By Craig Wilkins

Tanks and other heavy military vehicles gave way on some Camp Ripley roads when 86 new and not-so-new Mn/DOT employees engaged in two weeks of snowplow operator training in mid-September.

Trainees also included four employees from Scott County and two from West Des Moines, Iowa.

The program, known as SPOT for snowplow operator training, was started in 2003 to meet Mn/DOT’s need to train transportation workers and other employees whose duties may include snowplowing.

The training effort also helps ensure consistent operating and safety practices throughout the department.

Staff from the Office of Maintenance and each district conducted the training and evaluations. New drivers have to pass three tests to graduate: a snowplow road test, a vehicle inspection test and a written motor carrier safety exam.

During this year’s training, students did nearly everything except plow actual snow as they gained experience and confidence guiding the huge plows on varying terrain and road conditions on the Minnesota National Guard facility near Little Falls.

Rick Shomion, training coordinator, Maintenance, said the trainees did classroom work, then moved outside to practice dropping sand and maneuvering a truck mounted with front and wing plows through a demanding obstacle course.

The classroom work included vehicle maintenance, maintaining proper speed and distance from other vehicles while plowing and conducting pre- and post-operational reports.

The trainees were formed into 12- to 15-member teams.

Don Holt, a maintenance supervisor at Bemidji, served as a training team leader.

“This year’s class was excellent,” he said. “I think we do a better job each year.”

Holt said he expected to learn more than he taught.

“As time goes by, we learn from our mistakes and evolve. Every year I learn something I didn’t know about how our snowplows function,” he said.

While instructing his team on pre-operations inspection, for example, Holt learned about a problem with a control valve that’s part of the plow’s pre-wetting systems from a student.

He also learned some new ways to do things from his peers.

Holt served with the Metro District until this year. At Metro, he said, mounting strobe lights on wing plows didn’t work because of reliability issues.

But at this year’s SPOT session, he learned that District 1 has had success with the plow-mounted strobes, encouraging him to try them at Bemidji.

He also learned that some districts are slotting their sanding spinners to better control chemical distribution on the roadways.

“Our snowplows are becoming more and more sophisticated as we adopt new technologies,” Holt said. “The SPOT program is one way we can all learn together as we develop better ways to serve the state’s motorists.”  

By Kevin Gutknecht

Mn/DOT recently announced the recipients of more than $1.7 million in grants to improve the conditions and quality of bicycling and walking to school.

The 17 project grants are part of “Safe Routes to School,” a federal program created in the latest federal transportation funding bill.

“These projects are intended to make walking and biking to school easier for children and more acceptable to their parents,” said Lt. Gov./Commissioner Carol Molnau. “The projects will make safety improvements in routes to school and students will get more exercise which can make them healthier.”

Of the 17 projects, 12 are infrastructure projects providing crosswalk improvements and trail or sidewalk connections. The other five projects will focus on promoting walking and biking to school through community planning, walk to school days, bike rodeos and educational materials. Ten of the projects are in Greater Minnesota and seven are in the Twin Cities metropolitan area.

Molnau pointed out that fewer than 15 percent of school children in kindergarten through eighth grade walk or bike to school, and nearly half of school-aged children are regularly driven to school by their parents.  

“The Safe Routes program works with schools, students and parents at the grassroots level to identify improvements that can make biking and walking to and from school a routine part of Minnesota students’ experience,” she said.

Total funding for the Safe Routes to School program is $8 million through 2009, according to Kristie Billiar, Mn/DOT’s Safe Routes program coordinator, Office of Transit. Mn/DOT will begin seeking grant requests for 2007 in late fall 2006.

• List of 2006 Safe Routes to School grant recipients
• Safe Routes to School program, www.dot.state.mn.us/saferoutes/index.html

By Craig Wilkins

When John Siekmeier, a research engineer with the Office of Materials, needs to find an obscure technical paper and its author, he knows where to go.

He contacts the Mn/DOT Library where staff members handle his frequent requests with ease.  

