An hour with Bill Graves

from the leed center at the university of kansas kbr presents transportation at the crossroads with former kansas governor bill graves i'm kate mcintyre bill graves has been involved in transportation issues his whole life his family has operated trucking companies based in kansas and during his time as governor he signed a historic tenure comprehensive transportation plan improving highways railroad infrastructure airports and public transit service in kansas he left public office in january of two thousand three to a calm the president and ceo of the american trucking association a national trade and safety organization of us trucking industry the former governor is the thirteenth anderson chandler lecture sponsored by the university of memphis for fitness this lecture with the fourteen february twenty fifteen thousand nine and now fear for a novel filled graves good evening all of you it a first obviously were thanked anderson chandler and edith her for giving me this opportunity to come back home and

asserting what i give my thanks to so many family and friends who i know have ventured out anne are here to make me feel welcome i would be remiss and i don't know in the audience where they are but if i didn't mention when the mice close friends jim and jenny rose without jenny's help with cedar groves we would not have been able to restore on and make the governor's residence into the marvelous home it has become today for a first families and also my great friends nelson judy krueger i'm sure he'll appear and without judy i would've had the kind of wonderful professional support helping me feel all the countless appointments record in the governor's office linden katie of course have asked me that i do say hello to all of you and tell you how much they miss kansas and that there will be a day when we return in fact katie will be back in lawrence this summer for her second session at k you coach ray but

shards volleyball camp is katie's know five seven and going more more vertical every day and if you have any doubts about work eighties loyalties lie you can reach her through her email address kate you fall label at g email that says use immigration g e mail dodd called i first knew anderson chandler as my banker when i opened my checking account for telling a bank in the early nineteen eighties that would have been when i was depositing my paychecks from my first government job working for jack briar in the secretary of state's office i was earning a whopping grossed salary of three hundred and thirty seven dollars per week

which jack still believes was overpaying for my services in nineteen eighty five i purchased my first home which just by chance was next door to anderson chandler so we became neighbors in nineteen eighty six when i first ran for kansas secretary of state and he was one of my early political supporters that support continued throughout my state wide races in nineteen ninety two ninety four in nineteen ninety eight along the way and he encouraged my involvement in the j hawk area council scouting program which allowed me the opportunity to help raise some money for a very worthy cause and probably most notable as it relates to my being here tonight and he arranged for the first speaker at this lecture series the african american entrepreneur earl graves to visit me at the state capitol have watching the governor's office prior to his inaugural address and eu had a very distinguished group of lectures and i hope that i can live up to the task

tonight thanks also to the university of kansas and chancellor robert hemenway who i very much enjoyed working with during my tenure in office i pursued an mba from k u in the late nineteen seventies which was done in anticipation of taking on an increasingly more significant leadership role in the family trucking business in fact my father had encouraged me to return at a school for more education his exact words were that i didn't need to learn to work any harder i needed to learn how to work smarter of course soon after i left saliva to pursue my graduate degree my father and other family members quickly sold the family business yes which always made me wonder about the degree of confidence and why didn't finish my mba program and earn my degree i did accumulate forty three graduate hours which helped form the basis for much of the

success that i've achieved since then during my time at k u i had the opportunity to learn from some some fabulous instructor some great people i studied macroeconomics from tony redwood accounting from chuck writer a few years later teamed up to produce the redwood cryder report became the blueprint for much of the state's economic development efforts during the nineteen nineties i'm gonna begin tonight with a story that i have told many times before but because were gathered on the campus or states from ear institution for higher learning and i think there are probably a few lawyers in the crowd i think it's an appropriate warm up for the evening and i offer my apologies to those of you who have had to endure this story before one of my proudest moments occurred in may of nineteen ninety five shortly after being elected and sworn in as governor i was invited to return to sew lynette to deliver the commencement address at my alma mater so line at central high school which by the

