Texas Department of Transportation Commission Meeting

Dewitt Greer Building
125 East 11th Street
Austin, Texas

7:30 a.m. Thursday, March 30, 2000 Staff Briefing

COMMISSION MEMBERS:

DAVID M. LANEY, Chair
ROBERT L. NICHOLS
JOHN W. JOHNSON
 

DEPARTMENT STAFF:

CHARLES W. HEALD, Executive Director
RICHARD MONROE, General Counsel

P R O C E E D I N G S

MR. LANEY: It is now 7:30, and I'd like to call this briefing of the Texas Transportation Commission to order. Public notice of the briefing containing all items of the agenda was filed with the Office of the Secretary of State at three o'clock on March 22.

MR. HEALD: Mr. Chairman, we have two speakers this morning, two items that we want to brief you on, brief the commission on, and we'll start off with Dianna Noble and she's going to talk about both air quality and water quality.

MS. NOBLE: Good morning, commissioners. For the record, my name is Dianna Noble, and I'm the director of Environmental Affairs.

Regarding the Houston conformity lapse, we are still in the lapse. The Houston-Galveston area COG is working on the responses that they received. They received several comments the last day of the comment period, which was March 8. We're hoping to have the lapse lifted by April 14. If the lapse is not lifted, we anticipate approximately $35 million being pulled from the letting from Houston.

MR. JOHNSON: Dianna, what was that date again?

MS. NOBLE: April 14. We're hoping that the lapse will be lifted by April 14.

MR. JOHNSON: And if it is not, the letting for what period?

MS. NOBLE: The May letting, we will be pulling approximately two projects. One of them is I-45, and the other one is Gosling Road, both in Montgomery County. And the estimate is, I believe, $35 million for both projects.

On March 28, we received guidance from EPA and Federal Highway related to the eight-hour designation. I have not had an opportunity to read the documents, but I did read the summary, and it appears that what will be happening is that EPA is requesting from the governor recommended boundaries by June 30. It could be as long as December of 2000 before final designations are made. We will be meeting with TNRCC to find out what the agency needs to provide to the MPOs and to TNRCC to make recommendations on the boundaries which, again, are supposed to be submitted by the end of June.

MR. LANEY: Dianna, what is the process if we get the letter and we go to TNRCC? They ask input from the MPOs?

MS. NOBLE: That is correct.

MR. LANEY: And then they basically submit, ultimately, after getting the input from the MPOs, recommendations to the governor.

MS. NOBLE: That is correct. And basically what the EPA had done in this letter, for example, was they had made recommendations on the boundaries that they anticipate being proposed. It does not require the state to submit that, but it is the interaction between the MPOs and TNRCC that a recommended boundary is developed, based on the data that's been collected in '97, '98, and '99 in terms of the exceedences that have occurred in the various counties.

So based on the summary that was provided, which, with this information that we received from EPA, it appears that EPA will not make final designations prior to December 2000.

MR. LANEY: Go back to the projects that are subject to nonconformity in Houston that might be pulled if, in fact, the lapse is lifted or cleared, or whatever you call it, in April, and we go to work on those projects or lettings or whatever. Are the same projects subject to the lapse and being stopped again in December?

MS. NOBLE: No. Once they receive approval from Federal Highway for approval for construction -- that is that new point of no return that was decided by the court case -- then once we have that approval, even if we were to enter into a lapse, assuming -- which is not going to happen in July -- those projects would still be able to proceed because they received the approval between one conformity lapse and another lapse; so the problem being that certain things need to occur outside of the conformity lapse for projects to proceed during the lapse.

MR. HEALD: As I understand it, once we receive the letter of authority from the Federal Highway Administration, well, they won't withdraw it or pull it.

MR. NICHOLS: I have a question. If things don't go favorably on April 14 and we have to pull the May letting, at some point when it becomes favorable, then the bids on those projects probably will have expired and we'll have to re-bid those?

MS. NOBLE: What is not happening on those two projects currently is that they will not be able to be advertised, so we won't even put them out for bid. What's being withheld is that ability, so once we get that approval, we will start advertising and receiving bids on those two projects. So there's not an issue of the bids becoming stale on those two.

MR. NICHOLS: So we'll just be deferring going out for bids on projects until this thing is --

MS. NOBLE: That's correct.

MR. NICHOLS: Those type projects. Okay.

