 Hi, I'm Mike Firibourg and as a meteorologist I deal with environmental issues every day. And when I report that rain, hail, floods or tornadoes have taken a heavy toll on the Minnesota landscape, I often think how important it is that we do whatever we can to protect our natural environment. That's why I'm especially concerned when I hear that we may lose part of the natural landscape as a result of road construction. But at the same time as a taxpayer, a parent and an everyday user of Minnesota roads, I'm concerned about road safety and the cost of road construction. I'd like to share with you what I've learned from Minnesota's public highway engineers and road maintenance supervisors about the close relationship among three important issues, preserving the natural landscape, road safety and the cost of road construction. I've learned that when citizens work with public engineers and consider all three of these issues, they usually can agree on road designs that are acceptable to everyone. You've probably wondered, why are they always tearing up the roads anyway? Well, that's a fair question. One part of the answer is that regular maintenance keeps our roads safe. Potholes, cracks and crumbling pavement are dangerous. The other part of the answer is that regular maintenance keeps costs down. You've got to do the right thing at the right time. For the same reason that you get regular oil changes and tune-ups on your car, your local engineer does specific maintenance tasks in a regular sequence on every stretch of road, patching potholes, sealing cracks and putting down seal coats and overlays. All are cost-effective, preventive measures that help to forestall the most expensive kind of road maintenance, complete reconstruction. Road crews test and evaluate Minnesota's roads on a regular basis to determine what needs to be done. But like your car, even with regular maintenance, sooner or later, every road does need to be replaced. In most cases, your local engineer recommends that a road be completely reconstructed for one of two good reasons. First, the road may be so old and worn out that patching it or overlaying it won't do any good, and in fact, it only waste the taxpayer's money. With proper maintenance, a road could reach this condition 30 years after it was first built, and it might not last that long if heavy trucks use the road on a regular basis. The other good reason to reconstruct a road is that some characteristics of the road are likely to cause accidents. What characteristics of roads cause accidents? Well, narrow shoulders like this, or no shoulders at all, like this, are one important factor. Narrow shoulders don't give us much of a chance to recover if we veer off course a little. Wider shoulders like this give us a better chance of avoiding an accident. Other important factors are hills, curves, and valleys. I'm sure you can understand why accidents are more likely on roads like this than on a flat straight road. But the most dangerous part of a roadway is its ditch. Now, there are two good reasons why engineers construct ditches and slopes along a road. First, the ditches are an important part of a system of design elements that carry water away from the pavement. And in the winter, the ditch is a place for plows to leave snow. As we all know, our safety depends on getting water and snow off the roads. The second reason for constructing ditches is less obvious. In many road construction projects, engineers reuse the soil that they excavate while making ditches and slopes. They put that soil into valley bottoms where they need to make flatter, safer road surfaces. So ditches are necessary, but as I said, the complicated truth is that they're also the most lethal part of a roadway. In fact, a recent national study showed that in accidents involving running off the road, almost one-third of fatalities were associated with cars running into a ditch or onto a slope that was too steep. According to the same study, the next most dangerous thing on the side of a road is a tree. In almost all of the off-road deaths that didn't involve a steep ditch or slope, the car ran into a tree, a utility pole, or some other stationary obstacle. And this is no small issue. In the U.S., there's a murder about once every 22 minutes, but there's a traffic accident death about once every 11 minutes. In 1993, there were almost 36,000 fatal car crashes and of those about 11,000 involved cars that ran off the road. This is the report that I've been quoting from. Many studies like this one over the past three decades have led to strict federal and state standards on how public engineers must design our roads whenever they're going to reconstruct. Before looking at some specific aspects of roadway design, I want to emphasize one other idea about why accidents are more likely to happen on some roads than others. The number of accidents on any stretch of road is likely to go up as a result of an increase in traffic. And traffic only goes up because people have some additional reasons to use a road, usually property development along the road. Obviously, there wouldn't be any accidents on a road that no one used. Our public engineers keep track of traffic volume on all of our roads, and in response to increases in the volume of traffic, they straighten and widen roads to make them safer. That way we get where we want to go in a reasonable amount of time with a minimum of accidents. Because of the danger associated with running off the road, road design standards specify how engineers must design and build the road side, including the shoulders, the ditches, and the slopes, as well as the part of the road we're supposed to drive on. Here's what's required in a typical situation. Clear zone is the term used by engineers to refer to all parts of the roadway that must be obstacle free, including the driving lanes, the shoulders, the ditches, and the slopes. Now, I know what you're thinking. If the clear zone has to be that wide, it's going to destroy all the natural beauty along our rural roads. But that's exactly where cooperation between engineers and citizens can save the day. Let me show you what I mean. Here's a model of some Minnesota countryside with a typical rural road built to the standards of 30 or 40 years ago. Narrow lanes, no shoulders, big trees, and