way is also be alma mater of k u professor and nassau astronaut steve hawley steve and i were actually inducted together into this line a central hall of fame and i hope that stephen eileen have been able to make it here tonight as well but about the commencement address i can't really describe to you how wonderful how personally satisfying the opportunity is to go back to your hometown and i would be lying if i didn't say that there's a huge amount of personnel ego involved gee it to be able to return to your hometown is the recently elected governor of your state to be speaking before a crowd at your school is a big deal and the fact that there are still teachers who remember you who had you in your crib in their classes and they are stunned that you've managed to become governor gives you all the more reason want to make a great impression

so i worked very hard to prepare appropriate address for the graduating class and in doing so i came across a quote by the irish author joyce cary that i thought was perfect and just as i said that day she wrote it is a tragedy of the world that no one knows what they don't know and the less a person knows the more sure they are but they know everything and that's the perfect kind of thought provoking meaningful remark for a high school graduation speech reminding us of how little we all actually know and admonishing those who think they know so much it is a tragedy of the world that no one knows what they don't know and the less a person knows the more sure they are that they know everything so the conclusion of my remarks feeling awfully good about my present nation i turned to my right to exit the stage and immediately came face to face with my senior english instructor

can triple he shook my hand and he said governor that was a fine speech there's just one problem with that joyce cary is not a woman robert joyce cary is a mate for and then he said it is a tragedy of the world that no one knows what they don't know and the less a person knows the more sure they are that they know everything so if you take nothing else away from this evening please remember that there is always much to learn and much that we don't know while there are a myriad of important topics that i could comment on tonight i've chosen transportation for some pretty obvious reasons our state has a rich and significant history of transportation which includes the graves

families continued involvement in the trucking industry for seventy five years secondly transportation played a critical role during my eight years as governor and his front and center in kansas policy deliberations today thirdly america's at a critical juncture in its consideration of future infrastructure investment recently passed stimulus package is one example and getting the next congressional authorization for surface transportation correct both in terms of what it accomplishes and how it's funded is critical and finally the organization i now represent the american trucking associations in our thirty seven thousand member companies will be irrelevant part of our economic recovery in our future of global competitiveness in addition our industry will be asked to shoulder a significant portion of whatever cost associated with the new program much of kansas is history revolves around agriculture transportation our central location and are entrepreneurial spirit railroads were pretty much first

on the scene providing the principal means of connecting communities in moving products with one of the most notable weren't kansas railroad or is being cyrus k holiday presenter the atchison topeka and santa fe and very recent years kansas lady picked davidson served as chairman of the union pacific railroad during the very same time that the union pacific merged with the southern pacific railroad owned by another can't fill and shoots another selenium in a previous lecturer in the series matt rose currently serves as chairman president and ceo of the burlington northern santa fe railroad as america's passion for the automobile group kansans made many contributions the most notable bean well me going at walter chrysler and from its beginnings kansas played a significant role in all aspects of aviation highlighted by amelia earhart lloyd stearman walter beach clyde cessna and believe but in my opinion if you're looking for the most

significant contribution to kansas transportation you'll find the same individual who's responsible for the most significant transportation contribution in american history dwight eisenhower president eisenhower's a vision for a national network of super highways linking every corner of the country providing individual mobility commercial corridors and safeguards for national defense has done more to shape the development of america and positively influence our quality of life than anything else just think for a moment if david eisenhower president eisenhower's father hadn't relocated back to kansas and at ninety two and as a result if his son the white had grown up in dennison texas instead of abilene kansas do you still think the interstate highway system would've gone through abilene

and if not how that impacted the graves family who oriented an entire midwest trucking logistics operation on the triangle formed by interstate seventy running east to west interstate one thirty five reading south of wichita and interstate thirty five running from wichita became kansas city as autism may sound i've often thought about how fortunate in nineteen thirty five during the great depression my father's family was that when they lost the family farm it was right near so and in fact the graves family farm was so close to slide to the city but by the late nineteen seventies at the time of gray's truck lines greatest operational and financial success you can actually see the old silo still standing from the window of a corporate headquarters in self saliva where better to

