for a number of different public
agencies. That brings a full circle of experience of
being self employed, private sector and public sector
experience to the table as the regional director.
I hope all of you have some of the handouts that we've
provided. I hope - I would encourage you to keep
them. It's good reference material. If you ever need
any updates to any of that information, please get a
hold of us and we'll be glad to supplement what you
have. There's a color presentation, a PowerPoint
presentation. I'm not going to read from it. I'm
just going to go through it, use it as a backdrop for
the discussion today and there will probably be some
slides in there that you've seen previously through
the other presentations but I thought they were
important to make a point.
1:08:16 PM
MR. TITUS continued:
But I think there is one thing that I think summarizes
our vision and what we do at the DOT and that's on
slide 2 and I will read that and it's vision: the
department that plans, designs, constructs, operates
and maintains quality, safe, efficient sustainable
transportation and public facilities that meet the
needs of Alaska's diverse population, geography, and
growing economy. I think that sets a tone for our
role as DOT to identify transportation projects,
needs, priorities, make investment decisions in the
different types of projects that we're going to have.
We have challenges, lots of challenges. We have
limited resources, both in people and in funding. We
have expanding responsibilities. The roads and
airports are becoming more complex, that sort of
thing. We have more and more regulations to deal with
as it relates to storm water, pollution and air
quality. You probably have all seen that slide of the
curve that goes almost vertically after a certain
point in time.
Inflation, the environment is a challenge and one of
the challenges that I'm working on with our folks, I'm
challenging them to take more control of their scopes
of the projects, design and schedule and budget, so
we're going to be more conscious of that than maybe
before. I don't want to say that other folks weren't
but it's one of the thrusts of my tenure.
The next slide, you've probably seen this one before
but, again, it's an interesting slide. It puts into
perspective the size of the Northern Region. I like
to say that the size of the Northern Region is larger
than Texas. I think we pick on Texas because Texas
picked on Alaska when they were here during the
pipeline. Anyway, it is a large area. It is diverse
in its geography and demography and natural resources.
We listed a few of the things that happen in the way
of resources and geography and different elements like
tourism, etcetera, in the region. So we're large,
we're diverse in population and we are diverse in what
goes on.
1:11:08 PM
MR. TITUS continued:
The next slide ... more specifics about the Northern
Region. We're the largest region in the state. We
have the lowest population, the low population, not
the lowest population. We have more...road miles than
any other region and we have lots of rural airports,
mostly gravel airports. We have six certified
airports: Nome, Kotzebue, Barrow, Valdez, Cordova,
Deadhorse. Those are scattered throughout the region.
Our low population and diverse area make for long
driving distances. We don't have the ADT that Central
Region has, therefore we don't have the same accident
rate, that sort of thing that the other regions have
and that reflects in some of the funding that we get.
The rural roads are needed to support economic
development, not only just for the communities they
serve but for people like Anchorage, I mean the ports
of Anchorage and Valdez and Cordova has Fairbanks as a
hub. They are served by these rural roads. We've got
to get goods and services from and to these
communities. So there's a lot going on.
The Northern Region's strategy - and everybody wants
to know about a plan. You know, we always have a plan
for doing stuff and, of course, this list of
strategies is used as a backdrop for the planning and
the programming for projects that we work on given the
different types and amounts of funding sources. So
there's how the different projects fit into the
different categories of what we're trying to
accomplish. You've heard in other presentations
weight restriction issues on the Parks Highway.
That's one of the areas that we're working on in
projects. Pavement preservation - we're working on
that in ... the Parks Highway and the Alaska Highway
area. Of course bridges are a big thing. We've got a
current big project in the Tanana River bridge,
replacing that. We just finished the Washington Creek
Bridge outside of town and we're hoping to get funded
for the Snake River Bridge in Nome for fixing that as
well. We've got some congestion issues in the
Fairbanks area and some facility upgrades with our
[snow removal equipment building] srebs and Jim River
- we're looking for capital funding for that. It
looks like it's in the budget. We have some srebs and
I was out to a rural airport where one of these srebs,
and that's a snow removal equipment building, it was
actually just sinking into the ground so that's a
deferred maintenance issue and there are some problems
there that we're trying to work on.
