Greening Mass Transit & Metro Regions: The Final Report - MTA

Recommendation 3: Complete a Quantitative Vulnerability and Risk Assessment
By 2012 at the latest, the MTA should have completed a thorough, quantitative vulnerability and risk assessment of the
system’s climate hazards, including the assets, facilities, operations, and income streams of the MTA operating agencies,
as well as its centralized insurance program. This assessment should include the climate vulnerability of the existing systems
and of all new capital projects in their various stages of construction or design. The vulnerability and risk assessment
should be both scenario-based for typical expected events but must also be performed probabilistically to allow estimates
of annualized losses integrated over the range of climate-event magnitudes and probabilities and over the current and
planned range of all MTA assets and operations. The assessments should be made for the current asset inventory and for
the inventory and climate conditions as projected for the 2020s and 2050s. For major system elements most vulnerable
to SLR and coastal storm surge flooding, such as tunnels, rail beds, and subways near or below sea level, additional risk
assessments beyond the 2050s to the end of this century should be produced.
Recommendation 4: Develop a Climate Change Adaptation Master Plan
By 2015, the MTA should have completed a strategic climate change adaptation master plan detailing how the MTA
envisions the transformation of its transit system to cope with the progressive demands from climate change, including
cost estimates. The master plan should take into account the results originating from Recommendations 2 and 3 (climate
database and vulnerability risk assessments, respectively) as a basis for arriving at optimal adaptation measures along
various decision paths and time horizons, projecting out at least 100 years. Though the specificity of this master plan will
decrease the further out the projections, the MTA will need some basis for fundamental decisions on long-term capital
projects. In particular, the MTA will have to make complex decisions on whether those transit systems that rely on tunnels
and rails now at or below sea level can be made resilient in their existing locations, or whether they may require a fundamental
redesign and more elevated siting. If elevations are feasible and necessary, they must be planned to account for the
continuing reach of SLR and expanding flood zones. Part of such a strategic master plan will be to decide whether or not
the New York and New Jersey harbor estuary should and can be protected by storm surge barriers, and whether such barriers
might fail under the most extreme storm conditions and eventually become ineffective and unsustainable. It should be
noted, that portions of MTA mass transit systems operating in Brooklyn, Queens, and Long Island and in Westchester
and Connecticut would not be protected by the barriers as currently conceived.
Recommendation 5: Establish a Pre-Disaster Plan for
Potential Future Sea Level Rise
Post-Disaster Redevelopment (PDP-PDR)
The Battery, NYC
By 2015, the MTA should establish a framework Pre-Disaster
3 Ft
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Plan for Post-Disaster Redevelopment (PDP-PDR), in concert
with local, state, and federal governments and with input from
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2 Ft communities and the public and private sectors. While an earlier
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completion date is desirable for a PDP-PDR internal to the MTA,
1 Ft such plans need to go far beyond the MTA’s principal mission to
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provide efficient, safe, reliable, and affordable public transporta-
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tion to the region. Apart from dealing with scientific, technical,
2000 2020 2040 2060 2080 2100 and engineering issues, basic land use, urban design, economic
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and social issues are at stake. For this reason a PDP-PDR may
have to be developed in conjunction with the regional adaptation
master plan of Recommendation 4. Again, the opportunities
Range of projected local sea level rise (SLR) for New York City as
provided in conjunction with PlaNYC and other initiatives should
optional input for precautionary planning purposes. The different
lines represent projections for various atmospheric greenhouse gas be used as far as possible. The purpose of the PDP-PDR is to
scenarios and climate models. The orange band depicts a range of transform a disaster into a one-time opportunity for collecting
optional SLR planning scenarios during this century, implying 2ft
information and realizing design and planning gains which are
SLR as a minimum scenario, and 3 ft by the end of this century as
precautionary target planning scenario.
less achievable in advance through incremental steps. Without
(Source: Modified from Jacob et al, 2007).
such institutional preparedness, the learning opportunities an
actual disaster provides can be easily squandered.
Recommendation 6: Create an Adaptation Priority Task Force (APT)
By mid-2009, the MTA should establish an Adaptation Priority Task Force (APT) that identifies unique opportunities for
adaptation measures. Some current and ongoing projects may provide unique one-time opportunities for new construction
during the operational maintenance cycle, or during the ongoing design and planning stages of capital projects to which
the MTA is currently committed. Such critical opportunities to include adaptation measures to the extent still possible
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Sea Level Rise (cm)