addressing climate change adaptation in regional transportation plans

Addressing Climate Change Adaptation in Regional Transportation PlansA Guide for California MPOs and RTPAsclimate hazards is a consideration of the potential consequences of damage,deterioration, or disruption. The data agencies can employ to develop a measureof possible consequences is often fundamental to the identification of criticalassets as well. For instance, the volume of freight moved via a particular assetcould be used to distinguish the most critical elements of the system, but alsoserve as one potential measure of consequence should the asset be renderedunusable. Data within this broad category might include impacts on:Mobility and Accessibility. Considers trips, ridership, and/or volumes,along with freight movement, as well as the ability to reach criticaldestinations (such as jobs/employment or emergency facilities). Data on thedistribution of impacts on special populations – such as transit dependent oreconomically disadvantaged communities – can be used to provide a moregranular picture of consequences.Economy. Considers the direct costs of restoring service with the potentialfor revenue losses from tolls and fares. Agencies may also include broadereconomic repercussions – such as jobs affected, lost work days, or losses inoverall economic activity – if there is a basis for estimating them.Safety and Public Health. Considers potential health and life safety impactsto system users, agency employees, or the broader public. This data may alsoincorporate evacuation routes or emergency detours.Environment. Considers the impacts to mitigation sites and natural systemsas a result of system failures.Reputation. Considers the loss of confidence by system users, businesses,and elected officials.Redundancy. While not a consequence itself, data on redundancies helpsdetermine how important a specific asset is on a system level. Redundancyconsiders the availability and capacity of alternative routes between originsand destinations, both within and across modes.Assembling a Set of Assets in a GeodatabaseAs an aid to regional asset inventory efforts, MPOs and RTPAs may want to goto the Caltrans GIS Data Library to assemble a set of assets in a geodatabase toconduct spatially explicit assessments of critical transportation infrastructure thatmay be vulnerable to the effects of climate change. This is a foundational dataset comprised of state and federal GIS files with key databases joined to spatialfeatures. An example of such a geodatabase is shown in Figure 9.3.Cambridge Systematics, Inc. 9-9