Beetles have gone on "weed control" in place of spraying efforts at the I-90/Hwy 63 interchange north of Stewartville. Photo by Brian Jergenson

. . .not Paul, George or Ringo—but an insect that will help control infestation of leafy spurge.

On June 14, the Rochester district released 50,000 beetles at the I-90/Hwy 63 interchange just north of Stewartville. The beetles are being used as an alternative to chopping or spraying the weed that has the ability to overgrow other, more desirable vegetation.

Using beetles is cost-effective and Mn/DOT can forego the use of herbicide. With spurge under control, a more diverse landscape develops because other plant communities are not crowded out. Because the beetles only feed on spurge and do not eat wildflowers or garden plants, when the spurge numbers decline, so do the beetles.

For more information, contact Brian Jergenson, Rochester public affairs coordinator, 507/285-7364.

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Crews from the Hutchinson and Olivia truck stations cleanup Hwy 22 on the south end of Litchfield. From left are Roger Wersal, Hutchinson, Jim Steinbeisser, Olivia, and Adrian Garcia, Olivia. The chipper is on loan from the Renville County highway department. Photo by Dave Johnston

The storms that rolled through central and west central Minnesota the week of June 11 kept maintenance crews from the Brainerd, Detroit Lakes and Willmar districts busy clearing trees and building debris from numerous highways throughout the districts. 

Heavy rainfall caused water to flow over Hwy 27 in three locations between Lastrup and Isle—and had workers from the Little Falls truck station scurrying to install signs to warn motorists of the water hazard ahead. In addition, the Aitkin sub-area worked overnight clearing trees which blocked Hwy 47 between Aitkin and Malmo. And debris and trees on Hwy 23 and Hwy 25 near Foley required an all-out effort from the Milaca truck station.

Hwy 12 seemed to provide a conduit for tornado and storm activity through the Willmar district. The storm touched down in Benson (Detroit Lakes district) and then moved through the Spicer area and back along Hwy 12 through the cities of Atwater, Grove City, Cosmos and Litchfield. In addition to heavy damage to homes and businesses along its path, the storm dropped trees and other debris on area roadways to keep maintenance crews in the district working hard for many hours.

And just when this spring’s flooding was fading from memory in the Detroit Lakes district, portions of several roadways were covered with water and some roads were closed to traffic. A section of Hwy 79 near Erdahl was flooded with nearly three feet of water over the road. The roadway is scheduled for reconstruction to raise it six feet above the current grade. Water also made travel more treacherous on Hwy 27 and Hwy 9 near Herman, and on Hwy 12 near Ortonville and Hwy 29 north of Parkers Prairie.

Maintenance forces in the Twin Cities Metro area also dealt with the aftermaths of severe thunderstorms. Heavy rain caused water to flow over roadways in many locations, including along sections of I-94, I-35W and I-494.

By Kent Barnard

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The Get Around Guide will do some traveling itself this summer as travelers pick up their guides from any of several hundred locations around the state.

The spring/summer issue of Mn/DOT’s Get Around Guide is now available for summer travelers of Minnesota roadways. The guide is designed to help travelers avoid highway construction projects and reduce frantic encounters with detours and road restrictions as they trek through Minnesota this summer. The guide lists more than 150 major projects, their start dates and traffic restrictions. It also advises motorists to plan ahead and to understand the need for the work being done on the state’s highways.

Travel information centers, chambers of commerce and gas stations will be distributing the guides. In addition, Mn/DOT’s Information Center, located on the first floor Central Office building, has copies of the 2001 Get Around Guide available. 

The 2001 Get Around Guide also will be available on Mn/DOT’s Web site soon. The Web site will have the most current information about the status of road improvement projects. Updates and project completions will be pasted weekly.

For more information, contact Mary Meinert at 651/297-5868.

By Mary Meinert

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Officials from Mn/DOT, Clay County and the city of Moorhead gathered on June 18 to turn earth at the site in Moorhead, which will eventually become the area’s Joint Public Works Facility.

When completed in March 2002, the facility will house the Clay County Highway Department, storage and office space for the city of Moorhead and the Detroit Lakes District’s Dilworth Technology Center.

The facility follows the pattern set by other joint-use facilities, such as those at Hutchinson and Hibbing, which allow agencies to share resources and reduce costs when compared with constructing separate facilities.

The facility will, for example, provide savings for Mn/DOT and the county from bulk purchases of sand and salt and sharing of some equipment. Housing the agencies together will also increase the exchange of expertise among staff members and allow staff sharing across jurisdictions in times of emergencies.

The new building will provide more than 66,000 square feet of space for the three agencies. The cost is $5.5 million.

