On June 4^th, the Transportation Research Board (TRB), an arm of the National Academy of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) reorganized its Technical Advisory Council. The Committee for Historic and Archaeological Preservation in Transportation (AME60) was eliminated as were most of the Committees in its Group. AME60 was a hard-working and effective Committee. Its elimination is a self-inflicted error that will impact Transportation for a long time.

Recent History: A Recap

On June 4^th, the Transportation Research Board (TRB), announced a new structure for its Technical Activities Council, which is its meat and potatoes research arm. On June 3^rd, there were 181 active committees and additional sub-committees covering every nook and cranny in transportation.  On June 4^th, there were 100 committees and no subcommittees.  A number of Groups had their committees consolidated or eliminated.  It is the nature of TRB to constantly reinvent itself.  Efficiency in operation is always top of mind.  The last major reorganization was in 2019.

In the former Sustainability and Resilience Group (AM000), there were 19 total committees in 3 sections. Historic and Archaeological Preservation in Transportation (AME60) was in the Transportation and Society Section (AME00). In the new structure, AME60 and 2 other Committees were eliminated from the Transportation and Society Section. Both of the other Sections – Transportation Systems Resilience(AMR00) and Transportation & Sustainability (AMS00) – were completely eliminated. The remnant AME00 Committees were merged with remaining Policy and Organization Group (AJ000) Committees to form a new Organizations, Communities, and Legal Resources Group (AQ000).  This new Group hosts 16 of the remaining 36 Committees that were associated with AM000 and AJ000.  Only 5 of the 19 Committees in the former AM000 Group remain. AME60 is gone.

I cannot speak to the other Committees beyond Historic and Archaeological Preservation in Transportation: AME60 (formerly ADC50 and A1F05 before that).  Over the last 30+ years, I have been for a member of that Committee and a Friend of the Committee. I am well acquainted with its functioning.  

What is TRB and the Standing Committees?

 To quote a statement from a 2017 TRB handout:

The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) are private, nonprofit institutions that provide expert advice on some of the most pressing challenges facing the nation and the world. Our work helps shape sound policies, inform public opinion, and advance the pursuit of science, engineering, and medicine. The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine are the nation’s pre-eminent source of high-quality, objective advice on science, engineering, and health matters. Most of our work is conducted through seven major program areas: Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education, Earth and Life Studies, Engineering and Physical Sciences, Health and Medicine, Policy and Global Affairs, Transportation Research Board, and the Gulf Research Program.

Within NASEM, the Transportation Research Board (TRB):

provides innovative, research-based solutions to improve transportation. Part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, TRB is a non-profit organization that provides independent, objective, and interdisciplinary solutions. TRB manages transportation research by producing publications and online resources. It convenes experts that help to develop solutions to problems and issues facing transportation professionals. TRB also provides advice through its policy studies that tackle complex and often controversial issues of national significance.

The machinery of TRB is its standing committees and task forces:

TRB fulfills its mission through the work of standing committees and task forces, which arenetworks of professional individuals who share an interest in a particular transportation topic.  With over 250 committees, most every transportation topic is represented in the standing committee structure.  Each committee holds regular meetings, disseminates research findings, and most importantly provides a forum for industry practitioners to discuss the issues facing the transportation industry today.

To cut to the chase, the TRB Committees are problem solvers. The Committee members are professionals, subject matter experts for each of the Committees. Within AME60, there were architectural historians and archaeologists, from federal, state and local government, academia, and the private consultant sector. Many had more than 10 years of professional experience in their respective fields. They are truly the best of the best. The strength of the Committee was in its regional diversity. Any of the 50 states could be represented, along with Federal agency perspectives, e.g. FHWA, FRA, FTA. This meant that a problem arising in one state could be assisted by a member from another state that had seen and addressed the same problem.  To the degree the issue was repeated in multiple states or at the national level, the Committee could use the collective knowledge and experience from across the country to find workable solutions.  States are the laboratories for implementing historic preservation law and policy, not just laboratories for democracy.

The culmination of these discussions- not just in Winter and Summer meetings but also on the listserv – was active participation in the NCHRP, the National Cooperative Highway Research Program.  Started in 1962, this program is administered by TRB, but State DOT’s select and fund the specific research projects.  Over the last 10 years, AME60 (previously ADC50) has successfully submitted and overseen multiple studies, ranging from workhorse bridges in rural historic districts, to Section 106 delegation programmatic agreement best practices, to effects and mitigation for highway noise on historic properties.  These were undertaken through the NCHRP 25-25 program, which identifies quick hits using modest budgets. Considering AME60 was competing with other TRB committees for the small pot of funding, it was clear that AME60 punched well above its weight.

