Expanding the Territory We Call “Home”

A View from the Road

by Ted Aadland, NPHQ Co-Chairman and President, F. E. Ward, Inc.

My friend’s son is a great baseball player.When he was 12, they must have put 100 miles a month on the family car driving him from game to game in their small community. If he were 12 today, my friend’s family would be shopping for cheaper car insurance to cover the mileage for all the games that kid would play an hour or more from home.

Someone was telling me recently about a guy who is married to a stockbroker. She kept her job in the city when they moved to a bigger place out in the country a while back. Her yearly mileage is already twice what he puts on his car – and her command of the best seller list is putting him to shame, with all the bookson- tape she consumes getting from here to there.

Their family dog has quite the life. He kept his old veterinarian when the family moved, so now travels 45 air-conditioned miles to work with the wife whenever he needs a shot, a shampoo or a “vacation.” I thought about all this as I was considering a new “toy” today – a state of the art gps unit I saw on the Internet. If I order the thing, it’ll come from Germany, by way of New Jersey, then ? to San Francisco, where it will board a truck for delivery to my of\ce. Imagine that, me, sitting around in shorts, shopping in Germany! Guess I’ll have to \nd a new excuse for the monthly pilgrimage to Radio Shack.

So, here’s the point. Roadways allow me and my family, my friends, you, and your family to occupy and bene\t from an enormous community. Our communities have grown by a few hundred miles in just the past ten years. There is no way a modern American family could access the bene\ts of a major metropolitan area while living on a piece of affordable property in a house with a little breathing room – and shop a worldwide marketplace for the best goods and prices – unless beautifully served by a network of quality roadways.

America’s roadway program is in the midst of a transformation. Mobility is the agent of change. As the engineers, designers, architects, administrators, contractors, subcontractors, suppliers, crafts people, and policymakers of the great American road, we are more than a road gang.We are the stewards of a new level of access to the American dream. America’s mobility deserves a sustained, high level of investment unlike any we’ve pursued in the past. But who will argue for that? We will.We understand the roadway program better than anyone else. But while we’re at it, let’s also be sure we understand the roadway user: it’s a pretty safe bet – to paraphrase Pogo – that we have met the user, and it is us, all of us. It’s time for us to reframe the arguments, to move from playing catch-up to playing the world leaders in mobility that we are. In everything we say and do, let’s communicate that roadways are as important a player in modern life as the choice of roof over our head and wheels under our chassis, and that roadways are the backbone of e-business – that nothing goes from store-to-door unless it travels on a road.

The quality of America’s roads is a de\ning quality of American life. Let’s rethink what we know, and reframe what we think. Then, as leaders of America’s roadway quality movement, let’s get out there and take a new conversation to the streets. I’m willing to bet that when we talk, people will listen. I think they’ve been waiting to hear from us…waiting for someone to put their relationship with the road into the right context, the right words.

Americans don’t want fewer roads; they want better roads. They don’t want to suffer for their mobility; they want to enjoy every bene\t of it. Let’s take new pride in the fact that we are their champions. Let’s take the full measure of the fact that we hold the keys that open a gateway to the American dream.

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