better equipped to withstand physical, environmental and property damage and can limit human casualties and the social ramifications of extreme events. These facilities are physically more robust, and therefore better positioned to recover from events.
While organizations such as the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) and the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) have developed standards to safeguard against natural events (including wind, seismic, stream current, thermal, ice flow and scour), the State should revisit how it applies these standards in light of severe events. The lead organizations for establishing and revising national standards – AASHTO, ASCE – should continue to be at the forefront of engineering practice, informed by empirical data provided by research organizations, such as the National Science Foundation.47
Technology in the form of infrared cameras, thermocouples, weather monitors, and other
“smart” instrumentation can also be used to better understand the impacts of severe events by assessing the structural integrity and behavior of specific transportation facilities during events and inform design guidelines going forward.48
Guidelines for resilient infrastructure should:
• Be clear and consistent across agencies and regions.
• Incorporate State-endorsed climate predictions.
• Be risk-oriented, based on probabilistic climate change projections.
• Include requirements for life-cycle costing and return on investment.
• Be considered by all agencies for use in the development and design of capital projects.
Key to the development of any resilient infrastructure guidelines is input from
the design and engineering community.
Practitioners should play a significant role in developing new design philosophies and guidelines that will strengthen and protect transportation assets and ensure the long-term viability of the State’s transportation network in both emergency and everyday conditions.
Improve long-term planning and funding allocation
Planning is a major part of capital improvement, prioritization, financing, operations and maintenance. A recent study found that, nationally, improvements in planning policy are needed in accessing and incorporating climate data and projections into existing scenario planning and decision-making processes, assessing risk, prioritizing investments, and assessing the range of potential options to build resilience.49
States are required to develop transportation plans in order to be eligible for Federal highway and transit funding. It is through these plans that state transportation agencies prioritize projects and identify which to fund using Federal monies. The current planning process, however, does not require consideration beyond a 20-year time horizon.50
By incorporating longer-term climate change effects into visioning and scenario planning processes that inform their long-range plans, transportation agencies and planning organizations will be better placed to address the range of potential climate futures and resulting implications.
New York State should work with its regional planning partners to ensure that resilience to climate change impacts and extreme weather is considered in all capital funding programs. This process will help direct limited Federal funds to projects that minimize vulnerabilities to the State’s transportation system.
The planning process should guide decisions about rebuilding efforts, future investment plans, and the hardening and upgrade of infrastructure. The plans should also be linked to the State’s lifeline network to ensure that funding for upgrades to Lifeline Facility Class 1 and Class 2 infrastructure are prioritized.
Improve interagency and interstate planning coordination
Creating resilience within the State’s transportation system requires knowledge that crosses disciplines and policies that cross jurisdictions. Responsibility for the State’s transportation infrastructure is shared, with no one institution in charge.
Some institutions report to the Governor, others to mayors, and some to the President.
Further, parts of the transportation system are operated privately. Since the system is networked and integrated, delays and failures in one area can affect component parts.
The ability to respond to change – climatic or otherwise – depends on the regulatory context, organizational capacity, and decision-making authority of the organizations involved. In dealing with new challenges, institutions can benefit from practical, continuing education and regular training to nimbly evaluate and respond to changing conditions, adjust procedures, and adopt best practices.
New York, New Jersey and Connecticut benefit from one of the world’s largest metropolitan economies, and rely upon shared transportation infrastructure.
Superstorm Sandy revealed how integrated and fragile this economy is. The three states can build on existing efforts to improve coordination among the five Metropolitan Planning Organizations (MPOs) in the metropolitan tri-state area. These MPOs are Federally-mandated, cooperative agencies that plan and coordinate transportation investment decisions within their respective jurisdictions. The New York Metropolitan
Planning for sea-level rise in California (California, United States) The California Department of Transportation recently issued guidance to its staff state-endorsed projections could be developed for NYSDOT as well as local transportation agencies and authorities.
Transportation Council (NYMTC) is the MPO for New York City, Long Island, and the lower Hudson Valley. NYMTC along with the North Jersey Transportation Planning Authority (NJTPA), the South Western Region Metropolitan Planning Organization (SWRMPO), the Greater Bridgeport/Valley MPO (GB/VMPO), and the Housatonic Valley Council of Elected Officials (HVCEO) have signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) that commits the five MPOs to increased coordination in their planning and programming. This can provide a ready foundation for the creation of a tri-state, interagency working group that can add a stronger focus on resiliency and adaptation within the transportation sector.
