Transportation Sector Case Studies
These resources include case studies of adaptation in the transportation sector, developed by the Georgetown Climate Center as part of a cooperative agreement with the Federal Highway Administration. The case studies include examples of how adaptation has been incorporated into decisionmaking at all stages of the transportation lifecycle: assessing vulnerability, planning, design, and operations and maintenance.
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Resource
January 22, 2015
The Engineering Department of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey (PANYNJ) produced the Climate Resilience Design Guidelines (guidelines) to ensure that climate-related risks are factored into design and management of agency facilities and infrastructure. In particular, the guidelines focus on future sea-level rise projections and provide a methodology for incorporating projections into design criteria while allowing project teams flexibility to design cost-effective solutions. PANYNJ project architects and engineers are to use the guidelines to assess the vulnerability of projects to future impacts and to address those impacts when designing port authority infrastructure and buildings.
Related Organizations: The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey
Resource Category: Law and Governance
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Resource
2013
The New Orleans non-profit Evacuteer. org installed clearly recognizable public art in “Evacuspots,” New Orleans’ designated emergency evacuation locations, to facilitate public transportation during a mandatory evacuation in advance of a Category three or higher hurricane. Evacuteer. org partners with the New Orleans Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness to aid in the operation of City Assisted Evacuation (CAE), the city’s free, public evacuation program to assist residents without their own means of transportation.
Related Organizations: Evacuteer.org, New Orleans Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness, City of New Orleans, Louisiana
Resource Category: Solutions
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October 2012
The Federal Highway Administration’s INVEST Tool (Tool) provides a collection of voluntary best practices (“criteria”) and associated point values to help transportation agencies and practitioners evaluate and improve the sustainability and climate resilience of their projects and programs. The Tool allows transportation agencies to evaluate the sustainability of their agency practices and projects across the entire transportation lifecycle, by self-assigning points based on how well they have met requirements set out for each particular criterion.
Related Organizations: Federal Highway Administration (FHWA)
Resource Category: Planning
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January 2015
“The Innovative DOT: A Handbook of Policy and Practice,” developed by the State Smart Transportation Initiative and Smart Growth America, contains a resiliency section that provides guidance for state departments of transportation (DOTs) on how to incorporate climate change adaptation into long-range transportation planning. It provides state DOTs with a comprehensive list of reforms that will address potential climate-related vulnerabilities and reduce the likelihood, magnitude, duration and cost of disruption associated with extreme weather.
Related Organizations: Federal Highway Administration (FHWA)
Resource Category: Planning
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February 2013
This guide is intended to be a resource to support metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs) and regional transportation planning agencies (RTPAs) in incorporating climate change impacts into their decision-making and planning processes. The guide helps MPOs and RTPAs with assessing risks to transportation assets from different climate stressors, inventorying assets, assessing the vulnerability of assets, and incorporating climate change into long-range planning and investment decisions. To facilitate these processes, the guide includes: background information on climate adaptation, recommended data and information to assist in incorporating climate considerations into regional planning, and a step-by-step process for integrating climate risks into plans.
Related Organizations: California Department of Transportation (Caltrans)
Resource Category: Planning
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September 16, 2014
The City and County of San Francisco (CCSF) adopted Guidance on how city and county agencies must consider sea-level rise for new capital improvement projects, including transportation improvements. The Guidance was adopted by the Capital Planning Committee (CPC) in September 2014 and revised in December 2015; the CPC makes recommendations to the Mayor and Board of Supervisors on all capital expenditures and approves the City’s 10-year Capital Improvement Plan. The Guidance provides direction to all CCSF departments on how to consider sea-level rise in all new construction, capital improvement, and maintenance projects.
Related Organizations: City and County of San Francisco, California
Resource Category: Law and Governance
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August 26, 2013
The New Jersey Governor’s Office of Recovery and Rebuilding, New Jersey Transit (NJ Transit), and the U. S. Department of Energy (DOE) partnered to lead the design of NJ TransitGrid, an advanced electrical microgrid for the NJ Transit system in order to make the state’s transit infrastructure more resilient in the face of future extreme weather events and other disasters. NJ TransitGrid, which is being implemented also in partnership with the Federal Transit Administration (FTA), will incorporate a natural gas-fired electric power generating plant as well as renewable energy and distributed generation.
Related Organizations: New Jersey (NJ) Transit, Department of Energy, U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)
Resource Category: Solutions
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December 2015
After Hurricane Sandy washed out a segment of the state highway, the Florida Department of Transportation (“FDOT”) and the City of Fort Lauderdale rebuilt a portion of the A1A highway (“A1A”) to be more resilient to future coastal hazards. The redesigned highway segment incorporates several different features that will increase the highway’s resilience to future flooding and erosion and will also make the city more walkable and bikeable:
Related Organizations: Florida Department of Transportation, City of Fort Lauderdale, Florida
Resource Category: Solutions
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April 2015
In 2014, the Massachusetts Port Authority (“Massport”) began the Massport Resiliency Program to protect Massport transportation facilities from flooding hazards caused by extreme storms and rising sea levels as a result of climate change. The program seeks to better prepare for the impacts of climate change by incorporating resilience principles into Massport’s business strategy and operations. As a part of this program, Massport created a Floodproofing Design Guide (“Guide”) that will help make the built environment resilient to sea-level rise and major flood events.
Related Organizations: Massachusetts Port Authority (Massport)
Resource Category: Law and Governance
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August 2006
In the wake of Hurricane Katrina and significant property destruction, the city of Long Beach, MS developed a proposed comprehensive plan for the city that included a concept for a new public green space called Oak Park to buffer the downtown area from storm surge from the Gulf of Mexico. The plan placed the park between a new roadway to the north and the coastline and Highway 90, which would be redesigned, to the south. The plan was designed to both revitalize the town aesthetically and provide natural protection for residents from storm events.
Resource Category: Planning
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