We do realize that the [indisc.] public is our client
and that we do the best that we can to serve those
folks and meet their needs. Sometimes you read in the
paper, we don't necessarily get there but I can tell
you it's not for lack of trying.
1:14:39 PM
MR. TITUS continued:
Northern Region challenges and severe climate impacts.
In the Northern Region we go from no permafrost areas
to discontinuous permafrost areas to continuous
permafrost areas. We've got a lot of lane miles of
roads in those types of areas and they all come with
different engineering challenges, construction
challenges and there's a few examples of some highway
stress and ... typical settlement things. And we also
have some environmental challenges, extreme weather
challenges.
This winter we experienced a little cold weather,
which was a little more like Fairbanks of older -
Interior of older. It was 60 plus below in Tok, I
think, and so we can go from 60 below to 90 above, not
in the same day but winter, summer, potentially.
Those all impact the roads and airports in that
specific locale. Some of the results of those climate
changes are high construction and maintenance costs.
When you have subsidence in your roads you have to get
out and fix them.
A few more examples of climate impacts, we've got the
climate, we've got permafrost, we've got dust control,
we've got snow removal, which is avalanche areas in
Thompson Pass and Atigun Pass on the Dalton Highway.
We get wildfires. I don't know if any other regions
get that many wildfires but we get fires that come
right up to our roads and a few years ago they were
pretty close to town and that caused some people some
stress. That's for sure and what happens with
wildfires, you have a fire then you have a rain event,
you have erosion and so we have some problems with our
embankments and that sort of thing. I wasn't as aware
of natural disasters to the transportation
infrastructure until I came to the DOT about storm
events on the coast, out in western Alaska, rain
events in our southern southeastern part of our
district and the Valdez area and we've got a couple of
pictures in the presentation about them but they all
cause some problems and the potential damage to
airports and sanitation roads and EVAC roads in some
of our remote areas is concerning. River communities
are subject to floods and their transportation
infrastructures are impacted. The ability to get to
an airport is a problem.
Dust control. Dust is a health issue in many of the
communities. It's becoming more and more of a
problem. EPA is getting involved in it and a number
of folks are working that issue to include the Denali
Commission and the DOT as well. We've included a lot
of dust control in our current projects. We do it on
the Dalton Highway all of the time, not the entire
highway but segments. We're constantly trying to
control the dust with it in cooperation with the
communities.
1:19:07 PM
MR. TITUS continued:
The next slide kind of gives you a little more
perspective. I know last week that the [Alaska
Trucking Association, Inc.] ATA and Mr. Reeves were
here and the ATA talked a bit about the Dalton Highway
and how important it was. Mr. Reeves spoke to the
importance and the economic importance of the Dalton
Highway as it relates to a gas pipeline. Well, it's
our job to maintain the Dalton Highway and we do that
and it's a large task. It's a large part of the
budget. It's a large part of what we do. The Dalton
Highway was completed in 1975 and the state took over
in 1978 and I think most of us understand that it was
built to support the pipeline. It was built to
secondary road standards, which meant slower speeds,
narrower driving surfaces, narrower shoulders and
could have steeper hills. The grade could be steeper
than your primary road standards. It goes through
varied geographical conditions, I mean from Livengood
country all the way to Deadhorse. You go through
mountains, you go through coastal plains and river
plains, river areas where you have lots of gravel and,
of course, it crosses the Arctic Circle. Now you get
into continuous permafrost. That causes some
problems. We maintain that through workforces that
are stationed in seven maintenance camps and you can
see them on the diagram from Livengood to Deadhorse.
A few more things about the Dalton Highway, it's a
little over 400 miles long. It has very heavy truck
traffic. It is open to the public and the trips I've
been on on the Dalton I've seen bikers, I've seen
runners, I've seen - bikers meaning bicycles and
motorcycles. You get all kinds of different kinds of
traffic on that. If you ever have the opportunity to
make the trip down the Dalton Highway, I would
recommend it. It's very interesting. And the
recreational travel of just [recreational vehicles]
RVs and people out sightseeing has increased
substantially over time.
