Scranton Gillette Communications chairman, CEO passes away

Halbert Scranton Gillette, chairman of the board and CEO of
Scranton Gillette Communications, publisher of Roads & Bridges and TM+E magazines,
passed away on Nov. 22, 2003, due to complications from chemotherapy after a
long battle with cancer. He was 81.

Born in Chicago on June 29, 1922, the son of Edward Scranton
Gillette and Claribel Reed Thornton was raised in Chicago and Winnetka, Ill.

He was chairman of the board and CEO of Scranton Gillette
Communications Inc., which specializes in trade magazines and was founded in
1906 by his grandfather. Mr. Gillette started as a salesman for Gillette
Publishing in 1947. In 1960, two-thirds of Gillette Publishing Co. was sold to
Ruben H. Donnelly, which then was merging with Dun & Bradstreet. Mr.
Gillette also moved to Donnelly/Dun & Bradstreet as a publisher and a vice
president. One of the magazines under his direction was Roads and Streets. In
1970, he rejoined his father's company, then Scranton Publishing Co., and
shortly became president of the company, which was renamed Scranton Gillette
Communications.

He will be missed.

MoDOT's Hungerbeeler resigns

Missouri Department of Transportation Director Henry
Hungerbeeler resigned in early December, citing the November report of a blue
ribbon panel that was critical of the organization.

"The Blue Ribbon Panel called for reorganization of
senior management at MoDOT in ways that the citizens of Missouri would perceive
as ‘a New Day dawning,'" Hungerbeeler wrote in his resignation
letter. "I am proud of my accomplishments with this organization, but I
have concluded that the agency could benefit from new leadership."

The Kansas City Star published a series of articles in
August portraying MoDOT as a dysfunctional agency that had earned its poor
reputation. The newspaper found the state's roads had gone from among the best
in the country to among the worst.

Other misfires reported in the Kansas City Star included
paying contractors before verifying that the work had been done right, losing
track of MoDOT property and misplacing a pair of checks worth $250,000.

In a response to Hungerbeeler's announcement, Barry
Orscheln, chairman of the Missouri Highways and Transportation Commission, said
the resignation was voluntary and not requested by any of the commissioners:
"It is with regret that we accept this resignation. . . . The commission
has supported his efforts and will continue to support him during his remaining
time here."

"He was there at a very difficult time," Morris
Westfall, a member of the blue ribbon panel and former chairman of the Senate
Transportation Committee, told the Kansas City Star. "He's done some
things to help pull it back together. But I don't know that he could take it
much farther. It's probably time for a different face."

Hungerbeeler joined MoDOT as director in March 1999 after a
30-year career in the Air Force. He retired with the rank of colonel. His
resignation is effective June 1, 2004.

Wis. reverses plowing cuts

Wisconsin's county road crews will be able to plow snow off
state highways as usual this winter, although the state is not sure how the
work will be paid for, the Fond du Lac Reporter reported.

The Wisconsin DOT decided in November that snow plowing on
state highways would have to be cut back because of the Wisconsin legislature's
decision to allocate less money for highway maintenance in the latest budget.
The decision was to end late-night plowing on many major routes in rural and
suburban areas and cut back on weekend plowing in those areas.

In December, Wisconsin Gov. Jim Doyle reversed the plowing
decision but did not say how he would pay the extra $6.5 million for plowing.

"The legislature is just going to have to find the
resources within the transportation fund to keep the plows on the road,"
Doyle spokesman Dan Leistikow said.

General is now in charge of Kentucky transportation

Retired Air Force Lt. Gen. Maxwell Clay Bailey has been selected
as the new secretary of the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet, the Louisville,
Ky., Courier-Journal reported. He was picked by Kentucky's Gov.-elect Ernie
Fletcher.

Bailey retired from the Air Force in March 2002 after a
32-year career and now lives in Paris.

Even though Bailey has no experience in highway construction
or engineering, Fletcher's transition team considered him for a leadership job
along with a list of other retired generals living in Kentucky.

Bailey brings "rock-solid values" to the position,
said Fletcher, and integrity, character and a history of getting things done.
One of Fletcher's campaign promises was to clean up the transportation cabinet
after several scandals under outgoing Gov. Paul Patton.

