In August 2005, President George W. Bush signed into law a controversial transportation infrastructure spending bill.

The legislation -- known officially as the Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Efficient Transportation Equity Act: A Legacy for Users (SAFETEA-LU) -- directs funds to hundreds of transportation infrastructure improvement projects across the nation.

While most commuters know the dire straits of many roadways, the bill has been heavily criticized as being laden with pork -- the most infamous example being a now-defunct plan to build a $230 million bridge from Ketchikan, Alaska, to Gravina Island -- home to approximately 50 inhabitants.

Despite such questionable use of taxpayers' money, SAFETEA-LU included many provisions for vital improvements. In Texas, more than 200 projects were funded, most of which intended to ease the burgeoning problem of too many cars and too few roads.

Managing such massive infrastructure transformation is a daunting task. Construction projects are naturally complex and become even more so with federal and state legislation, funding issues, crippling government bureaucracy, and -- in many cases -- the daily difficulty of building where thousands of motorists drive.


No Stop Sign
At the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT), Fort Worth District, the engineering and design of transportation infrastructure projects have, for the last 10 years, been aided by slick project management software. With the approval of SAFETEA-LU, the Fort Worth District is again relying on the software to manage the vast amount of new projects that will soon be under way.

The software, from project and portfolio management software company Primavera, has helped the TxDOT Fort Worth District improve internal operations by enhancing the efficiency of project managers and employees.

This project management software helps his department take advantage of the Critical Path Method (CPM), a project management strategy originally developed by DuPont in the 1950s, said Scot Smith, TxDOT district design engineer for the Forth Worth District.

What CPM gives project managers is threefold. First, CPM involves creating graphical representations of a project -- including charts, graphs, diagrams and schematics. Second, CPM analyzes which elements of a project are critical for the timely completion of a project. Last, CPM also illustrates which project elements can be delayed with minimal impact to the overall timetable.

"We try to model each of our projects," Smith said. "The software allows us to break a project into different levels. Primarily the lowest level is the task level, and then it connects these tasks with relationships. We can say, for instance, 'We can't start acquiring right of way until we have environmental clearance,' and all the activities associated with environmental clearance need to be done before we can start acquiring right of way."

Though CPM may seem like common sense, it has proven vital as projects become more complicated. In the Fort Worth District alone, many are projects on the table and in various stages of design, review and study.

For example, there is a project to expand U.S. Highway 377 from four lanes to six. New interchanges are also planned for state Highway 144 and business Route 377. A high-occupancy-vehicle lane is being planned for Interstate 35 to Interstate 820. Studies are under way on how to improve the so-called "funnel" where state highways 141 and 121 meet.

A project in Johnson County calls for 14 miles of new highway construction, while another project in Tarrant County calls for 15 new miles of road. And a study was recently completed that determined the feasibility of constructing a loop roadway around Weatherford.

These are but a few examples of the size and quantity of projects the TxDOT Fort Worth District has to contend with. Managing projects of this scope is a tremendous challenge. Getting them done on time and on budget is even more challenging.

To make matters more interesting, the