Transcript 0:00 I think looking ahead, we need to think in terms of one planet and one people. This is the only planet we have and we've gotta protect it and we've gotta take care of it. 0:11 And if we don't, we're gonna run the risk of not having a place to live. 0:14 And so we're gonna need all the tools of the civil engineering profession, and economists and business people all working together to help us get cleaner fuels and cleaner vehicles and build our cities in, in ways that are, are much more economical and stop putting pollutants into the air. 0:34 [upbeat music] Welcome back to The Peggy Smedley Show, the podcasting voice of IoT and digital transformation. Hello, listeners, and welcome back to The Peggy Smedley Show. 0:46 As you know, we've been talking with, uh, Tom Smith, executive director of the American Society of Engineers, and Pat Jones, executive director and CEO of the International Bridge, Tunnel and Turnpike Association. 0:59 We've been talking all about the ASCE report card and what's been going on. Gentlemen, welcome back to the show. It's great to be here, Peggy. All right. So gentlemen, this segment's really kind of an interesting one. 1:12 You know, we've been talking all about what's going on in infrastructure, why we need to invest in the infrastructure and what's been happening since y- the new report card came out, and it's great to have you guys back. 1:22 We've been talking all about it. But now what we did is we went out to our listeners, and we've asked them to give us some questions, and I'm gonna start out by asking the very first question that came out. 1:32 And one of the questions our listener said, "How will construction professionals in cities help improve the grade overall on this one?" So, um, I'm not quite sure who wants to tackle that one. 1:45 Uh, Tom, do you wanna go with that? Or actually, Pat, do you wanna go with that? Let's start with you, Pat. It looked like Tom wanted to go. Oh, yeah. Tom, why don't you go? Yeah, you seem like you're ready for it. 1:56 I, I'd say it's... Well, there's, you know, there's a... I mean, obviously, w- uh, on, um, at the local level it does require investment and it requires a, you know, we think, a federal partner to help with that as well. 2:05 Uh, but th- th- investment at the federal, state, and local level. Um, but one of the... When we talk about trying to raise the grade, we wanna make sure we're not doing things the way we did them before, you know? 2:14 When we talk about building back better, we wanna actually build back and, and, and looking much more forward-thinking and making sure it's resilient and preparing for the future. 2:23 So one of the things we do is we have lots of codes and standards. ASCE spends an enormous amount of time and energy. 2:28 Just one of our standards alone, ASCE 7 on minimum design loads, we've got over 700 people that work on that standard alone. 2:35 Um, when you adopt codes and when you, when you're building in compliance with codes and standards, we're learning from disasters of the past. 2:42 Hurricanes have come through, we analyze how the infrastructure performed, and we deci- and we, and we evaluate how it could perform better in the future. 2:49 We build that into our standards, it gets adopted into codes, and make sure that we're building it much more resiliently in the future. So we think that's important. 2:57 Utilizing tools such as asset management can also help ensure that cities avoid these unexpected system failures, you know, saving time and money and heartache for communities. We think that's also critical. 3:08 So there's just a lot of opportunity. We also think it's important to ma- maintain data. You know, uh, one of the difficulties we have with our report card is some of these categories, it's very hard to get data. 3:17 Schools is difficult. 3:19 Um, you know, s- categories like dams and levies are, are vastly under-assessed, uh, which, you know, endangers our nearby, you know, residents and businesses who are operating without knowledge of the dam or levy protecting them. 3:30 So it's important that we have data as well. You know, we used to say location, location, location. It's now data, data, data. That's how we gotta learn, right? Yeah. That's the way. 3:38 I think that's awesome, and I think it's important because you can't move forward without having transparency and the right data. So I appreciate hearing that. 3:46 So then I'm gonna throw out to you now, Pat, then tell us a little bit about, one of the things we talked about is the idea of really going to paying for all of this. 3:56 One of our listeners said, "How are we really gonna pay for this?" Since that's something, I think, that's near and dear to your heart. But one of the questions was kind of what we talked about. Is it gonna be taxes? 4:06 Are we gonna pay for the mile kinda concept? Or, you know, what's going on? You know, COVID threw us all out of the cities, kinda threw us into our homes. Where are we gonna go with this? Is taxes gonna keep going up? 4:18 We talked about, you know, we haven't seen any real federal increases, but, you know, what do we need to do to pay for all of this? Peggy, that's a great question, and thanks to your listener. 4:29 You know, here in the US we use two primary methods to pay for our roads, and I'm gonna focus on roads, bridges and tunnels. We use the gas tax or the diesel fa- tax paid by, uh, heavy trucks, and we use tolls. 4:44 And the, the, uh, method that we're most reliant on in this country is the, the, uh, fuel tax. 4:51 Now, this is probably gonna go away, uh, in the not too distant future as we move away from fossil fuels and we move to hybrid and electric vehicles. 5:00 We're gonna see the electrification of our transportation system, and we're, we're not gonna be able to rely on the fuel tax, uh, as much. So 5:10 that's gonna call for a replacement, and what a lot of people are talking about now is a vehicle miles traveled charge, or what's also known as a road usage charge, which essentially is a way to charge people, uh, for every mile they drive on a highway. 