Purdue News
Purdue News
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March 10, 2000 Conference will explore key transportation issuesWEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. – This year's Purdue Road School, an annual conference that attracts more than 1,000 city and county highway officials from across Indiana, will explore transportation issues ranging from important environmental, economic and traffic safety matters, to the future of high-speed trains in Indiana. The 86th Annual Purdue Road School begins at 8:30 a.m. Tuesday, March 21, and continues through Wednesday, March 22. The conference is free and open to the public. A Road School brochure, in Adobe Acrobat format, is available on the World Wide Web. Highlights of this year's road school, all in Stewart Center and all free and open to the public, include: • Tuesday, during the opening session from 8:30 to 10 a.m., Indiana Department of Transportation Commissioner Cristine Klika will talk about "Determining Your 'Transportation Personality,'" focusing on the importance of fostering cooperation and resolving conflicts among partners involved in transportation projects. • Tuesday, between 10:15 and 11:45 a.m., Timothy D. Watson, a member of the Indiana High Speed Rail Association's board of directors, will talk about a proposed passenger train that would hit speeds of up to 110 miles per hour. The train would travel along a 3,000-mile, Midwestern high-speed rail network. • Tuesday, from 3:15 to 4:30 p.m., Loring Nies, a Purdue assistant professor of civil engineering, will discuss the state's efforts to preserve pristine lands through a program that encourages tenants to move into abandoned industrial sites – or "brownfields" – instead of building new structures on undeveloped properties. "I think most people would agree that increased urbanization of our agricultural land and our pristine wild land is just a bad thing," Nies said. "And you also don't want to abandon urban areas, because that leads to decay of cities and loss of jobs." • Also Tuesday from 3:15 to 4:30 p.m., Bill Kocher, manager of INDOT's Winamac subdistrict, will talk about an innovative "deer-composting" method being tested in the state to recycle the thousands of animals, mainly deer, killed on roadways every year. Officials hope the composting method will help conserve dwindling lands on which road-killed animals have traditionally been buried, said Phyllis Hockett, manager of the environmental services section of INDOT's Pre-Engineering and Environment Division. The technique features a system of layered sawdust to help break down the animal carcasses. • Wednesday at noon, officials will pay a tribute to INDOT Chief Engineer Donald W. Lucas, who is retiring after more than 40 years with the agency. Some of the other sessions will focus on traffic, safety and construction issues, the benefits of local airports and global information systems, the process of certifying traffic-operations engineers, and a $210 million Interstate 65 reconstruction project in southern Indiana. Conference attendees should register at the east foyer of Stewart Center. The registration desk is open from 7:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. on both days. Held annually at Purdue since 1914, the Road School was the first state highway conference in the nation. It brings together about 1,200 transportation-related professionals from all levels, from the Federal Highway Administration in Washington to the smallest municipalities in the state, said Karen Hatke, program coordinator for the Joint Transportation Research Program at Purdue. The Road School is sponsored by the Joint Transportation Research Program, which is a long-standing partnership between Purdue's School of Civil Engineering and the Indiana Department of Transportation. Sources: Karen Hatke, (765) 494-9310, kshatke@purdue.edu Kumares Sinha, (765) 494-2211, sinha@ecn.purdue.edu Writer: Emil Venere, (765) 494-4709, evenere@purdue.edu Purdue News Service: (765) 494-2096; purduenews@purdue.edu
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