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Just weeks after one of the deadliest crashes in Texas history occurred on Interstate 35W, federal investigators peppered the employees of the company who maintained the roadway with questions.
At the end of March 2021, investigators with the National Transportation Safety Board asked what level of training North Tarrant Express Mobility Partners workers received, what equipment they used and whether they had done this before.
Employees describing conflicting levels of training in interviews. Feb. 11, 2021, the day of the crash, was their first time actively participating in detecting ice, one worker told investigators, and most said they relied on slamming the brakes and seeing if they skidded to determine whether to apply treatment.
Federal investigators highlighted significant differences in training between private tollway operator NTE and state-run TxDOT.
Since then, the tollway operator said it’s improved its winter-weather training and added more advanced technology. With the passage of two new bills, which went into effect Friday, roadway personnel, including employees who maintain the TEXpress lanes, will have additional tools to prevent future crashes.
Here’s what we know:
Differences in training
Employees of North Tarrant Express Mobility Partners, a consortium of companies that built and maintains the 18-mile stretch of I-35W where the crash occurred, participated in an annual snow and ice training in November 2020. According to the NTSB, the event covered what routes employees must drive on the roads, the different types of equipment used and how to operate them.
The training agenda did not say what methods employees should use to assess roadway conditions. Some NTE employees also told investigators they were trained to do this while others denied receiving any training.
“They basically just tell us to drive and stop and if we skid, you know, that’s pretty much it,” one employee told federal investigators.
The Texas Department of Transportation said each of its 25 districts conducts an annual training or workshop for winter weather plans and response, spokesman Adam Hammons said. As part of its training, the agency requires personnel to take online courses from the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials, he said.
The nonprofit association has more than a dozen courses on winter operations that cover topics including anti-icing and deicing practices, equipment maintenance and plowing techniques.
TxDOT also funded Texas Tech University to develop two winter-weather training courses — one for personnel and one for managers, the NTSB said.
Since the crash, NTE has required online courses from AASHTO for staff, according to the NTSB. Under a state law that went into effect Friday, NTE’s training will required to be in the same manner as TxDOT employees’, and TxDOT will provide its training material to facilitate this.
Other transportation agencies in southern states have their own training practices. Tennessee’s department of transportation covers best practices for brine-making and application, deicing, equipment maintenance and shift management in long winter events, spokeswoman Beth Emmons said.
Training is crucial for maintenance practices, as different storms require different treatment strategies. If rain occurs before a winter storm, then anti-icing, or applying chemicals like brine before a storm, is ineffective, experts say.
“Any pretreatment that you make would be washed away by the rain,” said Richard Nelson, coordinator for AASHTO’s winter weather management program.
He added, “You would treat a freezing rain event differently than a blowing snow event. If you get some snow on the ground and it’s blowing around, you don’t want to put any chemicals on that.”
Under a new law, roadway managers in Texas, like NTE, will also now have the ability to adjust speed limits by 10 mph during hazardous conditions. In Ohio, officials have said variable speed limits on a stretch of Interstate 90 have cut the number of crashes by half.
Experts in winter road maintenance said states that have moderate winters, especially those in the South, pose a difficult challenge for agencies.
“If I’m in and around Dallas, it wouldn’t be unusual to go through a winter without a snowstorm at all,” said Wilfrid Nixon, a former professor at the University of Iowa. “How do you prepare for that? It’s a little bit like dealing with a hurricane in the sense that it doesn’t happen every year.”
Agencies have to make difficult decisions under tight budgets, he said, but also be ready for the rare event.
“It’s like insurance,” Nixon said. “You have insurance in case your house burns down. … And the same has to be true of winter maintenance preparations.”
Public-private agreements
State Rep. Ramon Romero Jr., D-Fort Worth, said the differences in training are a byproduct of public-private partnerships, known as comprehensive development agreements. Romero said his bill, which addresses winter training, “points to one of the most simple things that we didn’t think of when we allowed for these CDAs … what were they doing to maintain these roads.”
What TxDOT and NTE agreed to is known as a concession agreement, which typically requires the private company to finance all or part of the project. The company invests its own money and uses tollway funds for additional construction and maintenance.
TxDOT has said these agreements, which place much of the cost on the private company, can accelerate the delivery of projects by as much as 15 years and improve traffic flow on one of the most-congested roads in the state.
Michael Morris, transportation director for the North Central Texas Council of Governments, said these agreements are critical in rapidly growing Dallas-Fort Worth.
“I need every tool I can possibly get to develop innovative funding to address this huge responsibility we have … to handle this magnitude of growth,” he said.
According to the council of governments, private investment in North Texas highway projects has topped $7 billion. TxDOT can no longer enter into these agreements with private companies on new projects, but the agency uses taxes from oil and natural-gas production as a funding source.
Regarding the 2021 crash, Morris said he doesn’t see a flaw in public-private partnerships but added that the bills passed by lawmakers help create a safer transportation system.
“Safety should be our No. 1 issue,” he said.