Commissioner Margaret Anderson Kelliher Jan. 30 announced the senior managers who will help lead MnDOT into the future in serving Minnesotans and their transportation needs.

“This team will be vital to executing MnDOT’s strategic operating plan and meeting the needs of Minnesotans as we work to ensure a sustainable transportation system that supports Minnesota’s economy and quality of life,” Anderson Kelliher said. “I greatly appreciate their willingness to take on these positions as we move to the future.”
 
Susan Mulvihill, currently deputy commissioner and chief engineer, will continue to serve in that role. She has worked for MnDOT for 35 years and has served in a number of positions in the agency, including Metro District program delivery director, acting Metro District engineer, Operations Division director and Employee and Corporate Services Division director.

A licensed professional engineer, Mulvihill has a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering and a master’s degree in management technology from the University of Minnesota.

Scott Peterson will continue serving as the assistant commissioner for Policy and Government Affairs. He has been with MnDOT for 23 years, having also served as Finance director, assistant to the Deputy Commissioner and senior economist. Prior to joining MnDOT, he worked on staff for the Minnesota Department of Trade and Economic Development, at Marquette Bank as a financial analyst, and at South Dakota State University as a researcher and instructor.

Peterson has a bachelor’s degree in political science from Dakota Wesleyan University and a master’s degree in economics from South Dakota State University.

Sara Severs will serve as the chief of staff. She served for 11 years both in Washington, D.C., and Minnesota in the office of then-U.S. Rep. Tim Walz, where she managed a variety of teams, systems, budgets and projects. Most recently she served as Walz’s deputy chief of staff and managed his reelection campaigns in 2012 and 2014.

She graduated from The George Washington University with a bachelor’s degree in political science. Severs takes over for Eric Davis, who left MnDOT earlier this month to serve as the vice chancellor of human resources for the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities System.

Craig Gustafson will continue to serve as chief counsel, a position he assumed in 2017. Gustafson has worked for the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development as the general counsel and director of Unemployment Insurance and Legal Affairs and Appeals. He also worked as the chief unemployment law judge for Minnesota and as an attorney for the Minnesota State Legislature in the Office of the Revisor of Statutes.

He holds a bachelor’s degree in history from Gustavus Adolphus College and a juris doctorate degree from Cornell University.

By Shannon Fiecke, Research Services & Library

Can we protect imperiled bats by preventing them from roosting under bridges before and during maintenance or construction activity?

Can we capture the sun’s energy through highway noise barriers and structural snow fences?

Can we reduce environmental harm by using potassium acetate as a road salt alternative (currently being tested in the Duluth area)?

These are just a few of the questions that MnDOT and Minnesota’s cities and counties hope to answer through the funding of 26 new university-performed research projects.

Each spring, MnDOT and the Minnesota Local Road Research Board solicit research ideas from transportation practitioners and later request proposals from universities. In December, the research governing boards met to hear these proposals and select projects for funding.

The topics run the gamut, from continued research in areas such as geotextile and geogrid usage in roadway construction, anchor bolt tightening procedures for support structures and counting of non-motorized travel in rural tribal communities, to some of the following new initiatives:

• Maximizing wet pond maintenance methods for phosphorus retention
• Developing public education tools for the design of nontraditional traffic treatments
• Analyzing the influence of transitways on traffic patterns of parallel and adjacent roads
• Reusing natural waste in sustainably designed soils
• Analyzing the impact of different pavement marking specifications on driver behavior
• Evaluating curing effects on cold in-place recycled asphalt

A list of all funded proposals can be found on the research awards website.

If you are interested in serving on an advisory panel for any of these projects, contact Research Services at 651-366-3780.

By Rich Kemp

The Transportation Research Board annual conference was held Jan. 13-17 in Washington, D.C.

The event covered all modes of transportation, with more than 5,000 presentations in nearly 800 sessions and workshops. The sessions addressed topics of interest to policy makers, administrators, practitioners, researchers and representatives of government, industry and academic institutions.

More than 40 MnDOT employees attended the event, with several of them serving as presenters.

The event offered an opportunity to share knowledge and perspectives with colleagues and learn about the latest developments in transportation research, policy and practice.

Transportation professionals from more than 70 countries attended the five-day event, which included a careers networking fair, new attendee orientation, exhibit hall and a chair’s luncheon.

More information on the annual meeting can be found on the TRB’s website.

By Charles Stech, Office of Chief Counsel

The Office of Transit and Active Transportation is the winner of the winter email cleanup effort that took place during the month of December. They reduced their email by more than 27.63 percent and received the “Golden Hard Drive” award. District 8 was the district leader for reduction of email by decreasing their email storage by 7.06 percent.  Honorable mention goes to Statewide Radio. The results can be found on the Records Management website.

“OTAT supports financial stewardship and proper records management by reducing our email storage levels of unnecessary, obsolete and redundant emails,” said Annette Marier, federal program assistant. “We shared screen shots of the mailbox cleanup tools to provide staff with information to easily find and delete large size emails, along with other means to filter emails, such as sorting by date, from whom, subject, conversations, and email types. We also shared the weekly progress reports from iHUB as a motivator for staff to continue the cleanup. It was a challenge won by all OTAT staff.”