5:26 And for a rural highway, it might be, you know, uh, pennies per every 10 mile, and for an urban roadway, it could be, you know, it'll be probably much more expensive because it's a much more expensive road to build and to maintain. 5:39 But then there's also the people I represent in the tolling industry. These are people who build, uh, important facilities, statewide facilities, regional, uh, urban, huge infrastructure, and we use tolls. 5:53 And the advantage of tolling is that generally speaking, when you build something new, you have all of the money up front. 5:59 You issue debt as if you're gonna build a house, and then you build your facility, and you charge the tolls over time. So I think, Peggy, we're gonna be moving away from the gas tax. 6:10 We're probably gonna have a VMT or a road usage charge for, uh, systems, like an entire statewide system-And we're gonna have tolls for, uh, major infrastructure that, uh, that needs to be built, uh, and, and we'll also have congestion charging like, uh, for express lanes and, and high occupancy toll lanes to help alleviate congestion in urban areas. 6:36 Now, we're talking about getting to electric- electrification not until, let's say, 2030 before we really see some of these. 6:43 We've got some, you know, EVs, but now when we're talking about a VMT type of charge, are we talking 2030 before that happens? Will it be later? Do we have a timetable for when this might happen? 6:55 Are we thinking about that? Well, you know, uh, VMT has always been sort of 10 years out. 7:04 You know, if you look 20 years ago, people would say VMT is 10 years from now, and then you get to, you know, 2000- It's a moving target... Y- yeah, it's a moving target. 7:12 But I think, you know, I think, uh, y- Congress in the United States, leadership of, of the Senate EPW and leadership of the House T&I committee, they're talking more and more about a vehicle miles traveled charge. 7:26 And there have been a lot of state pilots in the West, in the Midwest, here on the East Coast. 7:31 The Mileage-Based User Fee Alliance, the, uh, Eastern Transportation Coalition have all done, uh, state level and regional pilots. 7:40 And I think the Congress, uh, is going to wanna put sort of a date certain and say, "Look, uh, we're gonna do... We're gonna try to do a national pilot, and we're gonna try to introduce something in a date certain." 7:53 And, and that I would say within 10, a dozen years, 2030, we might see, uh, something more, uh, robust than people have ever thought of before. So the question then comes, will these all be autonomous vehicles, EVs? 8:10 Because our workforce of the future doesn't necessarily want to own cars. 8:15 So [laughs] then I guess the question then for you, Tom, is going to be how are we going to have, how are we gonna build all these new roads, create new jobs? What is it gonna be? 8:24 Because our next generation, they not necessarily are thinking construction's the place to be. So we have to get them excited about these jobs, and that's one of the questions. 8:33 You know, how are we gonna build these roads or improve it so our workforce of the future thinks that's the jobs? What are these new jobs? 8:41 'Cause the question is, you know, will improving these new roads, is it going to create new jobs, and what are these new jobs? 8:48 Because that's what I always think about is we talk about we need these new jobs, and the question is, if we're gonna have new jobs, what are these new jobs? And they wanna know what are the titles 'cause we... 8:58 Are they gonna be engineers? Are they gonna be swinging a hammer? I mean, what's it gonna be? How are you gonna... What are these new titles? 9:04 'Cause now you're talking about an entirely different type of roads you're gonna be creating 'cause it's gonna have a lot of technology in it. Yeah, it's interesting. 9:14 As we talk about infrastructure, looking forward and, and investing in infrastructure, there's, there's, there's, there's just a whole gamut of jobs. We, we actually need additional research. 9:23 We've got more work to do on, on if you're gonna have autonomous vehicles. There's a lot of work being done on that right now. There's some of those that are in operation. 9:31 There's some autonomous vehicles that are operating. But, but, um, to really put one, put it out on a non-guided path out there, um, that, that, that becomes more, uh, difficult. 9:41 And then, you know, are these gonna be owned, uh, or, or, or not, as you talked about the, the options there. 9:47 Certainly connected vehicles, you know, connecting vehicles with our infrastructure and connecting vehicles with each other and talking and being more intelligent, we're seeing a lot more of that now. 9:55 I mean, we've, you know, we, we've got a lot of operations out there that are taking place. Um, so what are the jobs in the future? Uh, when we look at an infrastructure bill, it's almost everything. 10:05 That's why there's so much support for an infrastructure bill from, uh, big labor as well as big business, you know, the Chamber of Commerce, the AFL-CIO. 10:14 Um, these are really good blue collar and white collar jobs that are, that are, that are out there for, uh, infrastructure investment. 10:21 When we talk about engineers, we talk about technicians, we talk about operators, we talk about the construction industry, we talk about manufacturing, look at the materials that go into this. 10:32 Um, you know, whether it's, uh, you know, not just concrete and steel, but now obviously even, uh, uh, with the, um, uh, the technology in, uh, electric vehicles and, um, there's just an enor- and with our, uh, the infrastructure itself. 10:47 Um, so there's... And there are operators, um, so I, I think there's a enormous amount of, of potential, um, um, job creation, uh, that will help especially as we're coming out of a COVID, uh, environment. 