The need for AME60

There is an old chestnut among engineers that archaeology and Section 106 holds up projects. Section 106 is the problem, at best an annoyance to be tolerated.  This is simply untrue.  The genius of Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act is its flexibility in implementation. Historic Preservation law and regulations are focused on process, public involvement, and intent. (See also Jeff Altschul’s 2025 article.) As such, they are not amenable to cookbook approaches.  In the hands of an expert, there is the flexibility to craft effective and tailored approaches to suit the situation.  I’ve likened Section 106 to a Maserati.  If you know how to drive it, it will outperform anything on the road. If you don’t, you are likely to crash.  Many state DOTs operate under statewide programmatic agreements that use Section 106’s flexibility and work exceedingly well.

Any state can look over its shoulder and copy another state’s best practices – call it an infection model for solutions. It doesn’t happen on its own. Committees like AME60 are the sources for these ideas, which are carried from member to member across the country.  In the annual Committee meetings, literally the room where it happens, the best ideas are shared from practitioners that have made them work in their respective states. I suppose you can buy this knowledge on the street from any of a number of consulting firms.  But the good will and common desire by historic preservation and archaeological professionals to make transportation programs more effective and efficient (not the same thing) provides the best environment for sharing successes. All of the members are unpaid, so essentially this is valuable knowledge given freely.

Having a topic-specific committee is important on two levels. First, it is the sine qua non for legitimacy.  It is being seen. In the land of civil engineers, having your own committee is proof that you are important.  Barring having your own committee, having a subcommittee is the next best thing. Secondly, The process of getting research funded, the NCHRP studies, requires that the proposal gets into a database by being forwarded by the Committees. If you are not at the table, you have little chance of getting your study offered, and hence little chance of it being supported.  Having your own committee gives you the opportunity to put forward research you think is important.  Lastly, being a member of a Committee confers certain rights and obligations. Committee memberships are limited in number.  Getting funding and permission to attend annual TRB meetings often rests on whether you are a member of a committee or not. If you are not attending the meeting because you are not on the committee (or because the committee does not exist), then there is less chance that you are in the room where it happens, etc., etc.

Whither Historic and Archaeological Preservation in Transportation?

AME60 is disbanded. For the reasons above, this is a mistake.  Many state DOTs do not have a problem with archaeology or historic preservation precisely because of the ideas brought forth and implemented by AME60. Historic preservation is well integrated into project design and construction.  There are few surprises. Section 106 issues rarely if ever slow down projects.  Usually funding issues are the culprits.  In some states, and with some agencies, Section 106 becomes a problem and a delay, but in these cases those agencies don’t take advantage of the skill sets of architectural historians and archaeologists to use the flexibility in Section 106. Essentially, agencies exist in one of two conditions. Either an agency efficiently takes advantage of the Section 106 flexibility or it doesn’t. For the ones that do, the heads of those agencies never hear about Section 106 problems. For the ones that don’t, those agency heads know only headaches and often lack the resources to fix them. TRB, AME60, and the NCHRP 25-25 program provide the remedy, but only if they’re around to do so.

If AME60 is not reconstituted, then where do archaeologists and historic preservation specialists do their work and be seen?  Again, with the civil engineering community, if you are not part of a committee, you become invisible. More importantly, your laws, your issues, your value to transportation becomes non-important, until you run into a problem with Section 106.

There is also a possibility TRB places remnant archaeologists and architectural historians into the Standing Committee on Environmental Compliance in Transportation Planning (AEP17).  AEP17 has some affinity to the former AEP70 – the Standing Committee on Environmental analysis and Ecology. AEP17 is the only remaining TRB Committee that encompasses environmental issues.  However, the mission of AEP70 appears different from the AEP17 mission.

TRB Standing Committee on Environmental Analysis and Ecology (AEP70) focuses on the integration of environmentally- and ecologically-sound principles in applied research, education, practice and policy associated with all modes of surface-based transportation.

Standing Committee on Environmental Compliance in Transportation Planning (AEP17) is concerned with research and innovation related to assessing federal, state, and local actions on the natural and human environments, including strategies to address all statutory requirements to improve and expedite planning, resource agency permitting, and environmental reviews.

In the former, the focus is on integrating environmental principles into transportation.  In the latter, the focus is jumping through regulatory hoops.  Not encouraging.  There will certainly be fewer seats available for archaeologists and historic preservation specialists.  They will be competing with other committee refugees for the ever shrinking slice of the research pie. The discussions would be thinner, the research thinner, the value to the greater transportation community thinner.

I hope that TRB reconsiders its decision and reinstates AME60. AME60 has a proven track record and has demonstrably helped transportation navigate federal laws and regulations when it is heard.  AME60 is an irreplaceable resource for both the state DOT’s and agencies that have a sufficient in-house historic preservation staff, but even more so for the state DOT’s and agencies that don’t.