MS. NOBLE: The next joint commission meeting with TNRCC is June 26. We have two agenda items: One is air quality, and the other one is water quality. And just to give you an idea on the water-quality issue, we will be discussing the things that TxDOT does in terms of best management practices and water-quality control structures.

TNRCC will be presenting some proposed regulations and things they anticipate that we may have to do in joint efforts as state agencies to improve some water-quality issues in the state of Texas, one of them being threatening impaired waters. So we're still working on that agenda, but those will basically be the two agenda items for the June 26 meeting.

We are continuing to work with TNRCC on the coordinated agency objectives related to transportation conformity, and if you recall, in the January meeting there were ten coordinated objectives. We have collapsed those into four task groups, and so we are continuing to work on public education, public information, data needs that we need in order to identify what are some of the deficiencies that the MPOs have in data that they need, including what TNRCC and TxDOT needs.

We're continuing to work on information needed to minimize the impact on conformity lapses. And the last one is on technology, and what we're looking at in that area is new technologies that will help the state of Texas as a whole achieve the air-quality standards.

And that's all I have.

MR. LANEY: What kind of technologies?

MS. NOBLE: For example, two of the things that I've looked at are some after-market control technologies. One of them is called Prime Air that I was able to get some information from Los Angeles; the other one is a retrofit that you put on vehicles and it cleans out the emissions. The other one is CELCAT. The one in California is a technology that can be retrofitted in construction vehicles, so I'm very interested in that one.

We are also looking at other types of strategies that the information that we've gotten from two of the MPOs, Dallas-Fort Worth and North Central COG, is that their perspectives are that we should be focusing our efforts on technology issues and not on social reengineering, so we're trying to focus on the technology size of minimizing air-quality emissions. So these four task groups are specifically working in those areas.

MR. LANEY: The technology is already in place and working in California?

MS. NOBLE: Yes. And one of the things that has interested us is their ability to develop technologies very quickly and then having those technologies be part of the state implementation plan very quickly. They're able to do that, it seems, in a very quick process in California, so we're going to be meeting with them and see what it is that we need to do here in Texas.

MR. LANEY: Thanks, Dianna.

MR. HEALD: Commissioners, the next item we want to discuss with you, Carlos Lopez will brief you on the crash records system that we're in the beginning stages of.

MR. LOPEZ: Good morning, commissioners. My name is Carlos Lopez. I'm the director of the Traffic Operations Division. I want to thank you for letting us have this opportunity to brief you on accident records.

Accident records is one of those behind-the-scene things that are used in a number of different ways, and it's real important to TxDOT. We use accident records to prioritize projects, in our annual hazard elimination, in our Railroad Signal and Texas Traffic Safety programs. Accidents are also taken into account in a number of other projects that TxDOT undertakes.

District personnel use accident records every day to respond to citizen complaints and to identify roadway problem areas. And also, when requested, we use accident records to provide you with rates on highways that delegations may be coming before you to address.

We've asked two gentlemen to come today to brief you on accident records. Jim Templeton, with the Department of Public Safety, will describe how accident records are captured and developed today. He'll cover from the point of when the officer is writing the report on the scene to where that accident actually shows up on TxDOT's main-frame system.

Dick Paddock is with the Traffic Safety Analysis and Systems, Inc., who is a contractor to AASHTO, and is helping them develop a national safety information management system. This is a system that TxDOT is participating in with about 15 other states and that we believe will ultimately improve the crash records environment here in Texas.

Kurt Johnson from the National AASHTO headquarters, who is the project manager for AASHTO, is also here to help answer any questions.

So with that introduction, I'll go ahead and turn it over to Jim Templeton from DPS.

MR. TEMPLETON: Good morning. Thank you for the opportunity to come visit with you.

The Department of Public Safety and the Department of Transportation have had a long relationship when it comes to collecting accident or crash data. This relationship started back in the early 1950s when we had employees from both agencies that worked side by side gathering data from accidents.

The systems that are in place today were designed in the early 1970s, and they are designed to satisfy both agencies' information needs. The way we collect data is predicated on your use. It's designed where, when we collect the data, we pass it to you and you can merge it with your roadway files to make your decisions.

In Texas, if you're involved in a traffic accident that results in bodily injury or death, damage to a vehicle to the extent that it can't be driven safely, you're required to notify a law-enforcement agency. That peace officer who has been notified may investigate that accident. If that officer does choose to investigate, that officer is required to file a Peace Officer's Accident Report with the Department of Public Safety within ten days of the accident. That's all agencies: police departments, sheriffs' departments, DPS troopers.