The transportation sector has some models for cross-jurisdictional arrangements, such as regional authorities for specific facilities (e.g., the Alameda Corridor in California).
Regional and multistate emergency response operations that include transportation are beginning to emerge in the wake of other disasters. These could serve as the nucleus for multistate regional agreements to address other issues, such as the impacts of climate change. State-mandated regional coordination for addressing air quality issues provides another model.52
Interstate and interagency coordination should consider the following opportunities:
• Develop ways of sharing best practices across the tri-state area for
climate change adaptation. A repository for local and state research and best practice solutions could be catalogued and disseminated to all agencies and jurisdictions.53
• Create a tri-state risk assessment framework to assess potential impacts of climate change on transportation infrastructure and prioritize resiliency investments. State and local governments and private infrastructure providers could adopt an approach similar to California’s seismic retrofit program for bridges for identifying and screening critical infrastructure relative to projected climate changes. Key to adopting such an approach is establishing a performance standard for a particular facility that reflects a tolerable level of risk, along with a screening process that takes into consideration such factors as the degree of risk, the vulnerability of the facility, and how essential the facility is to the system so priorities for rehabilitation or retrofit can be determined. Risk assessment tools and adaptive management approaches, will facilitate the planning process.54
• Continue to foster partnerships that could involve closer collaboration between transportation agencies and other entities, including private operators and emergency responders.
Transportation agencies and service providers should work closely with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Transportation Management Centers (United States)
Improving the efficiency of the existing highway network involves the application of technologies, such as ITS, and control strategies, transit signal priority, variable message signs, and incident management. In many large metropolitan areas, these developments have been accompanied by the establishment of regional transportation management centers (TMCs), which act as nerve centers for monitoring traffic, providing rapid police response, multi-agency/multi-modal operational coordination, and travel advisories. New York State currently has several TMCs.
Many TMCs are manned by staff from multiple agencies and jurisdictions working as a team. An example of this is the Houston TranStar TMC, which is a consortium of transportation and emergency management agencies in the greater Houston area, housing engineers, law enforcement personnel, information technology specialists, and emergency managers. In addition to traffic and incident monitoring, emergency management personnel monitor potential emergencies due to severe weather to provide the public with real-time information.55
Effective communication of transportation updates across the largest metropolitan area in the nation involves an extraordinary degree of coordination among dozens of independent agencies. During natural disasters such as Hurricane Irene and Superstorm Sandy, the need for accurate information across agency lines
The United States Department of Transportation (USDOT) has stated that TRANSCOM is a national model “which has adhered to the principles of regional
Administration (NOAA) and emergency response planners to convey their own lead-time requirements so they can provide the personnel and equipment necessary for evacuation and protect their own assets. Other relevant partnerships could include private transportation operators (such as NY Waterway) as well as university climate scientists and local and regional transportation and land use planners.
• Coordinate to pursue new funding streams for regional transportation services which connect multiple jurisdictions and systems. Regional consortia in downstate New York/
southwestern Connecticut and in northern New Jersey have recently been created to secure Federal Sustainable Community grants, thereby enhancing the competitive position of these regions and spurring new planning efforts.
Seek expedited federal and state environmental review and permitting on major mitigation/repair investments All major Federal actions, including projects financed and/or permitted by Federal agencies, must comply with the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and environmental review requirements.56 Similarly, state agencies are typically bound by the State Environmental Quality Review Act (SEQRA), which has similar requirements. While some emergency relief projects are categorically excluded from Federal and/or state environmental review requirements (and can proceed quickly, with less expense), this exclusion does not always apply if a project is rebuilt to extend beyond the pre-disaster footprint of the asset. Furthermore, this exclusion does not automatically apply to projects aimed at improving or enhancing future resilience.