start a trucking company and smack dab in the middle of the state that was smack dab in the middle of the united states and get out of the bank's foreclosure on the farm you can only hold on to one possession how fortunate that it was an old state truck very adaptable for hauling farm products to the city markets and how fortunate that you would find yourself right in the breadbasket of america or even in the bleakest of economic times consumer demand for agricultural products for food that was necessary to sustain every family provided it freight market for the graves family in true prime your spirit with neighbors helping out by giving the graves of loader to the whole into town our family started over and quickly went from being a country farm family operating a city based trucking company my dad was one of ten children

which meant there were ten mouths to feed but it also meant that upon becoming young adults there were ten additional workers able to help the family survive like so many other stories of the great depression necessity was the mother of invention and great struggle and became a kansas fixture for the next fifty years it was a combination of that family history in the state longtime commitment to helping move people and products from place to place the guided me when faced with a need for transportation investment in nineteen ninety eight late in my first term in office kansas was just completing the eight year transportation program that had been one of the signature accomplishments during governor mike hayden's four years in office but it had been a hard won legislative battle for governor hate part of our challenge in nineteen ninety eight was that things were going so well financially the most discussion centered on

cutting taxes not raising taxes as would be required were we to adopt a new plan and that tax cutting less government spending philosophy was driven by an ever increasing number of very conservative republican legislators but we succeeded in getting a new plan passed in nineteen ninety nine for the following reasons first of all we formed a blue ribbon panel chaired by the former executive director of the kansas markers association mary turkington it was a unified representation of the executive and legislative branches of state government local government officials and the private sector the commitment to war effort by the house transportation committee chairman garry hayes look from lake and senate transportation committee chairman ben frederickson from saliva was very instrumental to some extent we made sure everyone had a seat at the table and that it was a bipartisan effort

secondly the panel conducted an exhaustive schedule the field hearings around the entire state allowing for extensive public comment and input in effect we asked kansans to tell us what their infrastructure wish list look like and we made no attempt to limit the amount of public involvement in fact i believe the financial estimate for what it would have cost to do everything that had been asked for was in the neighborhood of thirty two billion dollars third we made it clear that the program would be a mole time modal effort roads bridges public transit general aviation and railroads were all included which forced groups which might've historically fought one another for funding to work together and also allowed us to form a much bigger coalition working in support of the pro graham forth we insisted on complete transparency so kansans could be confident

in the expected outcomes from the program and because of its size it became quite frankly easier to guarantee that every cancer that would benefit fifth there was a high degree of confidence in the kansas department of transportation under the leadership of secretary dean carlson to be unbiased and fair in their administration of whatever program was agreeable six and finally and don't ask me to explain how this occurred but we were able to somehow keep the egos and the politics from undermining our effort the result was overwhelming legislative support for ten years thirteen point six billion dollar comprehensive transportation plan that included both tax increases and bonding and as we approach the conclusion of that tenure effort i can only say how pleased i was to be able to be part of a truly professional team effort and even with the problems you can expect when executing a program of that size over a

period of ten years i'm very proud of the transportation enhancements promised to kansans have been delivered as we look to the future in the next kansas transportation plan i can only advise the governor and legislative leaders to consider the success i've just described and seriously consider mirroring our effort and while i'm aware that two groups one created by the governor and one created by the legislature are already looking at future transportation options i will simply tell you that there are inherent challenges urban versus rural city versus counting county versus state transportation modal disputes house versus senate philosophical disputes over government taxing and spending the personal egos there are enough inherent challenges but starting off by highlighting the omnipresent natural tension that exists between the legislative and executive branches of government is not as you say taking the path of

