KDOT to unveil Aviation Portal

KDOT's Aviation Division will be at Kansas State University-Salina on Friday, April 10, to announce the new Kansas Aviation Portal. 

Time: 10 a.m., Friday, April 10

 Location:   Kansas State University-Salina, 2310 Centennial Road, in the welcome center building. 

The Kansas Aviation Portal will educate about all facets of aviation, including economic impacts, system plans and pavement conditions. It also improves upon the nation’s first Airspace Awareness Tool, which was designed specifically to increase the awareness of airspace around Kansas airports and was released in 2011. 

Tuesday Trivia

Where does Kansas rank among the states in the number of public road miles?

A) 3rd

B) 13th

C) 33rd

D) 43rd

Kansas comes in at a surprising No. 3 in terms of all public road miles. According to national transportation statistics, Kansas (140,653 miles) ranks behind No. 1 Texas (310,850) and No. 2 California (171,874). Most of Kansas’ public road miles are on local systems. The state highway system, statutorily capped at 10,000 miles, and the Kansas Turnpike carry about 56 percent of all traffic in the state.

So how did Kansas, with a land area that ranks 15th among the states and a population that ranks 34^th, get so many road miles? There are probably a number of factors, but one reason is suggested in Milestones, a KDOT history book: the Kansas Legislature in 1869 recognized farmers wanted roads to their farms that didn’t cross cropland, so they started designating the section lines as public highways.  A Kansas section is a square mile, so it’s easy to see how the mileage number got so big. And, since Kansas has no mountain ranges and relatively few large bodies of water, there aren’t many natural barriers in the way of building a road.

Drug Delivery By Drone

Check out what this start-up company wants to do to be able to deliver pharmaceuticals and small items in developing countries that lack roads.

ICYMI: DOT receives $1 million grant to develop roadway data system

KDOT has been awarded a $1 million federal grant to help fund a project to integrate roadway data from multiple sources into a single data system. 

The grant from the Federal Highway Administration’s Accelerated Innovation Deployment demonstration program was announced today in Washington, D.C., by U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx.

Reliable roadway data is vital to Next Generation 911 dispatching, emergency response, public safety, mail and package delivery, route optimization for bus, snow removal, intelligent transportation systems, mapping, and automated vehicle routing and location systems.

  

The federal grant will accelerate the process of collecting and integrating roadway data from many sources into a single system developed by KDOT.
 

“Innovation in our transportation infrastructure will change the way America moves,” said Secretary Foxx. “These grants encourage communities to use new technology and new ways to envision solutions to our transportation problems.”  

Check out this video about work zone awareness

It's Go Orange Day!

To learn more about Go Orange Day, click here.

We have another great safety blog today written by Scott Thompson, Kansas Turnpike Authority Assistant Foreman from Lawrence - he had a close call last October- read it here.

Today is our statewide work zone safety news conference at 1:30 p.m. on the south steps of the Capitol and the event will be streamed by LiveMeeting to many KDOT offices (In  ESOB, 4^th floor, Auditorium B conference room).

Also, if you have kids, check out our coloring page here – great activity to talk about work zone safety with children.

Mother shares powerful message about her son's death

Today’s safety blogger is Shirley McDonald, mother of KDOT employee Scotty McDonald, who was killed in a work zone crash in 2005. It’s been 10 years and time does not heal all wounds, as Shirley tells us in this powerful blog - read it here.