Doug Weiszhaar, Mn/DOT’s deputy commissioner, and Lee Berget, Detroit Lakes district engineer, joined city, county and officials at the groundbreaking ceremony.

By Craig Wilkins

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Mn/DOT took a significant step forward in its efforts to streamline program delivery with the release June 14 of the new Program and Project Management System. PPMS replaces the Artemis 9000/EX LAN system.

“The release of the PPMS is an important milestone in helping us streamline program delivery and achieve our information strategic objective,” said Deputy Commissioner Doug Weiszhaar.

PPMS includes schedules, costs and locations of projects in the three-year State Transportation Improvement Program, in the districts’ three-year work plans and four-year studies plans, according to Susan Bousquet, PPMS project manager. It covers all trunk highway projects. It also covers state aid, rail, transit and Intelligent Transportation System projects that include federal funding.

“The system is vital to ensuring Mn/DOT stays on track delivering the transportation improvement program,” Weiszhaar said. 

This first release of the PPMS provides all the functionality of the Artemis 9000/EX LAN system it replaces, Bousquet said. It also contains new project "header" and cost estimate data plus estimates of human resource requirements by functional group.

“Like Artemis 9000/EX LAN, PPMS is focused on identifying activities on the critical path to project letting, and monitoring whether projects are staying on schedule,” she said. “Other systems will gradually come to rely on PPMS data rather than capturing redundant and potentially conflicting project data.”

Several additional modules are in development and will be rolled out over the next several months. District coordinators have received PPMS training. As the additional modules/enhancements are developed, training will be provided for functional group leaders and project managers.

“PPMS reports will help district and central office managers deliver the transportation improvement program in line with citizen and legislative expectations and make decisions that help streamline the program delivery process,” Weiszhaar said.

For more information about PPMS, contact Sue Bousquet at 651/296-3113 or Jim Weingartz at 651/296-9146. See also the Project Management Unit  Web site.

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Information about the marriages, births, retirements, funerals and other milestones of your Mn/DOT co-workers is available online by clicking on “Employee Info” on the left hand navigation bar of Mn/DOT Newsline.

Also included in Employeeline are listings of events of interest to Mn/DOT employees. Today’s edition, for example, carries information about the national Workplace Safety Week, June 24-30. 

Readers outside of Mn/DOT will not be able to access Employeeline, which is located on the department’s internal Web site. Plans are in the works to make this information available to Mn/DOT retirees soon through another format.

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Question: “Mn/DOT does a lot of research. Many kinds of research. What are the differences in technical and non-technical; traffic forecasting and market research, and research services, etc.? And how much of this actually determines what happens? When the public gives its opinions, does Mn/DOT really do anything with that information? How does the average citizen find out what Mn/DOT knows?” 

Answer:

Yes, you are correct. Mn/DOT is a data-driven environment; and we have a lot of data from research we conduct. The kinds of research we do fall into these two areas:

§         Market research (customer opinions, expectations, satisfaction measures, etc.)

§         Transportation research (materials, traffic patterns, vehicle miles traveled, etc.)

Both types of research involve technical and non-technical approaches and subjects of research. We use market research to set Mn/DOT’s future direction in order to best serve our customers and monitor our progress. We conduct transportation research to develop new tools and knowledge so that Mn/DOT employees can more effectively move in this future direction.

This week, we will start with market research and with examples of customer research and how Mn/DOT uses it to set directions and make specific improvements. We will also talk to key experts in transportation research for a future installment.

Here's what we learned from Karla Rains, Market Research:

“Mn/DOT is ‘data-rich’: we have all kinds of data on what people do. Market research focuses on:

§         Why people do what they do (understanding the motivations behind those choices),

§         What they expect from us as an agency, and

§         How well we’re delivering on those expectations (“satisfaction”).

“Basically, market research is the voice of the customer. Our research supports and guides Mn/DOT's decisions, both on a strategic and a tactical level.

“One example of how Mn/DOT uses market research data is the market segmentation study (“Segmentation Service Value Study”) that we conducted in 2000. In this study, we learned:

§         How different segments of the public value each of the services we provide,

§         Where our customers think we still need to improve, and

§         Where we are exceeding their expectations.

“In cases where we are perceived as over-performing, we learn where we could divert resources into other areas.

“For this fiscal year, Mn/DOT asked the divisions and districts to review the segmentation data before submitting their business plans and budgets. This means that, on a strategic big-picture level, what our customers told us really is helping us to set our business direction.

“Mn/DOT has also used customer data tactically on a project-related level. We've done a lot of studies where the data has been used to help make customer-driven changes such as road signage, snow plowing, traffic incident management, and so on.”

Click here to read the full response to the market research question and to view previous questions of the week.

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