Many transportation experts say federal and state transportation departments need to radically change how they fund and deliver projects, with an emphasis on performance measures, private involvement and design-build. A number of federal and state officials are calling for a “major reform” in how federally funded transportation projects are assessed and delivered and how their own departments are organized.
“The time is right to move to a performance-based program,” says Jeffrey Paniati, executive director of the Federal Highway Administration. “We need to focus less on the process and more on the outcome” of projects, he says. Paniati was part of a panel at the Transportation Research Board’s annual meeting, held Jan. 10-14 in Washington, D.C. FHWA is working on two studies, one to develop legislative language for proposing such a program and one to create solid guidelines, he adds.