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.
Resources are automatically presented by rating, but can also be sorted by date and title. Apply additional filters to narrow the list by climate impact, region, transportation mode or stage of decision-making, state, or jurisdictional focus.
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February 2013
The District of Columbia Department of Transportation’s (DDOT) Climate Change Adaptation Plan describes the impacts that the District is likely to experience due to climate change, outlines a framework for identifying priority assets, and sets forth a series of action items for implementing the Plan. The target audience for this framework plan is decision makers, engineers, designers, planners, and other transportation professionals in DDOT. The plan focuses only on transportation and was developed based on the National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP) and Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) research and guidance.
Related Organizations: District of Columbia Department of Transportation
Resource Category: Planning
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January 31, 2014
In December 2012, Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley signed an Executive Order (EO) entitled “Climate Change and ‘Coast Smart’ Construction,” requiring state agencies to consider risks of coastal flooding and sea-level rise in state capital budget projects, and requiring the Department of Natural Resources (DNR) to develop guidelines for the siting and design of infrastructure and other projects. Pursuant to the EO, in January 2014, the DNR-led Climate Change and Coast Smart Construction Working Group published “Coast Smart” Guidelines that provide recommendations to institutionalize consideration of coastal flooding and sea-level rise in planning and constructing all new or rehabilitated state structural and infrastructure projects, as well as state-funded private projects.
Related Organizations: Maryland Department of Natural Resources
Resource Category: Law and Governance
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December 2013
The long-range regional transportation plan for the Chattanooga-Hamilton County/North Georgia Transportation Planning Organization (CHCNGA TPO), entitled “2040 Regional Transportation Plan” (2040 RTP), includes a report on Climate Change and Transportation Resiliency for the region. The Plan identifies critical transportation assets in the CHCNGA TPO region, assesses the potential vulnerability and risk for each asset across a range of potential impacts, and outlines planning, design and operations adaptation actions that could be deployed to mitigate potential vulnerabilities.
Related Organizations: Chattanooga-Hamilton County/North Georgia Transportation Planning Organization
Resource Category: Planning
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December 2013
The University of Southern California Sea Grant Program completed a Sea Level Rise Vulnerability Study for the City of Los Angeles that summarizes initial research on the potential impacts of sea-level rise on Los Angeles’s coastal and shoreline assets, including the Port of Los Angeles, the Pacific Coast Highway and other significant coastal roads. The study identifies the Los Angeles (LA) communities and infrastructure most threatened, and offers a suite of adaptation measures including several specific recommendations for safeguarding transportation assets.
Related Organizations: University of Southern California Sea Grant
Resource Category: Assessments
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December 2013
Vermont experienced significant barriers to using disaster relief funding to install larger culverts after Tropical Storm Irene. The storm caused massive damage to the state’s transportation infrastructure and warranted a presidential disaster declaration. In the aftermath of the event, the Vermont Transportation agency (VTrans) and localities followed state regulations that required the installation of larger culverts to address increased stream flow and to allow for fish passage. Localities, however, were denied reimbursement for these “improvements” by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), the agency that administers disaster relief funding for rebuilding local roads and bridges.
Related Organizations: Vermont Agency of Transportation (VTrans), Georgetown Climate Center
Resource Category: Law and Governance
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June 2014
The Hunts Point Lifelines proposal envisions the construction of pier infrastructure and a levee in the Bronx neighborhood of New York to expand intermodal transportation options and to provide flood protection. The project proposal was one of six winners of the U. S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) Rebuild by Design Competition, a competition that was designed to inspire innovative climate-smart rebuilding projects in the disaster recovery effort after Hurricane Sandy.
Related Organizations: New York City Economic Development Corporation, U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), City of New York, New York
Resource Category: Planning
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June 2014
New York City has been awarded $335 million to build a flood protection system around lower Manhattan and protect the critical ground transportation artery FDR Drive, as envisioned in the Big U project proposal developed for Rebuild by Design. The Big U proposal was one of six winners of the U. S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) Rebuild by Design Competition and was developed by the Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG). The BIG U project proposes to build deployable walls that swing down from the underside of FDR Drive, which runs along the East River on the eastern side of Manhattan and has been an inlet for flood waters into Manhattan during extreme weather events like Hurricane Sandy.
Related Organizations: New York City Mayor's Office of Recovery and Resiliency , U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), New York City Department of Parks and Recreation, City of New York, New York
Resource Category: Planning
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June 2014
The proposed Commercial Corridor Resiliency Project included an element designed to improve the resiliency of a Queens, New York subway station by elevating the platform at Far Rockaway. The project proposal was developed and was selected as a finalist as part of the U. S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) Rebuild by Design Competition by the design team HR&A/Cooper Robertson. This proposal shows how the impacts of climate change like flooding can be addressed through elevating critical infrastructure while expanding access to commercial hubs.
Related Organizations: U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), City of New York, New York
Resource Category: Planning
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June 2014
The New Meadowlands project was proposed as part of the post-Sandy Rebuild by Design competition and involves the integration of flood protection structures with transportation assets. The proposal includes two components: (1) “Meadowpark,”a series of green berms integrated with a large natural reserve of tidal wetlands and freshwater basins designed to provide flood protection; and (2) the “Meadowband,” a berm covered by a street designed to integrate a Bus Rapid Transit line and provide multi-modal transportation options to the region.
Related Organizations: State of New Jersey, U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD)
Resource Category: Solutions
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June 2014
The City of Sydney Australia is exploring the use of “cool pavements” (i. e. , lighter colored pavement) on roads to reduce the urban heat island effect in the city. The City is evaluating the effectiveness of cool pavements through a demonstration project in which they propose to repave 600 sq. meters of a street in Chippendale, a suburb of Sydney, with lighter colored pavements. Cool pavements are one method of reducing higher temperatures in urban environments because lighter colored pavements absorb less heat energy.
Resource Category: Solutions
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