You can call it ARRA or you can call it 'stimulus' ...

How many of us six months ago would have guessed the word, "stimulus," would come to mean so much to our nation. Raise your hands ... be honest. Right. That's what I guessed.


Stimulus, the investment by the federal government in infrastructure, promises to be a critically important phase in the history of our nation and our state.

To that end, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (a.k.a., stimulus) promises new standards for how citizens can track their dollars. At WSDOT, we have been working hard for several years to become more transparent and accountable.

Every project we build has a project web page. We publish a quarterly report, called the Gray Notebook, that tracks hundreds of activities and programs throughout WSDOT. We participate in the Governor's Management Accountability Program (GMAP).

We aren't perfect. And this thing we're calling stimulus promises to make us better. But perhaps WSDOT won't have as far to go to find greater public accountability in the ARRA era.