The search for a transportation secretary continues.

N.C. Board of Transportation member Lanny Wilson, a fundraiser for Gov.-elect Beverly Perdue, has been promoted by Senate leader Marc Basnight and derided by commentators such as Chris Fitzsimon.

David Joyner, head of the N.C. Turnpike Authority, has emerged as an alternative to Wilson in recent days, although he was also a Perdue fundraiser.

Some public transit advocates, environmentalists and female political leaders are promoting another alternative: Nina Szlosberg.

Szlosberg, of Raleigh, is also a member of the transportation board and the Triangle Transit Authority. She's long been a backer of mass transit projects, once distributing copies of "The Little Engine That Could" to cheer up her fellow TTA trustees.

She's a popular choice among environmentalists, having chaired the Conservation Council of North Carolina's political action committee in the past.

She also has a clean reputation — a potentially crucial factor for a troubled agency. According to a Feb. 17 story in the N&O, she has not pushed for local projects in Raleigh in the last four years — a stark contrast to outgoing Secretary Lyndo Tippett.

Former assistant U.S. transportation secretary Gene Conti is also reportedly under consideration.

The state's turnpike czar has been floated as a transportation secretary.

David W. Joyner is a longtime transportation expert who has led the ongoing push for toll roads here as the first director of the N.C. Turnpike Authority.

His name has recently been suggested as a possible contender for head of the N.C. Department of Transportation under Gov.-elect Beverly Perdue.

The son of a state highway commissioner of the same name from the 1960s, Joyner was an assistant to the U.S. transportation secretary and later vice president of state government affairs for Burson-Marsteller, a public relations firm.

In 1994, he moved to Raleigh and founded State Capitol Strategies, a 50-state legislative bill tracking company later sold to the Washington Post. He later worked for Womble Carlyle.

A native of Rocky Mount, he has known Gov. Mike Easley since kindergarten and roomed with him for three years at UNC-Chapel Hill. He later worked as a major fundraiser for the governor.

Since 2005, Joyner has headed the turnpike effort, a job that has given him a lot of contact with the state DOT yet still positions him as a plausible outsider to the troubled agency.

Bob Orr said the Republicans can do a better job at managing the N.C. Department of Transportation.

The Republican gubernatorial candidate said at a press conference today that Democratic control of the department has led to a lack of accountability.

"We're going to change the culture to put the public interest ahead of the special interests," he said.

The plan listed four key areas of reform:

* Appoint professionals to the Board of Transportation and ensure accountability through an open project approval process and rewards for productive department employees.

* Reorganize the department into geographic regions and place the N.C. Turnpike Authority under the department umbrella.

* Set measurable goals and establish minimum qualifications to sit on the board while reducing its size to 14 members.

* Utilize funds efficiently through consolidation and outsourcing and expand financing through the use of toll roads and public-private partnerships.

Transportation boosters didn't get a penny of the new money they'd hoped for in the House and Senate budget proposals, but they invited legislators to breakfast anyway.

N.C. Go, a lobby arm for transit agencies, construction businesses and civic groups, made a final pitch for more money Wednesday in testimony before a House committee, Bruce Siceloff reports.

Earlier that morning, over eggs and jelly biscuits, the co-chairs of the legislature's Joint Transportation Oversight Committee told the group there was no agreement on what the state needs for road and transit improvements — and little appetite for new transportation taxes.

Sen. Clark Jenkins, a Tarboro Democrat, noted that Gov. Mike Easley rejected a prediction from his own Department of Transportation that the state would fall $65 billion short of its transportation needs in the next 25 years.

Rep. Nelson Cole, a Reidsville Democrat, said drivers can expect to see plenty of toll-financed projects in coming years.

"We've got to go to toll roads in a bigger way than we've ever anticipated," Cole said. "It's unfortunate, but we do."

More after the jump.

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