ODOT’s New Way of Doing Business

The Oregon DOT is starting Phase Two of the Oregon Transportation Investment Act projects, and has a lot to celebrate from Phase One.

by Matt Garrett

The Oregon DOT is starting Phase Two of the Oregon Transportation Investment Act projects, and has a lot to celebrate from Phase One.

Oregon’s biggest bridge and highway improvement program  in a half-century began as a solution to a statewide need for greater highway mobility. Oregon needed to upgrade its highway bridges to carry today’s larger, heavier commercial vehicles, to safely handle a widespread increase in commuter traffic, and to support an increasingly important tourist industry.

When the Oregon Legislature funded — and Gov. Ted Kulongoski signed into law — the OTIA III State Bridge Delivery Program by designating $1.3 billion of the 2003 Oregon Transportation Investment Act to repair or replace hundreds of highway bridges, it charged the Oregon Department of Transportation with completing the project in only 10 years. It was a tremendous task: Oregon had not seen an infrastructure investment of this magnitude since the state’s interstate freeway system was built in the 1950s and ’60s.

Outsourced program management

ODOT did just that by outsourcing the bridge program, as directed by the Legislature. Hiring a large staff — early estimates indicated as many as 600 would be needed — would have meant high startup costs and wouldn’t achieve one of the bridge program’s main goals: to stimulate Oregon’s economy and create a sustainable workforce.

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By establishing the Bridge Delivery Unit in 2003, we became one of the first departments of transportation in the country to expedite delivery of a major funding package by outsourcing program management and delivery. A core group of 22 people oversees the private-sector program management firm and manages the work of more than 400 people outside the agency. Outsourcing gave us the opportunity to use the experience and expertise of a small ODOT team to oversee the work.

CS3: Community values shaping a new generation of bridges

Our next innovation was to adopt a collaborative, long-term approach to guide our work. Context Sensitive and Sustainable Solutions — CS3 — is an overarching philosophy that drives our success on five program goals of economic stimulus, efficiency, mobility, stewardship and funding. It is the framework for assessing a project to determine the most successful solution to satisfy multiple goals and the maximum number of stakeholders. CS3 encompasses the processes, tools and training that keep us and our partners — architects, engineers and contractors — aligned with the five goals and using the same approach. And it is the set of criteria against which we measure our compliance and success.

This initiative has led to many creative solutions. In collaboration with resource agencies, we consolidated multiple environmental permits into a single set of performance standards that saved time and money while ensuring that natural areas are protected. We originated ways to cost-effectively build bridges off-site and incorporate inexpensive but essential modifications to the concrete that would encourage bats to roost underneath. We held a series of public meetings with local citizens to develop design guidelines for the bridges in the Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area. The resulting I-84 Corridor Strategy takes into account public safety and transportation needs, while complementing the look of nearby bridges on the Historic Columbia River Highway.

Collaborating for success

The scope and scale of the bridge program demanded that we not work in a vacuum: We needed partners to accomplish the work effectively. It was a change in the way we do business, but it was a change that led to new opportunities.

We coordinated with the Oregon Trucking Associations, American Automobile Association, Oregon Manufactured Housing Association, state police and local municipalities before devising our mobility plan, to ensure that traffic would be impeded as little as possible during construction. Consensus with our partners led us to stagger the bridge repair and replacement work in five overlapping stages.

It was just this kind of collaboration that helped us set joint priorities on how best to complete the work. The first priority was to prepare alternate north-south and east-west routes for freight and travelers to use while the interstates were being repaired. That phase, Stage 1, is now complete, and work on Interstate 84 and Interstate 5 is well under way.

We also grouped bridge repairs into logical units along each highway corridor. This strategy allows contractors to achieve economies of scale in performing design work, ordering materials, and mobilizing equipment and labor. It also helps traffic engineers minimize delays for motorists and freight haulers.

Building diversity—and economic strength

When the bridge program began in 2003, projections showed that competition from other building projects and attrition from retirements would shrink the available construction workforce. By 2012, Oregon would face a shortage of approximately 14,000 construction workers.

As a result, the agency developed its Workforce Development Plan, designed to increase diversity in employment, expand apprenticeship participation, and provide more training resources and opportunities for highway construction workers. In partnership with federal, state and local representatives, community and apprenticeship organizations, Native American tribes, unions and the Associated General Contractors, we launched the Workforce Development Plan in July 2005.

After a successful launch in the Portland metropolitan area, we are implementing the plan statewide through regional workforce alliances. A matching grant of $1.8 million from the Federal Highway Administration has allowed us to reach out to communities traditionally not part of the heavy highway construction workforce.

Capitalizing on funding opportunities

In concert with CS3 goals, ODOT has also actively sought other funding to supplement public money allocated for the bridge program. We partnered with the Lane County Regional Air Pollution Authority on a groundbreaking initiative, The Clean Fuel for Bridges Project, which encourages bridge program contractors to use cleaner fuels in construction machinery. Through this project, LRAPA will reimburse contractors working on the I-5 corridor up to 5 cents per gallon for using ultra-low-sulfur diesel or biodiesel fuels.

We also supported the Associated General Contractors’ successful application to the Environmental Protection Agency for a $120,000 grant. These funds help contractors working on the bridge program upgrade the engines and retrofit the exhaust control systems of their construction equipment at no cost. In combination with the clean-burning fuel initiative, these equipment upgrades will significantly reduce exhaust and particulate emissions on bridge program projects.

The FHWA’s Innovative Bridge Research and Deployment Program has awarded ODOT seven grants totaling more than $1 million for engineering innovations we proposed, such as prefabricated bridge components and high-performance steel girders. Such innovations will speed construction on both replacement and repair of existing bridges.

A new generation of Oregon bridges

Looking back, what impresses me most is how our hard work, innovative thinking and willingness to approach the work in new ways are paying off. Today, in just three years, 80 percent of the bridge program is in design, under construction or complete. We are right where we wanted to be, on schedule and on budget. And because we adapted and innovated to accomplish the bridge program, ODOT is a stronger agency, and the citizens of our state have better, stronger and safer highway bridges.

For more information

OTIA III State Bridge Delivery Program: www.oregon.gov/ODOT/HWY/OTIA/bridge_delivery.shtml

Oregon Bridge Delivery Partners:
www.obdp.org