If there is no investigation, then the drivers are required to file a driver's report, confidential by law, the blue form. As those reports come in from all over the state, we go through a process of sorting, indexing, classifying, analyzing, coding data from those reports and entering that information into computer systems.

Imagine this: The programs that are in place were written in the early 1970s. We use your straight line RI-1 road inventory logs, circa 1992, to locate any accident that occurs on the highway system by control section and mile point. It is a very labor-intensive process.

Once we do the data entry and we do the analysis or editing of that data, we will provide the Department of Transportation copies of those data files, at which time you go through a very lengthy process in your Transportation Planning and Programming Division where you merge that with your roadway file, and then you use it. The districts can use it, as Carlos has indicated, for a lot of different purposes.

About seven, eight years ago, we recognized we've got to do this thing differently.

MR. LANEY: Let me stop you just a second.

MR. TEMPLETON: Yes, sir.

MR. LANEY: What's the timing between the accident and our receiving?

MR. TEMPLETON: The schedule has it where you should be receiving the data about 60 days after the date of the accident. We pass you year-to-date data, and we will close a month's worth of processing before we will give it to you.

The report is supposed to be in our office by the tenth day after the accident. We should be through coding, processing, and data entering the information within 30 days of the accident. So actually, some of the accidents that we pass to you may be 31 days old; some will be as much as 60 days old. Right now we're probably -- I think, we have about a six-month backlog, so some of the data you're getting is a little bit dated.

We recognized that we had to do something different; we had to improve this system. The thing was, DPS can't go off on its own and do it. I suppose we could, but it wouldn't be the right thing to do. We have a partnership. If we change one thing on our end, it has a domino effect all the way through our agency, all the way through your agency.

Theoretically, if we came in and said we're going to do it, we could probably destroy all of your problem-identification programs. So it's in both agencies' best interest and the state's best interest that we work together. The crash records, or CRS project, was the effort to do this.

About three years ago we got the blessing from both agencies to go ahead and pursue a business process reengineering approach for looking at the crash records system. Out of that, we developed an as-is business model, we developed the to-be model, we identified data structures. We went through the first three phases of this reengineering project. And as I emphasize, it was a partnership, and a very good one, and we have a very good product out there. We are ready now to move forward with actually going to the next steps of implementing these systems, and in reality, that's what we're talking about here today.

The department is actively seeking -- will be seeking some funding through the legislative appropriation process to take care of our portion of the project and resources, and we're hoping that we can move forward with this project.

MR. JOHNSON: Do you have a sense of how much money is going to be required?

MR. TEMPLETON: The estimate that we have, as one of the deliverables from the CRS project -- and remember, commissioner, this was three years ago -- for the five phases of the project, we were looking at an estimate of about $15 million.

And if I may, the model that we've put together is a vision that was built by talking with law-enforcement agencies, local, city, sheriff officers. It was built talking to traffic-safety specialists, traffic engineers. The reengineering process was very comprehensive. We took quite a bit -- I think we had over 250 people come through focus group sessions where we developed this.

The project requires rewriting the central data management system which is really housed there at DPS, your engineering applications. We also want to develop patrol-car data collection applications. That's the computer systems that go in the car utilizing GPS, that type of thing. We also have a component in there for local agencies, local governments, to be able to upload data as well as access and use data.

So it's a very comprehensive approach, and that money, that $15 million we talked about, encompasses everything, and that was scheduled out in our implementation plan over a several-year period.

MR. LANEY: Great. Thank you very much.

MR. LOPEZ: When that price tag first hit us, it was pretty high --

MR. LANEY: It still is.

MR. LOPEZ: -- and it still is high.

(General laughter.)

MR. LOPEZ: And it could be higher because it's three years later. So at that point, what we did is we went to AASHTO, because AASHTO has had a lot of experience in developing information systems on the national level where a lot of states participate and it spreads the cost out, and that's where Dick Paddock comes in.

MR. PADDOCK: For the record, my name is Dick Paddock; I'm with an outfit called Traffic Safety Analysis out of Grove City, Ohio, near Columbus, Ohio. I'm under contract to AASHTO, American Association of State Highway Transportation Officials, to facilitate a national effort to build an information system that would support not only Texas but a number of other states in their desire to try to get their safety -- data -- focused on crash data, but their safety data in general under control.