11:01 You know, the COVID has had an impact on a l- a lot of our infrastructure. Look at the transit. Look at, uh, aviation. 11:07 Um, this is a way, why investing in it is to, a way to create more jobs, put people back to work, unify the country, get people working towards a, a vision to make the glob- us globally competitive, uh, increase commerce. 11:20 There's just every opportunity to do this and to create jobs in the process. 11:23 I'm hoping we'll see that because in construction so far, we, we saw an uptick, you know, as the essential worker, and then we've seen a dip right now. 11:32 Will this whole investment really jumpstart the construction industry? Do we have to? You know, we have apprentices. They've gotta know how to do the construction job. 11:42 Will we be seeing, uh, uh, learning faster than before? 11:46 Because we've seen digital transformation has been, you know, jumpstarted much faster, you know, because of this in manufacturing and things like that, what happened because of COVID. 11:56 Will we be able to teach young professionals jobs in construction faster, quicker, easier now that we've moved beyond COVID because we're gonna need them if we start building these roads and needing this infrastructure? 12:10 Will we be able to do that?Yeah, there's-- I think we run the gamut here. We've got, 12:17 you know, on our website, we actually did some research on this and listed, you know, construction-ready infrastructure projects, you know, especially coming out of the COVID environment. 12:25 So we listed those all, all over the country, uh, focusing on a variety of different areas like dams and inland waterways and clean and drinking water. Um, 12:35 but you have other projects that are gonna require a, you know, significant time horizon to plan. And, and, and we also have research that needs to be done. 12:43 So you really have a wide variety of job creation, uh, associated with this, uh, and again, and a, and a- and opportunity. Well, I love that we're talking about this. 12:54 We have to be talking about what we need to do to improve our infrastructure. Gentlemen, one last final note. 13:01 So I'm gonna ask you, Pat, what do we need to do to get everybody thinking about moving forward when we think about our bridges, our tunnels, all the things that are out there? What do we got to get everyone to do? 13:12 Our tolls. What's the most important thing on your mind foremost right now looking ahead? Well, I think looking ahead, we need to think in terms of one planet and one people. Uh, you know, we, we have... 13:26 This is the only planet we have, and we've got to protect it, and we've got to take care of it, and if we don't, uh, w- we're gonna run the risk of, of not having a place to live. 13:36 And so we're gonna need all the tools of the civil engineering profession and economists and, uh, you know, business people all working together to help us get cleaner fuels and cleaner vehicles and build our cities in, in ways that are, are much more economical and stop, uh, putting pollutants into the air. 13:55 And the other thing I think is, you know, we need to think of this world in terms of one people. 14:00 You know, we have had an awakening in this country in the last year about, uh, racial injustice and, uh, ha- having people on the margins of society treated poorly, having women, uh, treated poorly, and people in o- in other countries around the world. 14:17 I think we need to think of ourselves in terms of one people. So, uh, you know, it's a big thing. 14:23 It's, it's kind of high level, but thinking in terms of one planet and one people, this is a job that we can all do, and I think engineers have a huge job to do in that area. Wonderful. 14:35 All right, Tom, what's your thoughts? Final thoughts? 14:38 Well, just backing up exactly what Pat says, that's how, sort of how we des- define sustainability is we look at the economic, the social, and the environmental issues associated with our projects. 14:47 We need to engage an entire community with these projects to make sure we're doing the right project and doing the project right. Um, so I think that's absolutely important. 14:56 As far as the listeners, I think we need to let our legislators know that we demand infrastructure that is safe, sustainable, and resilient, that looks over the horizon, that we're preparing for the next generation, not just relying on the work of the past generation. 15:11 We have to look at this, you know... 15:12 We are just temporary residents on this, uh, planet that, uh, Pat was referring to, and we've got to be looking out for our kids and grandkids and their kids, uh, and on and on and on. 15:22 So we've really got to have a much bigger, higher level, longer term horizon, uh, and there's, uh, there's just a huge amount of opportunity. We just need to get to work. Gentlemen, I couldn't agree with you more. 15:33 That's why I wrote my book, you know, Sustainable in a Circular World, wanting us to move from gray to green. So thank you, gentlemen. 15:39 Tom Smith, executive director of the American Society of Civil Engineers, thank you so much. Where can our listeners go to learn more about what you guys are doing and the new report card? 15:47 ASC.org and infrastructurereportcard.org. Thank you. And all right, Pat Jones, executive director and CEO of IBTTA, where can our listeners go to get more information on you? 15:58 Listeners can go to ibtta.org for our website and @IBTTA for Twitter. All right, thank you. All right, listeners, that is all the time we have for this show. Check out our lev- website. 16:11 We are broadcast live every Tuesday at twelve PM Central. Check out our website at connecttheworld.com or our show website at thepeggyסmedleyshow.com. Share your thoughts with me on Twitter at connectedwmag. 16:22 Remember, this is The Peggy Smedley Show, the podcasting voice of IoT and digital transformation. And remember, with great technology comes great responsibility. Have an awesome week. 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