Long Term Memories

Saturday, December 11, 2004

FHWA Memories Eight, Nine and Ten -- the MOU, the Seminar, the Bridge Review

8- During my time in Albany a problem came up and I was assigned to fix it. A road was to be widened in the Ithica area. The widening would require demolition of an old train station. The station was in awful condition, actually a fire hazard. However, federal rules required going through a certain complicated procedure. I worked with the NY transportation dept, the NY historical protection agency the Advisory Council of Historical Preservation (who were in DC - I didn't meet with them; just spoke on the phone except for one time when a woman from the ACHP was at a meeting in Syracuse) and the mayor (who was obnoxious, although I could understand to some extent why he was angry --- the federal procedures were delaying a highway improvement he wanted). Some of the work was in Ithica, some in Syracuse (the NY transportation dept had an office there who had design responsibility). We got a MOU (memo of understanding) done and I got some praise for this back in the office.

9- Based on my success on this MOU, I was asked to arrange a training seminar for the office on solving problems in this area. I invited a woman from the NY State office and the woman from the ACHP to visit our office in Albany. This turned out to be a great success, not because of anything that was said, however. The woman from NY State was quite pretty and the woman from the ACHP was thin but top heavy and the mostly male employees attending the session were thrilled. Several spoke to me afterward and told me that this was the best training session they had attended in years.

10 - Some time after the seminar, I was assigned to work with the Bridge staff in the Albany office. They were explaining what they did. One thing was that they would write up numerous comments (putting them in an enclosure to a letter from the Feds to the State) after looking at the State's plans and specifications for bridges. I noticed that a lot of the comments were somewhat open ended. For example, one SOP was that every bridge that had a skewed alignment over a river (or ravine or depressed RR) was to be asked to consider making the alignment perpendicular to the river (this would reduce the bridge section, thus saving money). The following (apprx) conversation ensued,

me - wouldn't the state answer sometime require a follow up question
bridge section - yes
me - and that would require another review letter
bridge section - yes
me - well do you have the phone number of the section of the State that put together the plans
bridge section - yes
me - well, why not just call them up and discuss the situation and then, if you must, document the discussion with a memo to your files or if there is still something wrong, send a serious letter
bridge section - we don't do things that way
me - why not
bridge section - our region reviewed our procedures and told us they were fine
me - so call the region and ask what they think of changing the procedures
bridge section - we don't want to do this

It turned out there was some bad blood between the division office (where I was working) and the region office. My questioning was considered bad form and negated the favorable review I had from the previous work. Not that it matter in either the short or long run.
¶ 4:51 PM

Wednesday, December 08, 2004

FHWA Memories Six and Seven - Visits and a Memo

Six- One of things I got to do when I was in Albany was to visit some people I had known at the U of Wisc. who lived near Ellenville, NY. This was nearly always fun and got me out of town a few times. Once, I was speaking to someone and I quoted something I had read recently in Scientific American (it had to do with 'confirmation theory' and how difficult it was to construct a quantitative test since we have problems even qualitatively understanding the implications of a test - for example, there is the case of the grue/bleen paradox - let's define something as 'grue' if it is 'green until the year X and blue thereafter' while 'bleen' is 'blue until the year X and green thereafter'. Does finding a vase the color of a cloudless Mediterranean sky confirm the hypothesis that the 'some vases are blue' or the hypothesis that 'some vases are bleen'. For whatever reason, this conversation impressed the person I was speaking to and for some reason I remember this today.

Seven- Not too long after the holograph meeting, I was called into the boss's office and givien an assignment. Apparently, there was a need to create some boilerplate language to eliminate some of the paperwork associated with minimal impact actions (e.g., widening a turn lane). The most difficult part of the assignment was looking up references to policy memos and statutes. The actual writing took less than an hour. For some reason the boss was very pleased with the result.
¶ 6:50 AM

FHWA Memory Five: Consultant Report

My first field assignment was in Albany, NY (1974). One of the first things I did was attend a meeting where a consultant was giving a report about their study on completing a section of freeway in Albany. The consultant had developed one alternative where an interchange would be constucted entirely underground with directional signs done using holographic projections. Someone asked what I thought of it. I said, "I didn't realize highway engineers took hallucinogenic drugs before doing design reports."

Apparently, the person I spoke to thought this was pretty funny and told the head of the office who also thought it was funny.
¶ 6:32 AM

FHWA Memory Four, Four A and Four B- Pedagogic

Sometime during my first year in FHWA, some office had written in to HQ with a question in my area. I responded with a memo which used the words "pedogogic" and "stochastic" and maybe some other scientific words. Later I received a copy of the memo as received by the office in which the head of the office had looked up the words and put the definition in small handwritten letters above it. I had gotten into the habit of using scientific words in college since they allow a degree of precision. However, at this time I realized that government isn't science. Since then I've tried to make everything I say as simple as possible even if it takes longer to say it or if I use a scientific word, I'll define it.

After this event, I was assigned to assist in the production of Statements the Secretary had to make to approve highway projects in which their was a taking of parkland (the so called 4f clause of the 1966 DOT Act). The State and locals would send us information that we would repackage according to previously established templates. I created a statement one day. My supervisor said it was a good job but wanted to remove a sentence (as I recall the sentence was about 10 words long and the statement was about 4 pages long). I said, "why". He said, "we are trying to reduce paperwork". This was in a time when we didn't have computers and thus the statement would need to be retyped. "Is that a joke?" I asked. Somehow I think this wasn't considered in good form --- in due course the sentence was removed. Then the supervisor's supervisor wanted changes, then that person's supervisor wanted changes.

After the 4f assignment I had some easy assignments. I composed some parody type songs about the different functions in the office --- well known tunes; trade verse.
¶ 6:15 AM