The handout I just passed out here -- and there are some other copies on that chair that can go around the outside of the room -- is an overview of this project and then a map of the states that at this point have agreed to participate in a joint development effort.

About three years ago, when Texas saw the price tag, they came to AASHTO and said, through AASHTO's joint development effort where they pool resources from a number of states, would it be possible to put together this crash information system. It took a little while to get the wheels in motion, but essentially a steering committee was created with representatives of several states, Federal Highway Administration, National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, National Association of Transportation Engineers, National Association of Governors' Highway Safety Representatives, IACP-International Association of Chiefs of Police -- there are about nine organizations all together that had representation on the steering committee to try to guide this as a possible AASHTO-ware software development effort.

As they got into that thought process, they hired me to go out and start visiting states to find out what are your needs, what's common with the Texas model, what's a little bit different in this state versus the other states. And I've been out to a total of about 20 states to day-long focus meetings with their safety people, people that deal not just with crash data but with the EMS run reports, citation tracking systems, roadway inventory information, this sort of routine in each of the states.

After about a year's worth of gathering information and trying to gel it down to a working model, last fall, late October, AASHTO went out to all the states to solicit members in a joint development effort that would address traffic safety information management -- crash data, EMS, and all these other pieces -- with an eye towards the idea that by pooling the resources over a number of states, a lot of common issues could be addressed.

At this point, the states that are shaded in on that map either have a formal commitment to AASHTO to participate in a design phase or have indicated at least verbally that someplace in the paperwork mill is the sign-off saying that we're going to participate in this project. It puts us at a situation that we've got about 17 states that have committed funds to doing a detailed system design, a prototyping model, and this kind of routine, of an information system.

What we're talking about on this sort of national level is a software product that would allow the management of crash data and these other components. The first major emphasis will undoubtedly be crash data and that portion of roadway inventory that's necessary for bringing roadway attributes into the crash report and locating things.

A common problem across almost all the states is that they're in the process of trying to move into geographic information systems, mapping tools for doing their analysis, and they've got to take another look at how they locate things within that state. And they want to make sure that their crashes, their EMS runs, their traffic citations are all located on the same map. So we'll be taking that portion of the roadway inventory and bringing this in so that it's deliverable.

We are about to kick off the working process, selection of a contractor to do that design and build. Most likely in the next 90 days we'll end up with a kick-off meeting of the states that have signed on to this project with that contractor to actually start to build the data model, the detailed data model.

We're talking about a situation where there is a data definition for a crash report based on some good best practices, documents that have come out of consensus meetings that NTSA has sponsored, and some roadway information, basic data elements, but a data model that would potentially be supported in one central data warehouse. But the fact of life is that, in most states, different agencies have different parts of this information system.

In this state, Public Safety is the repository of the crash data, the DOT is the repository of the roadway information, but they're both very dependent upon this information, so we're looking to try to create a situation where both agencies can get to that same data, and at the same time, a lot of the tools that were mentioned for data capture, data analysis, high hazard location things, collision diagrams. All the states have the same need.

One of the reasons why Federal Highway Administration is at the table and putting a little bit of funds into developing this thing is they're getting tired of every state coming to them and saying: I want to develop this piece of software; I need federal funds for it. They want to get one thing that will plug into a common data model across as many states as possible.

Analysis tools, data-capture tools, there's a number of things that are out there in the public domain, or very near public domain, that AASHTO's contractor will take a very serious look at and try to bring into this project, so that if you're talking about putting software in a police department or in a cruiser to capture the crash report, make sure it's right when it's first collected and then electronically submit it, instead of what we've seen in the Department of Public Safety, where I think it was said yesterday there's like 15 people that touch that crash report by the time that it's finally in the system.

If that officer gathers it in the field and he's prompted in the field for this is 0200 and daylight, something is wrong here, guy, it needs to be 1400 and daylight or 0200 and night. The data gets clean to begin with, and at the same time then, that flow, at least for those field operations that automated, can become much more efficient and the data gets there quicker, more reliable, that kind of routine.

MR. JOHNSON: How quickly can the data: one, be input; and two, be accessed in an ideal situation?