In another category, the Office of Construction and Innovative Contracting had the lowest growth of email storage over the last two years of any of the offices or districts. 

Previous “Golden Hard Drive” winners were:

• Office of Civil Rights - Spring 2018
• Office of Environmental Stewardship - Fall 2017
• Office of Freight and Commercial Vehicles - Spring 2017
• Office of Civil Rights - Fall 2016
• Office of Communications - Spring 2016

The spring shared drive cleanup will take place during the month of May. Look for details in April. 

By Tim Sexton, chief sustainability officer

“Minnesota can’t wait” was the theme for dozens of high school students statewide who met with Gov. Tim Walz and Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan on their third day in office to urge action on climate change. This meeting was on the heels of two recent reports about greenhouse gas emissions at the national and state levels. 

The Rhodium Group released data on U.S. GHG emissions showing overall emissions increased 3.4 percent in 2018, breaking a recent trend of decreasing GHG emissions. For the third year in row, transportation was the number one source of GHG emissions in the U.S.

The Minnesota Pollution Control Agency released the biennial greenhouse gas emissions inventory for the state of Minnesota for 1990-2016. The big change in 2016 was that transportation replaced electricity as the largest source of GHG emissions in Minnesota as utilities shifted away from coal to lower-cost renewable energy like wind and solar.

Other key findings of the MPCA report:

• Overall GHG emissions declined 12 percent compared to 2005 levels, but Minnesota missed the state goal of a 15 percent emissions reduction by 2015.
• Electricity sector emissions are down 29 percent since 2005, almost reaching the 2025 emissions reduction goal of 30 percent relative to 2005.
• GHG emissions from transportation decreased 8 percent since 2005 and account for about 25 percent of overall GHG emissions in Minnesota.
• More than 70 percent of transportation emissions come from light-duty trucks, passenger vehicles and medium-to heavy-duty trucks.

Why does this matter?
GHG emissions are the primary driver behind the rapidly changing climate in Minnesota. The United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change found that if GHG emissions continue at the current rate, the atmosphere could warm by 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit (1.5 degrees Celsius) by 2030, inundating coastlines, worsening food shortages and wildfires, and intensifying droughts and poverty. The 4th National Climate Assessment describes specific climate impacts to the U.S., including the Midwest where heavier floods could “cripple transportation networks.” Even more dire warnings come from the federal intelligence agencies saying that global systems that support modern civilization will fail if emissions go unchecked.

Minnesota has already experienced substantial warming during winter and at night, increased precipitation, including heavier downpours. For example, there were more “mega-rain” events since 2000 than in the previous 134 years combined. In the decades ahead, we can expect more of these changes, plus a higher likelihood of drought and increased summer heat. According to former state climatologist Dr. Mark Seeley, Minnesota will experience the most significant climate change in the country next to Alaska.

For MnDOT, direct impacts could include flood damage to roads, rail and aviation infrastructure, reduced pavement lifecycles, increased erosion and slope failures, more vector-borne disease affecting workers, and more winter ice (vs. snow) on roadways. 

What is MnDOT doing to reduce GHG emissions from transportation?
Minnesota statute directs the Commissioner of Transportation to “minimize the degradation of air, water quality, and the climate, including reduction in greenhouse gas emissions.” 

In 2016, MnDOT created the Sustainable Transportation Steering Committee direct agency sustainability and climate action. STSC is championed by Sue Mulvihill, deputy commissioner and chief engineer, and includes senior leaders from central office functional areas and districts management. STSC applied the state GHG emission reduction targets to the agencies’ internal operations (fleet fuel use, building energy use), state highway construction program and the transportation sector as a whole. 

In 2018, MnDOT added a Sustainability Office to the Commissioner’s staff to make progress on the targets adopted by the STSC and support strategic efforts to help MnDOT adapt to the shocks and stresses of climate changes to the multimodal transportation system.

Example of MnDOT actions to reduce GHG emissions:

• Support adoption of zero emission electric vehicles by installing the first signs in the nation for an EV Charging Corridor (I-94), working with districts to install EV chargers and provide EVs around the state, and partnering with MPCA and the non-profit Great Plains Institute to publish an “EV Vision for Minnesota”
• Adjust facility temperature set-points and pursue solar energy contracts to save money and emissions
• Partner with five states and Federal Highway Administration to develop tools to evaluate and reduce construction GHG emissions
• Partner with Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, the Department of Commerce, the Environmental Quality Board and the McKnight Foundation to facilitate a stakeholder process and create policy options to achieve state targets for transportation GHG emissions
• Evaluate the potential to add GHG emissions analysis into project environmental review

Other efforts at MnDOT with co-benefits for climate, include CAV-X work on truck platooning, research to improve pavement life and performance, installation of living snow fences, and many others.

What’s next?
MnDOT is well-positioned to be a leader in the Midwest and nationally to create a more sustainable transportation system that leverages its technical expertise, culture of partnering and ingenuity to support a healthy climate and economy for current and future generations of Minnesotans. As the youth reminded us, when it comes to addressing climate change, “Minnesota can’t wait.”