ATSSA President & CEO Stacy Tetschner sent a letter this afternoon to the directors of every state department of transportation (DOT) to update them on the ongoing challenges facing members of the roadway safety infrastructure industry due to a shortfall in material supplies.

The latest resource severely cut was oxygen, which is needed to make glass beads that are used in pavement marking applications.

“Our members’ supply of oxygen has been cut by 70% in some areas and 100% in others because of the significant escalation of hospitalizations due to the spread of COVID-19 variants and the national trend of oxygen producers realigning the supply of oxygen from industrial customers to critical medical needs to combat the national pandemic,” Tetschner said in today’s letter.

A new report from the National League of Cities (NLC) quantifies what ATSSA members know all too well: It’s tough to fill industry positions.

“Hard to Fill Infrastructure Jobs: A Challenge to Building Our Future” looked at the time to hire people for infrastructure jobs compared to other jobs and the share of infrastructure jobs taking longer to fill than in other industries.

NLC found the median time to fill an infrastructure job was 23.3 days compared to 19.5 days for other industries. It also found that 30% of the jobs were hard to fill for infrastructure versus 24% in non-infrastructure fields.

“As this report so clearly shows, infrastructure jobs are harder to fill than jobs in other industries, across all regions and all city sizes,” NLC CEO & Executive Director Clarence E. Anthony states in the report. “As municipalities prepare to put infrastructure dollars to work, we must ensure that our worker supply meets business demand.”

ATSSA was among 110 groups today sending a letter to all members of the House of Representatives, encouraging them to vote for the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), which passed the Senate in bipartisan action.

The IIJA “represents a historic opportunity to provide substantial economic and quality of life enhancements to communities across the country and to build for the future,” the letter states. “The investments made in the package would facilitate long overdue repairs and improvements to our roads, bridges, rail, and public transportation, and other critical infrastructure, such as airports, ports, broadband, energy, and water systems.”

The infrastructure bill includes a 5-year reauthorization of federal highway, public transportation and passenger rail programs, which the groups note would “ensure states and localities have much-needed funding and policy certainty to proceed with planned projects.”

Those projects are currently operating under a funding extension set to expire Sept. 30.

ATSSA’s Midyear Meeting provided bountiful opportunities to reconnect, explore solutions to roadway safety infrastructure challenges, socialize over pickleball and hear from automotive industry experts.

If you missed it or want to revisit the experience, we’ve posted dozens of photos and you can watch highlights of the general session featuring Tony Reinhart, Ford Motor Company’s director of Government Relations, and Brad Stertz, director of Audi Government Affairs and co-founder and chairman of Partners for Automated Vehicle Education (PAVE).

ATSSA’s next big event is the 52^nd Annual Convention & Traffic Expo in Tampa, Fla., Feb. 11-15.

ATSSA’s 2021 Midyear Meeting kicks off this afternoon in Kansas City, Mo.

More than 300 people have registered for the event that runs through Friday and is being held in hybrid fashion with some attending in person at the Loews Kansas City Hotel and others taking part online.

The week includes the first meeting of the Roadway Worker Protection Council, which takes place Wednesday and evolved from a Roadway Worker Protection Summit held during this year’s Convention and Traffic Expo.