Boards and commissions want the best of proven technology, not a new innovative system. Public safety, post audit of every transaction, and political sensitivities tend to discourage innovation. The acceptance of innovation requires a strong leader to generate the necessary agency cultural change. Supportive federal policies, particular with funding support do provide a framework for change. Mort noted that we are catching up on the backlog on highway bridges but there is still a long way to go.
Bridges offer one of the most fertile areas for innovation.
Unfortunately, the public safety risk is a major barrier to bridge innovation. In PB, all engineers in a given discipline are linked within a Practice Area network, via E-mail, which is used to communicate lessons learned and to request information when a problem is encountered. In transit, the FTA PMO process provides an excellent vehicle to communicate lessons learned but it is underutilized. Unfortunately our decentralized structure, post audit culture, and a difficult news paper and TV search for the guilty makes it very difficult for an agency to try something new or to try something and then admit that it didn't work. Perhaps the major issue for innovation or modification of procurement procedures relates to who will bear the risk.