This is of particular importance given the time delays that are often associated with permits and other approvals that are part of
this process. Figure T-32: PANYNJ Emergency Operations Center. (PANYNJ, 2012)
Improving performance of Federal permitting and review of infrastructure projects
Recognizing the need to improve efficiency and effectiveness of the Federal permitting process, the Obama Administration has taken a number of steps to make environmental review under the NEPA process more efficient. On October 11, 2011, the Administration announced the selection of 14 infrastructure projects around the country that would be expedited through the permitting and environmental review process. Among these projects was the Tappan Zee Bridge.57
Several months later, on March 22, 2012, President Obama signed an Executive Order on Improving Performance of Federal Permitting and Review of Infrastructure Projects. Citing the need to have a “fast, reliable, resilient, and environmentally sound means of moving people, goods, energy, and information” as the basis for maintaining a competitive edge and an enduring economy, the Order calls for Federal agencies to move infrastructure permitting “with maximum efficiency and effectiveness.”58 In particular, the Order notes the need for clear timelines and schedules for completion of reviews, clear goals, and tracking of progress against them.
Three more projects with direct benefit for New York State are now moving through this expedited process, and status and results can be easily seen on the Federal Infrastructure Dashboard that was launched as part of the overall initiative as a means for increasing transparency and tracking progress. Still in its pilot phase, ultimately the dashboard will also highlight best practices in making Federal permitting and review decisions more efficient.
California seismic retrofit program for bridges (California, United States)
Large-scale planning and coordination benefits from a clear framework for making decisions. Following the Loma Prieta earthquake in 1989, the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) had to evaluate and prioritize its inventory of about 25,000 state and local highway structures throughout the State for seismic retrofit. Due to the large number of bridges, a simple prioritization methodology was devised to identify and rank the most seismically vulnerable bridges in the State so that available resources could be used in the most efficient manner possible.
The process began with establishing a required performance standard. For most bridges, the minimum standard was “no collapse”
during a major seismic event to prevent loss of life. Some damage was acceptable provided that the structure itself remained intact and could be reopened for service soon after the event.
A risk algorithm was developed for screening non-toll bridges, based on four major evaluation criteria: seismic activity, seismic hazard, impact, and vulnerability. The score on each criterion was multiplied by a weighting factor and summed with those on the other criteria to arrive at a final score.
All 12,600 state highway bridges were processed using this screening procedure and prioritized by score. Additional screening was required for 7,000 bridges that failed to meet the minimum performance standard.
A second screening was used to determine whether the bridge was in the program or retrofit could be deferred. A final in-depth field inspection was then performed, through which some bridges were found to meet the “no collapse” requirement and removed from the list. A similar procedure was followed for the 12,400 local roadway bridges, resulting in 4,500 structures that required further evaluation and analysis.
Since the program was initiated, 2,194 bridges on the state highway system have been retrofit at a cost of $3 billion. The program is considered 99 percent complete.
For New York, a clear decision framework could allow the evaluation and prioritization of statewide infrastructure repair and retrofit projects, whether preventative and reactive to a storm or other incident.
While it is important to recognize the value of Federal and state oversight, as well as stakeholder input during these reviews, the Commission recommends modifying processes and procedures so that projects can advance as quickly as possible in order to create resilience within an expedited timeframe. The Obama Administration has recently instituted a process aimed at streamlining projects of national or regional significance. The same focus should be applied to rebuilding vital infrastructure and for major mitigation projects related to key transportation facilities.
The State should work with FEMA, the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), Federal Transit Administration (FTA), Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) and other Federal agencies to explore mechanisms to expedite review public asset reconstruction after a disaster. Recently, the
• Emergency exemptions should be clearly defined in applicable Federal and state regulations. Where such definitions do not exist currently, they should be developed; where they do exist, they should be reviewed for clarity and consistency across all regulations and related agencies.
• Develop a single regulatory and approval process for the FTA, FHWA and other Federal transportation agencies for use on multi-modal projects. A single process could expedite such projects that accommodate multiple transportation options to the benefit multiple user groups.
• Develop and implement methods for expediting projects under SEQRA review, similar to the federal process for expediting projects under NEPA review.
FHWA solicited comments on amending the agency’s categorical exclusion for emergency repairs, specifically on whether FHWA should extend the categorical exclusion to include “construction of engineering and design changes to a damaged facility to deal with future severe events and sea level rise.”59 Other potential changes to the review process include:
• Expanding the categorical exclusion list to include more transit projects and the rehabilitation of transit stations and other facilities that do not require additional property.60 Categorical exclusions are projects that, based on past experience, do not individually or cumulatively have significant environmental impacts.