least resistance i would strongly recommend the consideration be given to how the two groups might be blended together into one cohesive working group the same challenges confront enactment of a new surface transportation planner at the national level although a plethora of other issues will make that task very difficult as president obama highlighted two nights ago the economic recession financial institutions in distress failing auto manufacturers and funded social security obligations a desire to reform health care availability its cost and the delivery system the unrest in the middle east which puts our military into harm's way and cost billions in tax dollars energy policy or the lack thereof and immigration reform are just a few of the items on president obama's to do list finding the political will the political energy and the financial resources to address the significant shortcomings in the

nation's infrastructure is going to be very very tough years and years of doing just enough to get by have produced dire consequences according to the most recent survey by the american society of civil engineers america's two thousand and nine in the structure scorecard looks like the following aviation at the bridges or c dams that the drinking water a d minus energy a d plus hazardous waste at the inland waterways a d minus starting to look like mike rieker levenson a d minus public parks and recreation a c minus rail or c minus and i might add at this point don't think the trucking industry doesn't care of mostly about the railroads the largest single customer of railroads in the united states is that you eat is bp's united parcel service movie trailers and containers of parcels on the back of rail or roads get a d minus our schools get a deal are solid waste facilities a c

plus transit facilities adidas and wastewater to do all the things we take for granted supplied a faulty of life we enjoy the things our parents and grandparents helped pay for and build our crumbling under our watch sheer population grow ofa long will that demand that we build maintain and operate more of everything that i just mentioned well the united states doesn't have the same level of rapid population growth as china or india we are nonetheless growing daily some of you may recall in october of two thousand and six the united states for the first time reported to have a population of three hundred million people the first one hundred million fridges a hundred and thirty nine years to accomplish the second one hundred million only took fifty two years that was nineteen sixty seven the four hundred million for thirty nine years and two thousand and six and they estimate the next one hundred million will only take

thirty six or thirty seven years by around twenty forty two or twenty forty three millions more people are living in this country each year and we must build infrastructure just to keep up i don't expect most americans wake up each morning and say a prayer thanks for that wonderful transportation system that supports their quality of life just like i don't expect most americans give a second thought about the fact that with the flick of a switch the lights come on the water in the shower gets warm or that all manner of emergency responders are poised at this moment to show up an assistance no transportation like education health care and public safety are things we've simply come to take for granted whatever plan's developed to address our current and future national meat it will have a steep price tag some preliminary discussions are already suggesting house transportation infrastructure committee chairman jim oberstar democrat from minnesota is looking for the new plan to be in the four hundred five hundred

billion dollar range and this is principally for surface transportation that would be a substantial increase over the current safety lou program which was funded at two hundred and eighty six billion dollars under the leadership of them committee chairman don young the republican from alaska who you remember for his bridge to nowhere what you may not know is that he also decided to honor his wife and the title of the bill which is why it is called safe city lu don't you think they have enough to do in washington without thinking of things like that the highway trust fund is already running on empty some of you may recall the temporary funding measure had to be passed last year to simply keep the fund solvent with a significant decrease in vehicle miles traveled to the high fuel prices and a weak economy another infusion of money maybe necessary later this summer under any

scenario under any scenario in new revenue from some source will be required if we intend to address the inventory of unmet needs facing the country and therein lies another of the challenges facing the new obama presidency does the new president call for higher taxes to support infrastructure investment and in doing so create political jeopardy for democrat members of congress running in the twenty ten midterm elections and how likely is it that republicans mirroring their actions on the stimulus package won't provide any votes to get a tax increase passed having discovered or rediscovered but the path to regain some degree of political relevance is hunkering down is reborn fiscal conservatives there's an additional subset of democrat members of congress who may argue that the vote they cast in support of the stimulus bill which contained a substantial amount of funding for infrastructure spending