Wyo. to compensate for habitat taken by highway construction

The Wyoming Game and Fish Commission has agreed to set aside
635 acres of land west of Cody to compensate for wildlife habitat lost in 1997
to construct a nearby highway, the Billings Gazette reported. Constructing U.S.
Highway 14-16-20 between Cody and Yellowstone National Park eliminated 250
acres of prime wildlife habitat.

The land set aside for permanent preservation is reportedly
key winter habitat for elk, mule deer and bighorn sheep and occasionally
grizzly bears and moose. The agreement, or easement, permanently prohibits
development of buildings or roads on most of the land.

The land covered by the easement is worth more than the
$400,000 in federal money that was set aside for long-term mitigation for the
highway project, but the current landowner is donating the rest.

The U.S. Forest Service has already conducted several small
mitigation measures, but it took six years to find the right long-term action.

EPA retains wetlands protection

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has decided
against narrowing the interpretation of the Clean Water Act, the New York Times
reported. The agency was considering a proposal that would have removed federal
protection for millions of acres of isolated wetlands and intermittent streams.

"It's our belief that the best approach is to continue
reviewing and learning from the data," said Michael Leavitt, the new EPA
administrator.

Leavitt also said he thought the legal case for narrowing
the scope of the Clean Water Act would have been shaky, considering recent
federal court decisions rejecting similar arguments.

Most state governments were reportedly opposed to the
suggested new regulations.

Environmentalists were worried that the Bush administration
would be able to push through new regulations in light of a 2001 Supreme Court
decision. The Court ruled that the U.S. Corps of Engineers could not require a
permit for siting a landfill in an abandoned strip mine, even though parts of
the site were filled with water and sometimes used by migratory waterfowl.

Leavitt voiced the Bush administration's commitment to
preserving wetlands: "At the root of this is a commitment from the Bush
administration to achieve the goal of no net loss of wetlands." He described
wetlands as "nature's kidneys" and said they "add immense value
to economic and aesthetic bounties of this country."

Bay silt not from road building

The silt filtering into Mica Bay on Lake Coeur D'Alene,
Idaho, is not coming from a nearby highway construction site, according to a
report from the Idaho Transportation Department, the Boise Idaho Statesman
reported.

A group called Save Mica Bay said the bay was filling with
silt at an increased rate because of the construction on U.S. 95 about 10 miles
south of Coeur D'Alene. The report said the delta around Mica Creek has not
changed shape during the time and said logging and farming are major sources of
silt.

The Transportation Department was ordered to study the
erosion from the construction site and pay a $70,000 fine after a settling pond
above the lake collapsed twice and released millions of gallons of muddy water
into Mica Creek and the bay.

A couple of boating areas of the lake are now only
accessible to boats with very shallow drafts, and Save Mica Bay does not trust
the Transportation Department's conclusions. "Everybody knows two
retaining areas collapsed," said Scott Reed, an attorney representing the
group. "Where did it go? Into space?"

Smithsonian eyes transportation

The Smithsonian Institution opened "America on the
Move" on Nov. 22. The new permanent exhibition examines how transportation
has changed the U.S. from 1876 to the present.

The exhibition is housed in the National Museum of American
History in Washington, D.C. Anyone interested can view portions of the
exhibition at http://americanhistory.si.edu/onthemove.

Highlights of the exhibit include a recreation of Route 66
with a section of the actual pavement from the historic Chicago-to-Los Angeles
highway. An exploration of the interstate highway system, initiated with the
1956 Federal-Aid Highway Act, also will attract attention.

The exhibition also displays more than a thousand artifacts
and photographs from the museum's transportation collection.

Gridlock headed for Houston

Residents of Houston may have a nasty hangover from the
Super Bowl in February. After the big game, transportation officials plan to
start reconstructing I-10, which runs east-west through the city, the 610 Loop
around the city and the Highway 59 spur to downtown.

Residents of the area are suing to delay the work, the New
York Times reported, because the diverted traffic would overwhelm historic
residential districts.

The people bringing the suits say the FHWA and the Texas DOT
have not properly considered historic preservation.

A TxDOT spokesman said the plans were reviewed long ago.

--edited by Allen Zeyher