Shoshana Lew on the Past, Present and Future of Transportation

Colorado DOT's Executive Director dishes on challenges unique to the Centennial State and how driving a snowplow is, in fact, every little girl's dream.

I’ve been fortunate to interview some of the finest minds in transportation in my 3+ years of writing Exasperated Infrastructures. It’s been one of my life’s greatest pleasures, so far, to connect ideas from people in the know to people in the want-to-know. I love telling stories and sharing ideas; it’s the bedrock for a seismic shift in approach.

Through happenstance, I was able to get an hour of Shoshana Lew’s time. She walked me through how Colorado works similarly and differently to other state DOTs. We talked about structural diversity—making sure the agency looks like the people it serves; we also talked about infrastructural diversity—Colorado’s places are spaced differently and range in size differently than some other states’ places. How does this affect funding? How does it affect operations?

Director Lew told me this:

You get to say no a lot running a state DOT if you’re any good at it.

But what she does say yes to—often—is shaping one of the most dynamic DOTs in the United …