Communications and Public Relations - Our Dilemma

Following are some thoughts and some concerns abou t our profes­ sion and abou t ou r past track record in dealing w ith cu rren t issues. W hile some com m ents relate specifically to the traffic and tran sp o rta ­ tion profession, my message relates to you as an individual, to you as a professional and to the entire profession. T he bo ttom line, however, is if you have com m unica ted w ith som eone du ring the last 24 hours, then there is a message for you. Look at w here the profession has been these past few years. A re the problem s the profession faced five an d ten years ago m uch the sam e as they are today? W hat d id we learn from the past and are we m aking the sam e m istakes today? A nd following a look at the past, an d some of the strategies th a t were considered to address the problem s th a t existed, p erhaps we will find tha t those sam e strategies are as relevant today as they were then. W e’ll reference the cu rren t efforts in addressing the needs of the profession today and conclude w ith a challenge for tom o r­ row. A cu rren t question of m any transpo rta tion officials, is w hat’s h a p ­ pening to the traffic engineering function in m any city, county, and state governm ents th roughou t the country? I t ’s all too real tha t du ring the past few years m ajor cities such as W ichita, O klahom a City, San A n ­ tonio, B aton Rouge and Dallas, along with m any m ore sm aller cities, have or are going th rough d ep artm en t breakups. In the State of Iowa alone the n u m b er of traffic engineers and departm en ts has been re ­ duced by approxim ately 45 percen t w ith those specific duties now being h and led in o ther departm en ts. A nd just this past m on th , a neighbor city of y± m illion popu la tion , D ayton, Ohio, proposed separa tion of traffic engineering responsibilities in a d ep artm en t th a t has been an d curren tly is a leader in the tran spo rta tion engineering field. T raffic eng ineering units a ren ’t the only discipline w ithin the highway profession w here departm en ts have been dissolved. Less than a year ago the City of W ichita abolished the city’s d ep artm en t of eng in ­ eering. T h e design function transferred to p lann ing and the surveying and construction inspection to traffic operations. It was reported , “T he