Now, there's the projection of a gas line impact. It
will be the transportation route to get materials and
people and pipe up the North Slope. We estimate there
is going to be about 34,000 one-way loads so that's a
pipe going up, maybe an empty truck going back so
there's going to be at least 34,000 one-way trips just
for the pieces of pipe. There should be in the
neighborhood of 200 plus just loads in support so you
can imagine that's a lot of traffic that goes over the
Haul Road.
The legislature has provided capital appropriations in
prior years to do widening and resurfacing. I want to
thank you folks for that and hope that you continue
doing that because we continue to have resurfacing and
culvert issues and that sort of thing.
1:23:00 PM
MR. TITUS continued:
The pipeline traffic with the load counts that we're
projecting is going to have a huge effect and impact on the
road and our ability to maintain it. So, right now, it's
about 70 percent of the road is about 28 foot wide and the
bullet over here is 30 percent and it is reconstructed to
32 foot wide so that is in our strategies of trying to
increase our road standards. And we talked about 14
million cubic yards of resurfacing ... required over the
next 50 years so that kind of intrigued me being an
engineer. I want to give you - how big a pile is 14
million cubic yards? Well, if you imagine a rubrics cube
that is 720 feet, 25 feet in each direction, that box
encompasses about 14 million cubic yards and if that
doesn't do it, it's about 2.5 football fields going each
way so that's a pretty good pile of material, which we have
to buy, put down, blade and compact. So that gives you a
little idea of some of the issues we run into and it's in
the annual operating budget for the Haul Road, not
including the capital appropriation we get for resurfacing
is in the $10 to $12 million a year.
1:24:23 PM
MR. TITUS continued:
So, issues. I mentioned a number of them already.
With heavy truck traffic we lose the trucks, you know,
dust control. We do dust control on the Dalton but as
they travel the road we lose dust. It's a fine
material that blows away. The surface then becomes
like marbles. It doesn't bind; it doesn't tighten up
and rolls off into the ditches so we have some
problems there.
Just getting material source sites is an issue. We
have some problems in that area but with the funding
we hope to get through capital and maybe through the
general obligation bond. We can do some stockpiling
of materials so we have that material when we need it
to be more efficient in our maintenance of the
highway.
Needs - I think you heard that there are lots of needs
through Mr. Reeves but just some of the issues that
we've had. In 2005, general fund appropriation from
the legislature we rebuilt the Chandalar maintenance
camp. It is a nice addition. Like I said, we
received capital appropriations for repair and in '05,
'06, and '07. Currently, there's a general obligation
bond. There's $14 million for improvements - Dalton
resurfacing and Jim River maintenance shop to replace
that maintenance station, which is having some real
problems with its foundation and that sort of thing.
And of course I believe you folks have been talked to
about the Rise (ph) report. It has lots of future
needs for the gas pipeline but projects currently in
the funding program are listed there. The Yukon River
Bridge redecking and Dalton 3749 both were completed
last summer so those are two projects that were
completed and this intermodal project will be worked
on this coming summer.
1:26:58 PM
MR. TITUS continued:
Funding and needs. It's no secret you folks know
costs and needs are increasing. Our funding is not
keeping up with that so there is a funding gap. How
do you reconcile that? The lower cartoon just is
provided for information that many of the other
states, like 78 percent of them, are having a general
fund program so they don't rely so much on the federal
dollars. I know Jeff Ottesen has been here to give
you information about [Statewide Transportation
Improvement Plan] STIP and that sort of thing to show
that it's a declining trust fund - declining revenue.
Less funding results in fewer projects and splitting
projects up so that they can - into smaller projects,
phasing them so we can get to them. This horizontal
work of airports, roads and bridges is just expensive
work. It's just very expensive work. It takes some
money.
Next, general funds. I wanted to provide a slide that
showed you that this is a trend of the general fund
that we've gotten in the past. You can see that it's
- the slope is declining. Very hopeful that we'll be
successful in the capital appropriation [general
obligation] GO process this year and this next slide
is, I think you've probably all seen this too but I
just wanted to put it in to show that general fund
dollars, we can cut the life and tenure of a project
in half, just about, because we can do many of the
tasks and design in parallel and that's what you see
in the red. The blue is the events and tasks we have
to do under a federal project and they become series
events so that it does save us time. We can get the
project on the street quicker and it saves in the
budget because we're not losing inflation on a yearly
basis.
