WASHINGTON – In a new Two-Minute State DOT Update video produced by the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials, Malcolm Dougherty, the acting director of the California Department of Transportation, says the department is "building for the future" with about 770 projects worth approximately $10 billion under contract.

"The recovery act and Proposition 1B, a state transportation bond, are providing valuable funding," Dougherty says, "so there's no question that for now, we have a lot of significant work going."

While there might be a lot of current projects ongoing, like many states, California is facing challenges in caring for its aging infrastructure and securing a reliable source of funding for the future.

"The recovery act and Proposition 1B funds have provided about $2 billion to $3 billion annually for several years, and that's why we have so much work underway," Dougherty tells AASHTO's Transportation TV. "When those sunset, it's going to be a concern on how we address our needs."

Caltrans is currently working on the $1 billion Interstate 405 Sepulveda Pass Project in Los Angeles – the project that attracted national media attention and coined the term "carmaggedon" during a full freeway shutdown in Summer 2011. The project will add a 10-mile-long northbound carpool lane and improve supporting infrastructure such as ramps, bridges, and soundwalls while also widening lanes.

Work is also moving forward on two major projects that will ease traffic congestion and improve goods movement at the United States/Mexico border. The projects will construct a new six-lane freeway for eight miles, from the Otay Mesa Port of Entry to Interstate 805, and will include a ramp connecting I-805 to California 905. Otay Mesa is California's busiest commercial border crossing with about 1.4 million annual truck crossings, which accounted for about $36 billion in goods in 2010.

In Northern California, Caltrans is replacing the east span of the San Francisco/Oakland Bay Bridge with a modern, seismically safe structure. The seismic retrofit work on the Bay Bridge, which first opened to traffic in 1936, is being performed through a series of complex projects. Caltrans is on track to complete the retrofit up to one year early, in 2013.

Watch this and other Two-Minute State DOT Update videos at www.TransportationTV.org.