MR. PADDOCK: In an ideal situation, a police officer using a vehicle like the ALERT vehicle that you folks have been involved in developing here in Texas, that officer completes the report in the field using a laptop or a pen-based computer. It's validated there at his local PC, and then he uploads it over the radio network, or worst case, at the end of his shift he docks the thing at the precinct station or at the patrol barracks and that data gets pumped over a statewide network to the state repository.

At that point, there may be some post-processing you need to do to it, but essentially that report should be able to be printed out to anybody that's on that network. Fact of life: You're always going to have people who are going to use paper forms, there's going to be somebody who doesn't want to put it through a cruiser PC out there, so you've always got to be able to deal with the paper forms. But even the paper form processing, AASHTO is looking to provide the tools to try to make that more effective.

So that, as an example, one of the real bugaboos is locating, so within Mr. Templeton's office right now, I think there are like eight people that sit there and manually look at those straight-line diagrams and maps to try to figure out where the crash occurred and put the section log point on it. If nothing else than bringing the data map from the GIS system that DOT is developing to the desktop for that person so they can read the description and point on the map, this is where it is, and then bring those roadway attributes in, that can speed up the process in itself.

So there are some things that can make even the paper process smoother, but in an ideal situation, realistically, by the next business day, that information should be available to at least major users. Reacting to the media, that's obviously a nice situation to be in.

From a practical standpoint, a lot of states, most of the states that we're talking to that have signed onto this project, are looking at anywhere from six months to a two-year backlog between the time a crash occurs and when it's available for analysis. A lot of states right now, as they're getting ready to put together their applications for their federal 2001 safety programs, are looking at a situation where they're working with 1997 crash data. That's the last full year that they've got.

I think that we saw yesterday that Texas is working on October '99 data at this point. In the next 30 or 45 days, the people from safety are going to have to try to put together those work plans based on data, and it's going to be real tough for them to use '99 data. So all those things that have changed in your state in the last 18 to 24 months really aren't going to be reflected when they're trying to do that problem ID. And at the same time, when you're trying to respond to changing traffic flow environments and stuff like that, you don't see those impacts because there's that long lag time.

We're trying to satisfy that as much as possible with the national model. Texas is in a position, because of the groundwork that's been done with your CRS model, to, if I might say, jump-start plugging into this thing. Even if AASHTO provides a lot of this software at the top, there's some infrastructure pieces, there's some business process pieces that still need to be implemented inside the state to take advantage of that, and that's, I think, at the point where these folks are saying: Okay, now it's time to get ourselves ready so that if AASHTO gets this contractor on board, the design phase goes well, and this time next year, 18 months from now, they're actually starting to write code for this thing, Texas would be an ideal site for them to be used as an acceptance test site; make it work in Texas.

And one of the things you folks bring to this national table is the fact that you do have about a half a million incidents a year, you have a fairly large territory to deal with, a lot of political subdivisions, this kind of routine. And in terms of stress testing a system, you have almost an ideal situation to do that.

At the same time, because you're where you are in terms of taking a serious look at your system and potentially doing a major overhaul on your system anyway, now is the ideal time for AASHTO and Texas to be working towards a common goal of what that data might look like so you can take advantage of the AASHTO tools.

In some states, because they have a recently rebuilt legacy information system for their crash data, the last couple or three years they've put several million dollars into rebuilding their crash system, they're going to have a system that has to have a lot of translation between AASHTO's model and what they're using. That implementation may be tough.

On the other hand, you go into Rhode Island, and they can probably do it on a three-by-five tablet and be all set to go.

(General laughter.)

MR. PADDOCK: But this should provide an ideal opportunity for you, and undoubtedly you're going to be hearing things from these folks about: These are the particular things we want to try to put the wheels in motion to take advantage of this.

Obvious hope: Of that $15 million that you folks identified, if $6- to $10 million of that was writing this core software piece and now we've got potentially 17 to 20 states sharing the cost, we're able to reduce your investment cost by being part of this joint development effort to free up resources for some of the other things, infrastructure, this sort of routine, that might need to be taken care of, or business process changes that might be able to be taken care of.

MR. LANEY: Great. Thank you.

MR. NICHOLS: I have more of a comment than a question. I want to say I'm real pleased with the direction you are heading with the DPS on this. I know when it was first discussed with me a year, year and a half ago, or something like that, we were looking at biting off the whole apple, the 15 million, the state doing this whole thing. And I know there were concerns expressed that, you know, if we go and build this on our own, it's not going to match up with any national standards or national system.