was as far as they're prepared to go and therefore won't support a tax increase for additional infrastructure spending even though the reality is that the stimulus bill for them was a free vote simply spending money from general treasury funds which drives up the national deficit green on the needs of the nation is going to be far easier than a grain on how to pay for the needs of the nation my members in the trucking industry are prepared to support a significant increase in the diesel fuel tax so long as the money generated is targeted to the elimination of highway bottlenecks adding highway capacity and takes the necessity of freight movement into account that offer to pay significant increase in fuel tax should not be taken lightly given that our industry consumes somewhere in the neighborhood of thirty six billion gallons of diesel fuel each year an additional

sixteen billion gallons of gasoline some believe we should turn infrastructure investment over to the private sector and let large financial consortiums either by existing infrastructure assets as creating huge financial windfalls or be given the right to build and operate the new asset with a governmental entity getting large upfront payments in exchange for letting the private entity operate the asset and turn a profit for some long period of time in some instances for up to a hundred years i believe this approach is a mistake for several reasons first of all these financial consortiums are not benevolent organizations they're interested in our public assets as a way to make money and provide a return on investment for their investors for profit means added cost that will ultimately be paid for by the public secondly i believe it will create an

infrastructure system of haves and have nots where urban high population centers or potentially more viable an attractive to investors then ruler is for the problem with that is that it will bring us to a point at which congress will lose any political ability the foreign national infrastructure programs because senators and representatives from states who can make privatization work will see no reason to vote for a national program that sends text money to those states that can force should they receive huge windfalls governors and legislatures will be challenged to make wise spending decisions with money that in many ways almost a future generations and finally where would this government selloff in what would be next the state capital university

campuses are schools wastewater treatment plants libraries hospitals if we saw the entire infrastructure the government holds and then just least back we could take care of more financial problems but what unintended consequences might we be creating for future generations for my associations perspective whatever we do relatively infrastructure investment and our principal concern these roads in bridges we must make the system safer for all users two high profile aviation accidents have received a tremendous amount of media coverage in the last month one was a really good news story about a remarkable emergency landing in the hudson river but fortunately didn't take the lives of a hundred and fifty five passengers the second was the very recent tragedy in buffalo did claim the lives of fifty victims news of airline incidents transfixed

the nation and grabs your attention whether the outcome is joyous percent and in every instance and exhaust even federal investigation takes place why then why then as a society are we so complacent so accepting of the fact that on average a hundred and twelve people are killed every day on the nation's roads a hundred and twelve fatalities every day three hundred and sixty five days a year on our nation's roads why aren't we transfixed on this daily tragedy why isn't there a federal investigation in two thousand and seven the last year that we got complete statistics we had forty one thousand and fifty nine fatalities on our nation's roads where is the outrage the unfortunate that simple

answer is that it's because it's been happening for soul we become emotionally diluted by the facts that occur so often so consistently in multiple locations across the country because it's not a hundred and fifty five or fifty because it happens warren to three victims of the time we chalk it up as one of those accidents that just happens if it wasn't your mom or bad if it wasn't your son or daughter who lost their life it hardly gets our attention my member companies believe that everybody needs to slow down we've been very vocal in calling for a national sixty five mile per hour speed limit most of our members already govern the speed of their trucks knowing a slower speed it reduces fatality an injury accidents slower speed decreases not injury accidents that cause property damage slower speed reduce fuel consumption and therefore reduces

greenhouse gas emissions what part of success don't we like there are a lot of reasons that we should all simply slow there were also seeking congressional support for a national drug and alcohol screening clearinghouse so our industry has better information about the drivers were hiring and their personal habits relative to the abuse but drugs and alcohol we support increased funding for traffic enforcement we support the deployment of automated traffic enforcement technology including red light cameras we also we're also very strong proponents of mandatory seatbelt laws and i am very pleased to see that there's been some movement in the kansas legislature acting a primary enforcement seatbelt law we're particularly encouraged by some of the innovative enforcement programs like the one here in kansas call pops but most of you probably never heard of it's a program that allows a state trooper to ride along in the cab of the commercial vehicle of the