1:29:40 PM
MR. TITUS continued:
There's a needs list that was started about 15 years
ago and so we'll display the needs as we see that, and
this list that we keep track of and of the different
needs in the region and there's a slide there that
says we're up in the, you know, funded all the needs
and that probably includes the wants too. There's a
difference, of course, between the needs and wants but
that's in the $4, $4.7 billion range. Obviously with
the amount of capital funding we're getting, we're not
eating it, eroding that list real fast. Here's some
information about - the next slide is about
construction, costs of construction. There are some
graphs there that talk about asphalt and indicate how
we compare to national highway construction and we're
almost twice as much as the national average. Our
asphalt is a petroleum product. Petroleum products
aren't cheap and I don't know that they are going to
get a whole lot cheaper.
1:31:02 PM
REPRESENTATIVE JOHNSON asked whether the federal pipeline
coordinator has been contacted for assistance in gaining access
to potential materials on federal land along the highway. He
assumed it is part of that office's job to expedite.
MR. TITUS said to his knowledge no contact has been made. The
pipeline and corridor has been coming on fast but DOT&PF can and
will do that as the project begins to develop.
1:32:12 PM
REPRESENTATIVE JOHNSON said the state has needs now and one of
those needs is to upgrade the Dalton Highway. He asked whether
the materials on federal lands have been inventoried.
MR. TITUS deferred to Mr. Thies to answer.
1:32:34 PM
HOWARD THIES, Director of Northern Region Maintenance and
Operations, Department of Transportation & Public Facilities
(DOT&PF), said DOT&PF has been working on some of those sites
with the [Bureau of Land Management] BLM and the U.S. Army Corps
of Engineers.
REPRESENTATIVE JOHNSON said a phone call to the federal pipeline
coordinator might be appropriate to help get access to some of
the other inventoried sites along the highway on federal lands.
1:33:12 PM
MR. TITUS continued his presentation:
Airports - way back on a previous slide we talked
about we have about 103 airports in the region. Most
of them are rural airports. We've got six
certificated airports. I mentioned that. Airports
are like roads. They have all the same problems with
the geography and the freeze-thaw issues, the dust
issues and resurfacing issues so they're not
invincible to the environment and they are the
lifeline for a lot of all those communities for
medivacs and by-pass mail and just transportation in
and out. It is their transportation corridor to the
hubs.
We have approximately - 60 percent of those airports
are under contract for snow removal and minor
maintenance by people within the communities. The
others are maintained by DOT. They are closer to the
road system so we can get to them. Often we contract
with folks with very little experience. They are the
only ones there. On heavy equipment we have training
programs to try and get them involved and to train
them up. We do have a need for training in the
villages for those folks on heavy equipment.
Of course skyrocketing fuel and electric costs are
always a problem and when you start doing maintenance
you are running equipment and you are needing fuel.
So those things, and we're not without security issues
at our certificated airports, as well as some other
areas.
1:35:24 PM
MR. TITUS continued:
Moving on to maintenance and operation. There's a
number of folks - there are some stats there about the
number of employees and seasonal employees and number
of maintenance districts, etcetera, and there's a
slide that shows you the type of operating dollars we
get compared to what the need would be. There's a
difference. We're still trying to - we're doing the
very best we can and, as I say, with the money that
we're getting - the folks in maintenance are unsung
heroes I think of our business and organization. As
an example, a couple of weeks ago we had about 50
below and 60 mile an hour winds up on Eagle Summit
country. Our guys closed the road down and then the
next morning - and that was starting to be in conflict
with the Quest. That was a bit of a problem because
the dogs couldn't get around so the next morning they
showed up at 6:00 a.m. and worked, I think, until 6:00
p.m. that night to open it up and make sure that all
the folks got through, the dogs and their [indisc.]
and that sort of thing.
I don't have my wind chill chart handy but I did go
out and look it up. At 50 degrees Fahrenheit, minus
50, and 60 mile per hour wind, it's about 120 below.
So we had our guys out there working in that and, at
120 below, exposed flesh will frostbite in 5 minutes
or less. So, they went out and did their job. They
deal with earthquakes, floods, fires, avalanches and
normal maintenance and I know when they're out there
doing maintenance and crack seal and overlays they are
dealing with a lot of mosquitoes as well out there on
the roads in rural areas.
