LTS Drives Coast-to-Coast for
Highway Preservation and Construction Initiatives

To the mountains, the prairies and the oceans... through bayous, deserts and plains… from the redwood forest to the Gulf of Mexico… beside fields of corn, sorghum, sunflowers, potatoes, tobacco, cotton and sugar cane.   The views through the windshield were as awesome as those composed through the viewfinder.  On behalf of the Federal Highway Administration and partner agencies (the Foundation for Pavement Preservation – FPP, and American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials – AASHTO) LTS logged 17,000 miles over 61 days to capture images and commentary from sites and sources nationwide for production of nine new videos.

Eight of the videos will expand our award-winning Preventive Maintenance series.  In 1998, we completed the first program, Protecting Our Pavements, which is a 15-minute motivational video targeted to highway agency decision-makers.  It sets out the critical need for and the benefits of new policies and funding strategies in support of preventive maintenance programs.  The second in the series, released in 2000, is the 30-minute Project Selection video, which informs state and local highway agency staff on how to select the right treatment for the right road at the right time.  Thousands of copies of the two tapes have been distributed and presented worldwide, and they are used to support four technical training courses developed by the National Highway Institute.  In April 2000, the two titles won the prestigious Crystal Award from the Public Relations Society of America Central Michigan Chapter, awarded to programs that address a contemporary issue with exemplary professional skill, creativity and resourcefulness.

In a continuation of this highly successful communications outreach on preventive maintenance, LTS began in mid-July to acquire extensive interview commentary and comprehensive footage for eight new videos, each of which will concentrate on a specific preventive maintenance treatment with an overview of the process and a focus on quality considerations for highway agency inspectors.  Topics include crack filling, chip sealing, microsurfacing and recycling of asphalt pavements; joint sealing, dowel bar retrofits, diamond grinding and spall repair of concrete pavements.

We completed several days’ production in various locations in lower Michigan and a four-day trip to southern Illinois before leaving on a three-week, 9000-mile journey traveling northwest from Michigan to destinations in Minnesota, North Dakota, Montana, Idaho, Nevada, northern California and Kansas.  Following a two-week break, we logged another 4000 miles on a ten-day trip to Virginia, Kentucky, Louisiana and Texas. 

Working under hot, dusty and hazardous conditions, videographer Dave Lang captured pavements before, during and after treatments; climate and traffic conditions; traffic control; staging areas and stockpiles; equipment operations and material applications. 

LTS producer Beverly Lang interviewed DOT managers and consulting engineers, agency inspectors, equipment and material distributors and designers, contractors, project managers and job superintendents. 

In addition to expanding the Preventive Maintenance series, LTS has been hired by FHWA for a new video project on how to reduce road construction delays related to utility relocation.  This project took us on another 4000-mile trip at the end of October, videotaping the relocation of electric and telephone lines and water and sewer pipes, and interviewing utility and highway agency representatives from Maryland, Virginia, North and South Carolina, Georgia and Florida.  The final journey for this venture will take us to Madison and Green Bay, Wisconsin.

From the big sky country of the northwest to the big cities along the coasts; from towns named Glendive, Fallon and Colby to the megalopolises of Baltimore, Atlanta, Houston and Sacramento; through countless Holiday, Comfort, Wingate and Country Inns; across windy Kansas and along the misty California coast -- traveling 17,000 miles has been both exhausting and exhilarating.  Most enjoyable of all, though, has been meeting all the industry and agency people who so willingly cooperated and shared their expertise for use in the nine new videos that will inform and instruct their colleagues worldwide on time-saving, cost-effective and quality initiatives that will benefit the taxpaying, motoring public.