Our country’s seven-year streak of at least ten or more $1 billion disasters has created human suffering and a costly toll on infrastructure that has been damaged or destroyed. As infrastructure owners at the local, state, and regional levels take stock and respond to this continuing threat, there is growing recognition that our investments need to address these challenges.

While indicators abound, the sizeable holes in state and local budgets driven by expensive emergency repairs are leading to a wholesale shift in infrastructure planning.

Owners now recognize that the best way to secure a positive return on investment is to address both resilience and sustainability in the project planning stages." Mathew Mampara and Antoinette Quagliata

By considering both aspects up front, owners can work with planners and designers to deliver infrastructure projects successfully while moderating the consequences of material choices and energy needs. Such an approach creates efficiencies by addressing a project’s ability to resist climate stressors while considering building, structure, and energy consumption performance.

Opportunities at the Community and State Levels

We have supported efforts to address climate resilience at the community, state, and federal levels. Through our contributions to innovative initiatives such as the New York City Climate Resiliency Design Guidelines, we have seen firsthand the positive return on investment by integrating future climate loads into infrastructure design. This type of effort offers useful guidance for the opportunities available as part of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL), which will support programs that strengthen our nation’s sustainability and resilience, particularly through infrastructure. We are seeing these efforts at all levels of government. One example of available funding is a U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) program called Promoting Resilient Operations for Transformative, Efficient and Cost-Saving Transportation (PROTECT). This program allocates $7.3 billion in formula funding and $1.4 billion in competitive grants to states to support planning, resilience improvements, community resilience, evacuation routes, and at-risk coastal infrastructure.

The Transportation Sector is Leading the Way

The transportation sector, in particular, has been forward-focused in its approach to addressing resilience and sustainability. Transportation owners are considering tools such as policy communications, asset management, vulnerability assessments, and design guidance to deliver the optimal level of service over the life of a project. In addition to the renewed focus on resilience measures, many transportation projects are incorporating sustainability principles throughout design, influencing choices on siting, building materials, construction practices, stakeholder engagement, and energy considerations to help with a project’s return on investment.

Projects such as the Lake/Orange Expressway (SR 516) for the Central Florida Expressway Authority (CFX) and the 495NEXT for the Virginia Department of Transportation are being designed for third-party verification by Envision®, a rating system developed by the Institute for Sustainable Infrastructure (ISI). This rating system considers several sustainability criteria such as community impact, resource allocation, natural world implications, and climate and risk factors.

We are helping CFX pursue Envision verification for a proposed limited access toll road that involves powering some of the infrastructure with solar arrays, implementing an in-road electric vehicle charging pilot project, constructing a pedestrian trail, eliminating traffic signals through the implementation of free-flow interchanges, and instituting a xeriscape landscaping program. Our design-build team for the 495NEXT project is leading the Envision effort to incorporate sustainable, resilient, and equitable solutions, which include reducing the number of stormwater management facilities from 19 to three, revising the design to reduce both environmental and right-of-way impacts, and providing more onsite treatment than the original design.

On the resilience side, many DOTs are interested in integrating climate change into their design efforts but have struggled to understand how to proceed. To address this gap, our team led an effort for the Transportation Research Board (TRB) to pilot a design practices guide that DOT engineers can apply to account for climate change for both coastal and inland infrastructure design. The research has yielded valuable insight and effective practices that, working with the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO), will advance agency efforts to address climate change.