truck where they are afforded a firsthand view a driver behavior both other commercial truck drivers and the general motoring public we are strong proponents of these kinds of enhanced enforcement efforts on behalf of all drivers the way forward in my mind is clear we need an eisenhower like commitment to renewed investment in our nation's infrastructure absent that america's gonna continue to struggle in the ever increasingly competitive global economy safely moving people and products has been the circulatory system that made america strong if as it's been said the past is prologue then let's work together to once again find the same visionary focused agenda that eisenhower used to invigorated and reshape our nation fifty years ago

at this point i'm going to keep a wise advice of bob dole who often said if you don't have any problems with the group you're talking to them don't talk long enough to create any i appreciate all of you coming out on a blustery kansas night i appreciate anderson chandler support for the university of kansas i appreciate this opportunity to bat good to be back in kansas i thank you for your attention i'm willing to take some questions as long as they have nothing to do with governors' races senate races see what else will talk about i'm willing to take any questions you have at this point thank you very much you're listening to a former kansas governor bill graves on improve public radio you know the question from the audience some people at the polls fuel taxes should be based on miles then rather than gallons a few poachers what your opinion on that for

savoy i thought it was interesting the other day that secretary lahood in one of his first press cover the new century transportation ray lahood who's a congressman from illinois mentioned that he thought that there should be some some conversation about distance travel taxation systems and then i think it was about three minutes later the white house issued a statement more or less saying that they had no interest in that kind of her proposal i actually think secretary lahood was sort of on on on the right page i think we have to appreciate that as we transition away from the current kind of technologies gasoline powered vehicles for the most part that we're going to have to start thinking about what is the next system look like to some extent in a third you know probably to some way the fuel taxes in the distance travelled tax i mean my guys only get six or

seven miles to the gallon so they pay a lot more taxes i have to consume a lot more fuel for whatever distance they go the soviet smaller passenger car but that's the beauty of the of the distance travelled system as it starts to get really sophisticated and says i wanna know the kind of car you're driving i wanna know the histories of a rancher on a lot of the time of day who they are so that if it's congested time of day you're going to pay more of that it's not congested you pay less i mean we don't know enough about it to say that word for it but we certainly don't think you should close off a debate about that or any other potential option because we are going to have that the vehicle miles traveled for all of uber driver passenger vehicles you've dropped off dramatically with the economic downturn in the price of fuel your money flowing to the highway trust fund is down we're on the other hand we're not recreational drivers we're out there each and every day continuing to

move a lot our vehicle miles traveled to continue to go up the reason that our contribution the trucking industry's contribution to the highway trust fund fell was because we also pay at twelve cents twelve percent federal excise tax on all the equipment we buy so when you go out and buy a hundred thousand dollar new you can work for or paul or mac tractor is a twelve percent federal excise tax it gets deposited into the highway trust fund i can tell you none of my guys are buying new trucks are trailers or tired your equipment so we're contributing to the drop off in the trust fund but long roundabout way of saying is is i probably looking at that system but i'm not ready to endorse at this point thank you for asking governor curve ball can you tell me you know what part of your other truckers are playing and homeland security we are we're spending a lot of time there's a lot of sensitivity

about someone taking a large truck with a hazardous material load and i'm doing something bad with it and we understand that what we've been trying to work through what the former homeland security is is a way to determine water what specifically are the things that we absolutely have to make sure don't fall into the wrong hands and what are things that have historically been considered hazardous materials that you know if somebody steals a load paint paints a hazardous material you know on the show regarding really bad with that but anti virus ammonia yeah that's a problem so what's been going on as a peripheral look at a new system that requires anybody that's moving critic we sense of obsessive hazardous material has to go through a complete fbi fingerprint basic background check before you're