1:37:11 PM
MR. TITUS continued:
Here's a graphic to show what the Northern Region
proposed GO bonds - the three projects that are in the
general obligation bond are shown there. I talked a
bit about most of those already.
Significant projects and accomplishments - a few nice
pictures to show. These are some of the things that
we do with the money that we're given. Actually at
North Pole there's one more roundabout that didn't
quite get in the picture but there's three of them in
a row there. The city is really pleased with those.
We even had candy stripe street light poles to meet
the theme of the city.
So lastly, what can you do for us? I think the
transportation infrastructure is in need of a general
fund transportation plan. How to get there is up to
you folks. I would solicit your support in a program
of that nature and I know if it's being talked about
in other areas.
Increased [maintenance & operating] M&O budgets.
We're having - our budgets for operating budgets
aren't quite enough to do what we need to do so when
you have an opportunity to help us in that area that
would be appreciated.
And, of course, support of the CIP projects that we
have as well as projects that would potentially
support the gas - the transportation infrastructure
that would support the pipeline.
And, of course, last is some contact information and
here's one of those M&O guys that I was talking about.
October '06 we had a flood down by Valdez. That was
before I was the regional director. They worked up -
Mike Coffee testified before you folks before but he
was heavily involved in that at that time and it was
quite impressive to see what those folks got done. If
you go to the very beginning of our presentation,
there is a picture of the same slide 2 paving at zero.
That's also in the Keystone Canyon where they were
finishing up and they were putting down pavement in
zero degrees. They tell me that that piece of
pavement is still in pretty good shape.
1:40:05 PM
REPRESENTATIVE DOOGAN said several people have testified to the
need for work on the Dalton Highway. He asked whether that need
is exclusive to the official Dalton Highway or whether work
needs to be done on the entire highway north of Fairbanks.
MR. TITUS said the Dalton Highway is represented in red on slide
8, but DOT&PF is responsible for the road from Fairbanks from
Mile 163 on the Parks Highway all the way to Deadhorse. A load
coming from Anchorage has to go all the way up the highway so
the area between Fairbanks and Livengood is DOT&PF's
responsibility. Most of that area does not have the maintenance
need that the Dalton Highway has.
1:41:04 PM
REPRESENTATIVE DOOGAN asked if that part of the highway is up to
standard.
MR. TITUS said not all of it.
REPRESENTATIVE DOOGAN surmised that part of the highway will
need work in conjunction with the natural gas pipeline.
MR. TITUS said that question is interesting because the start
time of pipeline construction is undetermined but the section
from Livengood to Fairbanks needs work. The worst part of the
road is from Livengood to mile 37.
1:42:08 PM
REPRESENTATIVE FAIRCLOUGH asked whether the Northern Region is
responsible for any ports.
MR. TITUS said DOT&PF has facilities in Valdez and Cordova, but
no ports per se. He specified the Northern Region has highways,
aviation and facilities.
REPRESENTATIVE DOOGAN noted his relationship with Mr. Titus goes
back to playing Little League baseball together. He advised Mr.
Titus to hunker down behind Marine Highways.
1:43:25 PM
REPRESENTATIVE FAIRCLOUGH noted the committee has considered
looking into a river ferry system and asked Mr. Titus if he
could comment on how he would prioritize such a system and how
that would address transportation needs to river communities.
MR. TITUS said he tried to research a river ferry system. A
small study was done years ago on that, but it dropped off the
radar. He said he couldn't offer any new information at this
time but could provide copies of that study.
REPRESENTATIVE FAIRCLOUGH pointed out the committee already
heard legislation on that issue. She suggested Mr. Titus look
at Representative Salmon's proposal.
1:45:21 PM
CHAIR JOHANSEN thanked Mr. Titus for his presentation. He noted
that the committee appreciates the challenges faced by the
Northern Region and the work he and his crews do in that
climate.
ADJOURNMENT
There being no further business before the committee, the House
Transportation Standing Committee meeting was adjourned at 1:47
p.m.
| Document Name | Date/Time | Subjects |
|---|