Mn/DOT Library at a glance Mn/DOT Library's collection covers all aspects of transportation, especially highway engineering, design and intelligent transportation infrastructure, as well as public administration, computer applications and office management. The collection includes: - 13,000 books and reports - 12,000 microfiche reports - 400 periodical titles - 600+ videotapes Photo by David Gonzalez

“Library staff members can locate a document that might take me two hours to find in about two minutes,” Siekmeier said.

Being able to contact authors easily, he said, allows him to pursue issues in more depth, gain added context and possibly establish a working relationship that benefits both.  

He related his experiences at a panel discussion during a national conference held by transportation librarians Sept. 19-21 in St. Paul.

The conference addressed several issues including further expansion of transportation library service networks throughout the United States, said Jerry Baldwin, director of Mn/DOT’s Library and conference host.

In 1996, Mn/DOT and the University of Minnesota’s Center for Transportation Studies established the Minnesota Transportation Libraries program. That system provided the model for Midwest Transportation Network.

“The National Transportation Library supported development of that network to demonstrate what needs to be done on a national basis,” Baldwin said.

Nearly a score of consultants and librarians from state DOTs attended the conference; several others took part in workshop sessions via a live, Web-based video connection.

The participants toured the Mn/DOT Library and examined methods to help libraries become more flexible and responsive to customer needs.

They discussed creating more standardized index terms, ensuring the use of compatible network systems and protecting documents from being changed inadvertently during electronic data transfers.

Cheryl Bodan, a librarian with the Pennsylvania DOT, said the conference will help her make improvements in her agency’s library system.

“We want our library’s services to be as easy as possible to use,” she said. “There are a lot of ideas here that I can take home to improve our library network’s operation and improve service to our customers.”

• Mn/DOT Library

By Craig Wilkins

Aeronautics’ Aviation Education Section recently earned honors from the National Association of State Aviation Officials for its Aviation Career Curriculum and Education Program.

The award was presented Sept. 12 in New Orleans during the association’s annual meeting. Janese Thatcher, section manager, and Darlene Dahlseide, an aviation education specialist, received the award Sept. 18 at the Aeronautics office in St. Paul.

The national organization cited the program’s curriculum for high schools that enables them to prepare students for college-level programs in aviation-related fields.  

The program also allows students to demonstrate their mastery of aviation course work to post-secondary institutions and bypass some introductory level classes.  

The program’s fields of study include pilot training, aviation maintenance, air traffic control services, aviation management and aerospace engineering.

Participating high schools include Columbia Heights and Washburn High School in Minneapolis and community and technical colleges in Thief River Falls, Anoka and Minneapolis.

• Mn/DOT’s Aviation Education Web site

By Lt. Gov. Carol Molnau, commissioner of transportation

Every two years, state government goes through an extensive process to develop its budget for the following biennium. Mn/DOT, along with all other state agencies, currently is in the thick of that process for FY 2008-09.

Budget development can be a bewildering and, sometimes, unsettling process for all of us. There are many unanswered questions in the early stages of the process, which can generate speculation and inaccurate rumors. That’s understandable as this process must take into account a wide variety of variables.

Prudent management requires us to consider many “what if?” scenarios when crafting a two-year, nearly $4 billion transportation budget. During this process we examine past spending and budget priorities, and consider new and emerging spending needs. We also re-examine new ways of providing services to the public and improving efficiency.

There are a number of decisions that need to be made between now and the end of the 2007 legislative session, when the budget becomes final. However, it’s too early in the process to predict what the final outcome will be.  

This can be a challenging time, but it’s also an exciting time for us to renew our commitment to performing our critical transportation mission.

I have come to know you as hard-working, dedicated employees. Most of you have witnessed this budget process many times and you know it can be tedious.

I will keep you up to date throughout this process, although details cannot be discussed publicly until the governor sends the budget to the 2007 Legislature in January.

Until then, I ask for your patience and understanding, and ask you to continue the great job you do for Minnesota.