able to get behind the wheel of one of those vehicles we're working with the manufacturers and creating some pretty high tech safeguards of bio metrics that make sure that the person that's got the you know you put your thumb print on the side of the cabin door before you can even open the truck and get it started and we've got because of the concerns about hijacking situation or somebody usually a tractor that's an expensive piece of equipment has pretty sophisticated tracking equipment in batted within it we don't like to lose hundred thousand dollar pieces of equipment so historically hijackers the minute they may steal a truck the first thing they do a separate the trailer from the tractor because of pre hard news lead to find the trailer we've now got a new technologies that have imbedded in the fifth wheels requirements that some central dispatch a thousand miles away has to authorize separation of the tracker from the trailer before the fifth wheel disconnect i mean those kinds

of technologies and ideas but you know so far we've been fortunate that we haven't had any major incidents to speak of and we're working closely with dhs and transportation security administration to try to keep it that way obviously for us those kinds of black eyes you would rather not have and also as you all know all it takes is one small incident and pretty well creates a ripple effect that shuts commerce down throughout the entire country and we just can't afford to have that happen why art trucks more stream will streamline simply get better fuel efficiency up well if you're working hard in all the earth and all the manufacturing plants to make them more aerodynamically streamlined california which tends to lead on a lot of issues california's got some new requirements about putting on what amount to fender skirts tight skirts on the trailers trying to reduce

drag and create a more aerodynamic unit as it moves along the road some of you may have noticed that i'm also country western songs about the eighteen wheeler you know we're going to have those a whole lot longer the new thing is called at fat single socially a little bit little bits like what is why this book double tires but it's a fat single tired design with less rolling resistance refining dramatically increase fuel efficiency by using a single fat tires opposed to the two side by side doubles so there won't be an eighteen wheeler anymore it'll be a ten wheeler but innovative things like that were which most of our folks now installed a lot to leave power units so they can get the recipe cooler or or or he did whatever the requirement would be based on a small auxiliary power unit was supposed to send their run in the diesel engine in emitting greenhouse gases in and burning fuel so that would trust me with your gut to be almost five dollars a

gallon you didn't have to do a whole lot to incentivize or folks to want to try to figure out how to fuel efficient yet some suggestions oh i've just noticed over the years you know it's been years and years and years of those trucks on the highway they're very and streamlined and i voiced this is a question i always had you know they can be made you member the year movement right afterward to really have a very streamlined trailers that were for you know vacation trailers you know i don't see a reason why trucks can be more in that form their of their mood their way as best as i can promise for streaming mrs ismail for fifteen years traveling around the united states and i'd like you to speak to the concern of the four wheelers

pulling in front of the trump too closely because the things i've seen on the highway when a car is comes between two semi tractor trailers it's one foot from front to back think you or i would i would encourage all due to appreciate that that the gross vehicle weight on an eighteen wheelers some more than ever could be some or the neighborhoods of eighty thousand pounds and we have a bit of a challenge in our stopping distance and so it's as i said if everybody would slow down and be a lot more responsible as drivers we yeah we try to educate to a number of industry related programs people about driving safely around trump's the blind spots we still continue to have on on either side of our vehicles and directly behind us it's it's so one of those real tough challenges that no one's quite fit you know

teaching every single driver out there to be safe and responsible is an enormous challenge that one by one we do in every desk sir good evening governor a pleasure to have you on campus this evening out my question is directed towards when the past few years continue our success and growth in honor more where operations i'm a lot about the city that god trucking industry obviously and i'm curious what your thoughts are and expanding nick's current expansion of the animal a rarity in this segment the world industry and secondly because of the success we've seen congestion increased on the rails and with lots of discussion about using the public our monies to go invest in the worlds that help mitigate some of their concession to iran or to decrease congestion on america's highway system the comments reitz absolutely a first of all it's correct the fastest growing sort of mobile movement sector is iss