You have evolved this now where we are, it looks like, in the direction of a national system, and our discussions were yesterday it looks like we may even have portions of that software be applicable to our state which lowers our cost and matches up.

I'm real pleased with the direction. I realize this is still kind of settling out which pieces you're talking about doing and who is going to bite off on it, but when we were at the DPS yesterday and Jim -- where's Jim? Behind me.

MR. TEMPLETON: Yes, sir.

MR. NICHOLS: Okay. I wasn't turning far enough.

MR. PADDOCK: He's covering your back.

MR. LANEY: Robert knows that.

(General laughter.)

MR. NICHOLS: You know, I think there was some urgency, other than just getting the information quicker and accuracy that might occur with 15 different people touching it. I think what Jim was pointing out yesterday was that that system, the hardware and stuff that they were using, was very old and actually pieces of it were crashing, and you can't even get parts for it anymore. So they can't even use tape, go to tape drive; they're having to transfer to floppies and back and forth and stuff, and there may be pieces that we could pick up.

So I'm real pleased with the way you're heading on this thing.

MR. HEALD: Carlos, it might be helpful for the commissioners to know from the time -- under the present system, from the time that we close out the data for that annual report, how long is it normally before we get the annual report?

MR. LOPEZ: For 1998 data, the analyses were made, as far as final statistics, was in September of '99.

MR. JOHNSON: For calendar year.

MR. LOPEZ: That is correct, for calendar year 1998, the final statistics were finalized in September of 1999. That's a nine-month lag time.

MR. TEMPLETON: Carlos, if we were on schedule, everything was working perfectly, there were no backlogs, you would get the prior year's data around the 1st of April the following year.

MR. HEALD: Under sort of ideal conditions?

MR. TEMPLETON: Under ideal conditions, yes, sir.

MR. HEALD: And we rely on the annual report a great deal for many reasons. The district engineers use it very often. Just for example, if someone comes in and starts putting the pressure on a district engineer for a signal light, then they're able to go to that data and determine -- of course, there are certain warrants that have to be met, but obviously the accident records are heavily involved in the warrants, so it's important stuff, both from a district standpoint and here at the Austin level too.

MR. LOPEZ: I just want to close by saying we do have some dollars set aside within the Traffic Safety Program to begin doing some work in Texas, but as Commissioner Nichols said and Dick has alluded to, this is a moving target. It looks like the AASHTO process is going to help Texas do some of the things it needs to do here, so we're not quite ready to pull the trigger yet.

As soon as we find out exactly what the TSIMS product will provide and then we can determine what Texas needs to do, and that's why we're participating in this design process, and we think we're going to get a lot of good out of it.

Any questions?

MR. LANEY: Thanks, Carlos. Appreciate it very much.

MR. LOPEZ: Thank you very much.

MR. LANEY: Any more business?

MR. HEALD: That concludes our part of the briefing.

MR. LANEY: I've got one item I want to raise. I was real surprised to hear that there are half a million instances a year. I think we've got a program we're about to put in place that will drop that dramatically relating to Robert's activities around the state. As you all know, he flies some places, but he drives a lot of places, and a lot of his investigations are the local police department enforcement capabilities.

We have prepared something that I think may deflect some of that, and it may not. It's probably not a safe harbor.

MR. NICHOLS: What is this?

MR. LANEY: When your activity level gets up to this, we will invite you to this program. I'll show you what it says. It's a placard Robert is going to display proudly in his windshield as he moves to the meetings. It may or may not work; we haven't tried it before.

(General laughter.)

MR. LANEY: If there's no other business, I'll entertain a motion to adjourn.

MR. JOHNSON: So move.

MR. NICHOLS: I second.

MR. LANEY: All in favor?

(A chorus of ayes.)

MR. LANEY: The meeting is adjourned and the time is now 8:07.

(Whereupon, at 8:07 a.m., the staff briefing was concluded.)

C E R T I F I C A T E

MEETING OF: Texas Transportation Commission

LOCATION: Austin, Texas

DATE: March 30, 2000

I do hereby certify that the foregoing pages, numbers 1 through 29, inclusive, are the true, accurate, and complete transcript prepared from the verbal recording made by electronic recording by Penny Bynum before the Texas Department of Transportation.

_____________________04/17/00

(Transcriber) (Date)
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