AUSTIN -Texans have a new way to stay informed on statewide transportation issues: The
Texas Department of Transportation Podcast Program.

"There are a lot of ways to get information about TxDOT and transportation issues in Texas,"
said TxDOT's Larry Krantz, the podcast host, "but our podcasts are a good way to get that
information directly from us."

The statewide podcast is part of TxDOT's efforts to find new ways to communicate
transportation issues.

Each statewide podcast episode is a weekly talk-radio-style audio program downloadable
from the Internet. Statewide podcasts will be less than 10 minutes long and feature an interview
with an expert in a transportation-related field.

Five episodes of the statewide podcast are currently available, including the most recent
episode in which Krantz spoke with Texas Transportation Commissioner Ted Houghton on the
upcoming Town Hall Meeting tour, which kicks off next week in Texarkana and proceeds
throughout the I-69/TTC project study corridor.

"The Town Hall meeting concept is totally different from our outreach effort for TTC-35,"
Krantz said. "The episode with Commissioner Houghton sheds some light on how feedback
from the public has shaped - and continues to shape - the way we do business."

Krantz has also interviewed TxDOT's Randall Dillard about former Texas Transportation
Commission Chairman Ric Williamson, who died in late December, Dr. Joseph Giglio, a college
professor and author of several forward-looking books on the future of transportation, for an
episode entitled "They Assume the Future Will Look Like the Past," and TxDOT's Deputy
Executive Director Steve Simmons on why the I-69/Trans-Texas Corridor study area is so large.

For Krantz, who started the nation's first state-sponsored transportation podcast in TxDOT's
Tyler District in June 2006, the challenge was a good opportunity to see if a statewide podcast
could have a broad appeal.

"My little Tyler District podcast got some 5,800 hits last month alone," Krantz said. "That's
not bad for something that's never been advertised commercially. Hopefully the statewide
podcast will be just as successful, but on a larger scale."