intermodal freight to see their containers are trailers been put on on trains it currently only makes up about one percent of the of the five volume of freight moving this country it's expected within about the next ten years and that's going to double but that means it's going to be two percent or by about the year twenty fourteen i think i've got some debates confused but nonetheless as i said the number one that customer of the railroad says is you ps i think at one point in time the number one customer the burlington northern santa fe railroad was one rc corporation at a kansas city so there's a lot of our members who partner with an and dependable an inner mobile movement you're correct just like roads and bridges the railroads have struggled as private companies finding the investment the capital necessary to keep their lines upgraded and improved the throughput and they come to congress and they've asked congress about providing them with an investment tax credit to help them incentivize investment

in rail lines we are they're doing a very delicate dance quite candidly where we're trying to figure out a win win scenario we don't have a problem with the railroads would like for them to do a better job but we have some things that we'd like to have to have a chance to talk about one of them is to have our vehicles be more productive which is always been a nonstarter with the railroads so we're sort of doing a little luck little delicate dance where i think there's potential for that trucker you know that which the truckers the railroad might actually get together on this reauthorization bill but it's going to take some significant discussion and deliberation but we'd like to create win win where they get access to the capital they need to do a better job at the same time we get an opportunity to be more productive and moving the product that we moved throughout the country so our relationships of the railroads all play it are probably as good as they've been in a long long time that they may be another one of those examples of a necessity being the mother of invention

thanks for asking sir given the current state of the economy and that reduction of goods being moved throughout the country how long haul the thirty seven thousand members of your innovation react so eggs are some large companies is smarties and very small companies how are they will weather this storm just generally our eyes our folks going through this i would think they're probably of absolute mere reflection of the rest of the businesses in the us we've had we have companies who have closed their doors and simply not been able to make it so they have gone out of business we've had companies who have laid new people off they had dramatic reductions in the workforce part of what matt i mean one thing you don't want to drive truck we haven't got freedom movement and revenue the game as i said in my comments no one's buying new equipment which is putting a

tremendous amount of pressure in the manufacturing community on on everybody from the truck manufacturers to that if goodyear tire and topeka every every component part manufacturer they're all struggling to this thing you know everybody just everybody just does what business people do they just scaled back a cut expenses they let people go and they tried a streamlined themselves an end but stay viable so when the when the recovery starts to begin in fact we just had meeting in washington and i have to confess i was surprised at how optimistic my members were there they're sort of a kind of folks that see opportunity in these difficult times because they believe when they when the economy turns that they're going to be still standing and they'll be you know ready to go and that's how they approach their business one more one more you sir the audubon is one of the safest highways the world had ever thought about building

america not upon to use that autism highly as well as providing a massive infrastructure spending program in creating the permanent jobs at the same time well i just have an odd on principle even just for automobiles and anne we probably would never a problem with that as long as we have an opportunity to get off somewhere safely the side in and you know it's a move our product at a more reasonable speed i think personally we know what we benefit that we know the benefit we derive from for more fuel savings and for more greenhouse gas emissions i'm sure they've come a day that we can ever electric car that goes really really fast you know that it would work great on an audubon as you proposed but for the time being we're really focused on fuel savings and safety and for us that means i mean slowing down oh oh i'll probably get into the audubon business tonight thank you all very very much a former governor of

kansas and there for the president and ceo of the american trucking association he spoke february twenty six two thousand nine at the leed center at the university of kansas and that emerson chandler lectures sponsored by the k u school of business i'm kenny macintyre k pr presidents as a production of kansas public radio at the university of kansas it is the sisters

majors says at me says by any means it's

funny it's because it's been years it's been it's been this is

for me is the privacy it's big next time i'm keep your presents the kansas read selection for two thousand nine the virgin of small planes flying in this deal of mystery and a sense that people playing unidentified girl heal the sick that she interceded on behalf of the people who needed help at

all because she was grateful to the town for caring about her first novel the virgin of small planes eight o'clock sunday night on kansas public radio ad anno at half a

head a head ahead and i mean well well well well well in the

air is it