These projects require neither an environmental assessment (EA) nor an environmental impact statement (EIS) and should move ahead more quickly.
Endnotes
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2. Newman, Andy. Flash Floods Strand Cars in Queens. August 1, 2012. http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/08/01/flash-floods-strand-cars-in-queens/ (accessed December 12, 2012).
3. Metropolitan Transportation Commission. Regional Transportation Emergency and Security Planning Report. San Francisco: Metropolitan Transportation Commission, 2008.
4. United States Department of Energy. Frequently Asked Questions about the Buy American Provisions. 2012. http://www1.eere.energy.
gov/recovery/buy_american_faq.html (accessed December 11, 2012).
5. United States Department of Transportation. Buy America Overview. 2012. http://www.dot.gov/highlights/buyamerica (accessed December 12, 2012).
6. United States Department of Transportation. Buy America Overview. 2012. http://www.dot.gov/highlights/buyamerica (accessed December 12, 2012).
7. United States Department of Energy. Buy American Provision. 2012. http://www1.eere.energy.gov/recovery/buy_american_provision.
html (accessed December 12, 2012).
8. Metropolitan Transportation Authority. Built in New York: The Economic Impact of MTA Capital Program Investment on New York State. New York: Metropolitan Transportation Authority, 2011.
9. Kaufman, Sarah, Carson Qing, Nolan Levenson, and Melinda Hanson. Transportation During and After Hurricane Sandy. New York:
NYU Rudin Center for Transportation , 2012.
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12. Kaufman, Sarah, Carson Qing, Nolan Levenson, and Melinda Hanson. Transportation During and After Hurricane Sandy. New York:
NYU Rudin Center for Transportation , 2012.
13. Foye, Patrick. U.S. Senate Subcommittee on Surface Transportation and Merchant Marine Infrastructure (Hearing) (December 6, 2012).
14. Foye, Patrick. U.S. Senate Subcommittee on Surface Transportation and Merchant Marine Infrastructure (Hearing) (December 6, 2012).
15. Foye, Patrick. U.S. Senate Subcommittee on Surface Transportation and Merchant Marine Infrastructure (Hearing) (December 6, 2012).
16. New York State Department of Transportation. “Livingston Avenue Bridge - Existing Conditions.” www.dot.ny.gov. 2012. https://www.
dot.ny.gov/livingstonavebridge/conditions (accessed December 20, 2012).
17. Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. 2012. panynj.gov/port/regional-economic-benefits.html (accessed December 13, 2012).
18. Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. 2012. panynj.gov/port/trade-stats.html (accessed December 13, 2012).
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greatlakes-seaway.com/en/seaway/facts/eco_impact.html (accessed December 13, 2012).
20. Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. “Port Authority of New York and New Jersey Air Traffic Report.” Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. 2012. http://www.panynj.gov/airports/pdf-traffic/ATR2011.pdf (accessed December 19, 2012).
21. Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. “Port Authority of New York and New Jersey Air Traffic Report.” Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. 2012. http://www.panynj.gov/airports/pdf-traffic/ATR2011.pdf (accessed December 19, 2012).
22. Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. “Port Authority of New York and New Jersey Air Traffic Report.” Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. 2012. http://www.panynj.gov/airports/pdf-traffic/ATR2011.pdf (accessed December 19, 2012).
23. United States Census. Quickfacts. 2012. http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/36000.html (accessed December 12, 2012).
24. Carrigy, Michael. Public Transit in New York: The Past and Future of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. Hempstead: Hofstra University, Department of Global Studies & Geography, 2010.
25. Metropolitan Transportation Authority. Subway and Bus Ridership. 2012. http://www.mta.info/nyct/facts/ridership/index.htm (accessed December 19, 2012).
26. Metropolitan Transportation Authority. The MTA Network. 2012. http://www.mta.info/mta/network.htm (accessed 12 19, 2012).
27. Carrigy, Michael. Public Transit in New York: The Past and Future of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. Hempstead: Hofstra University, Department of Global Studies & Geography, 2010.
28. City-Data Forum. Metropolitan Area (MSA) Populations from 1970-2010. February 09, 2011.
28. City-Data Forum. Metropolitan Area (MSA) Populations from 1970-2010. February 09, 2011.