addressing climate change adaptation in regional transportation plans

Addressing Climate Change Adaptation in Regional Transportation PlansA Guide for California MPOs and RTPAscomplementary drainage, utility, and communications infrastructure. Save forthe most constrained assessments, many of these components might be omittedfrom the inventory – especially if expertise to evaluate a given component’svulnerability is not obtainable – but this should be a carefully considereddecision.Non Transportation AssetsA robust assessment of climate change vulnerability and risk in thetransportation sector is a substantial undertaking, both in terms of the time,resources, and technical capacity required. In some cases, it may make sense toinvolve non transportation partners in the process or even as an agency coleader.Bringing in additional, even multiple, sectors can help distribute theresource burden and better leverage the accompanying climate data to providemore value at (potentially) marginal additional cost. Possible non transportationsectors might include the natural environment, the built environment,agriculture, energy, utilities, stormwater/wastewater, emergency management,and economic development, among others.As noted subsequently (“Conduct Criticality Assessment”), non transportationdata is often crucial to developing a full understanding of the importance oftransportation infrastructure. Access to jobs, for example, might be offundamental importance to a region (or parks, fresh food, hospitals, and a host ofother regional destinations). Depending on the priorities of the regionconducting the assessment, a host of non transportation data might be relevant –and therefore a priority to collect.High-Level Criticality ScreeningAs mentioned previously, the more infrastructure and asset types included in theinventory, the greater the effort required for subsequent vulnerability, riskassessment, and adaptation tasks. Even for assessment efforts endowed withsubstantial time and resources, it is generally wise to remove some types ofassets from consideration in order to ensure that adequate emphasis is placed ona constrained group of assets. Approaches to choosing a manageable selection ofassets for inventorying are multifold, but potential methods might include:Select “core” assets. Especially for studies performed in conjunction with aregional or local modal agency (such as a toll road authority or transitagency), choose only assets directly under the ownership or control of the cosponsor.For agencies with a wider range of assets, such as roadwayauthorities, “core” assets may mean those which carry significantly greatervolumes of drivers or passengers, or assets of higher functionalclassifications. For multimodal studies, this might require selection of onlythe top one or two tiers of assets for each mode (e.g., Class 1 freight rail,principal arterials, commercial airports with greater than 50,000enplanements, etc.).Cambridge Systematics, Inc. 9-5