The RAC Region I teleconference was held on Thursday 10/04/12. The following individuals participated.

Camille Crichton-Sumners (Chair)New Jersey DOT

Allison Hardt (Vice-Chair)Maryland DOT

Mike BoniniPenn DOT

James FallonConn DOT

George ColgroveVTrans

Dale PeabodyMaine DOT

Martin ParkerDistrict of Columbia

Stephanie TrainorDistrict of Columbia

Steve PepinMassachusetts

Minutes from 9/06/12 RAC 1 callwere approved.

Old Business:

  • 2013 RAC/TRB annual meeting will be in Baton Rouge 7/15/13-7/18/13. 2014 meeting will be in Madison, WI.
  • The SHRP 2 Implementation Workshops are underway. Neil Pedersen has visited over a dozen states and has several more planned. Maryland is schedule to meet with Neil on December 13th.
  • Sandra Larson will remain on as RAC Chair through at least the end of the year. Skip Paul has replace Rick Collins as the Vice Chair.
  • Region 1 has a spot open on SCOR. Update: This has since been filled by Steve Pepin.
  • 2011 UTC funding will be extended. The Federal Register sought comments on the 2013/2014 UTC Competition. The due date for comments was October 31st.
  • The Administration Task Force is still working to get One Page Fact Sheets from all 50 states. To date, 41 have been submitted and there are three outstanding from Region One. Allison volunteered to find a contact and request one for Delaware.

New Business:

  • Several RAC members expressed concerns over MAP-21. If you have any concerns that you would like raised during the RAC leadership call, please let Camille know.
  • The Conduct of Research Session at the TRB Annual Meeting will highlight four projects (FL, MN, NY, TX) from the Sweet 16. All four are in line with this years’ conference theme of “Transportation Research – Doing Things Smarter, Better, Faster.”
  • RAC 1 members are encouraged to look at and try the RPM web tool.

State of Your State:

The following are some new ideasdifferent states tried this year:

  • New Jersey–Met with Directors and managers to listen to their needs. They created a list of questions in advance to help facilitate the discussion. Camille e-mailed the questions to the group after the call.
  • Connecticut – Brought in FHWA Resource Center experts to talk about current practices/trends in Bridges and Pavement/Construction. This discussion helped generate research ideas.
  • Washington DC – Began working with local universities to help develop problem statements. Meetings were help with managers to help get ideas. They plan to meet with different areas to promote the program and to identify emerging areas/needs.
  • Massachusetts – Began using technical committees to help determine which project ideas should move forward. So far this has been very useful.

Reminders:

We are looking for ideas on what our various states are doing in to manage research projects and programs to possibly include on the agenda for our monthly calls- “State of Your State” agenda item. Please e-mail Camille if you have something to share and she will add it to agenda. If anyone has any “regional” issues that you would like to be brought up to leadership please let Camille know.

Next Call 12/06/12 (November 1st call was cancelled due to the major storm event on the east coast)

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