vertical rock faces right next to driving lanes, and roller coaster like hills and valleys. It's like beauty and the beast all rolled into one. These are the landscape features that make a drive in the country so enjoyable, but they're also what makes driving more dangerous. As I said, an increase in traffic is often the discussion starter, so let's say a housing development goes in over here. That will definitely increase the traffic on our road. In real life, it's not usually a single development like this that makes the difference. It's more of a cumulative process. In any case, let's say the local engineer takes note of the traffic increase, checks the age and condition of the road, and recommends reconstruction in this situation. We'll also say the local government approves the project before there's an increase in the number of accidents, injuries, and deaths. So does that mean we should rip out everything and put in a totally flat, straight road in the name of safety like this? Well, with this design, we certainly would have a much safer roadway. Every driver can see far ahead and there's plenty of recovery area for anyone who might go off the road. And furthermore, these ditches help to take rainwater away so our tires can grip the pavement. And this would be fine if safety was the only issue. But safety isn't the only issue. We also want to protect the natural environment. And as you can see, in exchange for safety, we've lost a lot of what we all like to see when we take a Sunday drive. I'm happy to say we don't have to be this drastic. Engineers have researched and developed some creative methods to achieve a balance between safety and a natural roadside environment. Here's what I'm talking about. On this side of the road where there used to be steep slope, the engineer constructs shoulders and a recovery area. But because of the angles of the slopes, we save a lot of the natural landscape out here. On the other side of the road, the engineer constructs something we usually see in the city, a carbon gutter system. This takes rainwater efficiently away from the roadway and it removes the need for any ditch at all. So we save even more of the natural landscape here. The main reason we don't see more carbon gutter in rural areas is that they're much more expensive to construct and maintain than ditches. We'll get back to the cost factor in just a few minutes. For now, let's take a look at this area where the road comes close to the lake. Again, rather than just ripping everything out in the name of safety, there are some more innovative possibilities that balance safety and environmental preservation. Here we had a vertical rock face and trees right next to the road. Now some of the rock and some trees have been removed and replaced with shoulders and a gently sloping recovery area. It would have been nice to save those trees, but as I said earlier, trees are definitely a major roadside hazard. Minnesota Department of Transportation guidelines allow the use of a portion of state highway funds for re-landscaping after road construction. So crews re-establish natural vegetation on slopes like these. Then after a few seasons, we have a pleasant looking ground cover of grass, wildflowers, and shrubs. Removing the rock and trees allowed the engineer to shift the road this way. That means we straighten out the curve, which is safer because you can see further down the road. And on this side to protect drivers from running off the road, the design includes a guardrail. That means it isn't necessary to fill in the lake shore with the recovery area, so we keep our natural look. But even the guardrail is a roadside hazard. The study I was quoting from earlier showed that 7% of deaths in accidents where cars went off the road involved running into a guardrail. The end of a guardrail can be especially lethal. That's why this one includes what's called a breakaway cable terminal. A tensioned cable inside the steel barrier helps to redirect a vehicle back onto the road, and the first five posts are made so they'll break off fairly easily when hit. They can absorb the impact of a crash and slow a car down to minimize damage and injury. If you look at the actual conditions in each real life situation, remember that everyone benefits from a balanced approach to both safety and environmental protection. It's possible to come up with good solutions like the ones we've seen in this model. I'm going to leave the solutions to real life issues to you and your local engineers, and I know that when you do get down to the actual issues, cost will be the other factor you'll have to balance with safety and environmental protection. Some of the alternatives I've been showing here, curb and gutter and guardrails, are more expensive than simply constructing ditches and slopes, and some other approaches that can help to preserve the natural environment like constructing retaining walls are even more expensive than curb and gutter or guardrails. In fact, they're so expensive that they're seldom used on city or county roads. So as usual, it comes down to balancing one good idea against another. We'll always want safety, but given that, should we save the taxpayers' money or should we save the natural landscape? Obviously, there's no simple answer that will always be correct. You have to look at each real life situation, balance the issues, be creative and talk it through. But I can tell you that one of the costliest decisions you can make is to do nothing in the name of environmental protection. You really can't win by postponing road maintenance, because as a roadway deteriorates and they all do with age, the road gets more dangerous and the costs of repairs get higher. It's the same as maintaining your house. This year, you might need to paint your siding, but if you put that off too many years, you'll have to replace siding. When that kind of thing happens on our roads, all taxpayers are the ultimate losers. Well, these are tough decisions, aren't they? I didn't promise you I could make it easy for you. What I did say is that working together, citizens and public officials can work out solutions that balance safety and environment and cost and are acceptable to everyone. In fact, this has been done in lots of situations all over Minnesota. Here are some of the results.