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CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION AND RESEARCH APPROACH INTRODUCTION Understanding the environmental consequences of trans- portation investment decisions has been a concern of trans- portation decision-makers for many decades. Although before 1970 many transportation plans performed a cursory examination of the likely community and environmental impacts of proposed system investment, it was not until the 1969 National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and its application to all types of federally funded projects that envi- ronmental analysis and assessment became an important component of transportation planning and project develop- ment. Initially, the major effect of NEPA occurred in project development where environmental assessments or environ- mental impact statements were conducted to determine the significance of potential environmental impacts and to identify strategies to mitigate these effects. In response to a growing societal awareness of environmental quality and numerous federal and state laws concerning the considera- tion of various environmental impacts, state and metro- politan transportation plans began to include âenvironmental impactâ as an important part of evaluation. Other studies, such as alternatives analysis, major investment studies, and corridor studies, also examined the probable environmental impacts of proposed transportation alternatives. However, identifying project-specific environmental problems or so-called âfatal flawsâ usually did not occur until a project had entered project development, usually many years after the project had first been considered. National experience has shown that waiting until the project development stage of transportation decision-making to deal with environmental issues that might have been resolved ear- lier (for example, during systems planning) can result in sig- nificant delays in project completion. In addition, identifying, defining, and prioritizing projects that occur in transportation planning and programming might have had different (and bet- ter) results if more information on likely effects had been available earlier. An important question thus becomes, is there some way of considering environmental issues earlier in sys- tems planning that will help to reduce project development time later on and lead to better projects? This report presents an approach for integrating environ- mental factors in systems-level transportation decision-making, at the state, regional, and metropolitan levels. The approach 8 was based on a comprehensive assessment of state- and metro- politan-level practices for addressing the environment in trans- portation planning. To facilitate the implementation of research findings, the approach is compatible with existing planning techniques, procedures, and institutional arrangements. How- ever, the approach is flexible enough to take advantage of changes in planning regulations, institutional relationships, and emerging technologies that will help make transportation agen- cies better stewards of the environment. RESEARCH OBJECTIVE AND APPROACH The objective of this research was to develop an approach, including procedures and methods, for integrating environ- mental factors in transportation systems planning and deci- sion making at the statewide, regional, and metropolitan levels. The research consisted of the following tasks: 1. A review of recent and ongoing research and literature concerning the consideration of environmental factors in transportation and other infrastructure systems plan- ning, highlighting innovative procedures and methods and reporting on their effectiveness in improving trans- portation decision-making. 2. A survey of procedures and methods used in state DOTs, metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs) and environmental regulatory agencies, for considera- tion of environmental implications of systems-level plans and decisions. 3. A review of federal and state policies, regulations, and guidelines that can be expected to affect the considera- tion of environmental factors in transportation systems planning and decision making. 4. A set of case studies that synthesize current, successful state and metropolitan planning, including procedures, methods, and institutional arrangements for integrating environmental concerns into transportation planning. 5. The development of planning that provides a broadly applicable framework for assessing, evaluating, and integrating environmental concerns within transporta- tion systems plans and decisions. 6. A demonstration of how environmental stewardship can be incorporated throughout transportation planning.
Several important concepts serve as the foundation for the research plan that guided this project. These concepts merit attention here because they provide the basis for the specific tasks and the corresponding research approaches undertaken during the research. The trend in environmental assessment in most fields has been toward a broader âsystemsâ perspective. Although this research project is one of the first to examine a systems-level consideration of environmental factors in transportation, others have examined the concept of taking a systems perspective on the interaction between the natural and built environment. In many ways, the concepts of sus- tainable development and sustainable cities (discussed in Chapter 2) reflect the idea of considering environmental fac- tors earlier in planning and decision-making. The important connection between the ecosystem and human activity has been recognized for a long time by biologists and ecolo- gists and has found its way into professional practice in many environmental disciplines, and there is much the trans- portation profession can learn by looking at these other disciplines. The definition of affected areas within individual envi- ronmental impact categories and, therefore, the bound- aries of analysis, have been broadening. Some environ- mental impacts have been viewed from a systems, or regional, perspective. A good example of this is air quality, which has received considerable attention with regard to the regional application of processes and tools. Other impact categories have been evolving along similar lines. Water quality and water resource planning, for example, have been expanding the boundaries of analysis to include entire watersheds. Wildlife and natural habitat analysis now encompasses entire ecosystems. Environmental justice considerations are being viewed as more than neighborhood-specific effects; pro- grammatic effects on entire populations are part of the analy- sis. Therefore, effective environmental assessment of specific environmental impacts requires a much broader analysis per- spective, and a strong linkage to systems-level planning. Consideration of environmental factors in transporta- tion systems planning must be more than a glorified âfatal flawâ analysis. Historically, environmental factors have been incorporated into planning and project develop- ment decisions as potential problems that need to be identified and mitigated. This is primarily because of the engineering approach of reducing the scale of analysis to such a level that the âenvironmentâ was simply a conse- quence of facility development. The real challenge, and one that is likely to characterize infrastructure decision-making even more in the future, is to consider how the environment can be enhanced by infrastructure decisions, rather than how we mitigate negative environmental impacts. How do we build with the natural environment instead of through it? How do we make sure infrastructure investments improve the quality of life of all groups of society? Driven by such a concept, transportation agencies become stewards of 9 environmental resources, and engineering decisions become an important means of enhancing the environment. Transportation systems planning is an important input into the investment and operations decisions that strongly influence transportation system performance. Linking environmental considerations to transportation sys- tems depends on determining what is transportation systems planning. Systems planning consists of many steps, all of which can be viewed as potential opportunities for integrat- ing environmental considerations. As will be discussed later in this report, systems planning ranges from the initial defi- nition of a community vision to the actual monitoring of the performance of the projects that have been implemented. The view adopted in this research is that the primary purpose of systems planning is to provide the information necessary and needed by decision makers to make choices about investment in the transportation system. This information not only relates to expected changes in transportation system perfor- mance resulting from that investment, but also to other types of expected effects on the natural and built environment. In a society increasingly sensitive to environmental quality and community quality of life, this information must include an understanding of environmental consequences. Some aspects of current environmental analysis should be moved earlier into the planning process. Much of the experience with connecting (rather than integrating) envi- ronmental analysis and transportation planning has led to repetition and seeming redundancies in the process. System plans that considered environmental issues were followed by corridor studies that considered the same issues. Eventual project-level analyses also considered these same issues, because they were required to do so by regulation. In many cases, this redundancy was appropriate because of the need to analyze environmental impacts at different scales of analy- sis. At other times, however, the repetition seemed unneces- sary. A possible example of this is the determination of âpurpose and needâ for environmental analyses. This step could be undertaken at the systems planning level and car- ried through the entire process (with appropriate safeguards to make sure that such determination remains valid over the lifetime of the systems plan). This research project looked for similar opportunities where integration, rather than simple connection, could occur. Advances and enhancements in the technology of analy- sis and planning have made the consideration of environ- mental factors earlier in systems planning more feasible and the results easier to understand. The decade of greatest environmental awareness and community activism was arguably the 1970s. Following the passage of NEPA in 1969, numerous government agencies and universities set about developing the methods and tools that would be used to ana- lyze and evaluate the environmental impacts of infrastructure development. Because the focus of NEPA was on specific proj- ects, many of these methods were developed for application at the micro scale, where clear connections and relationships
between a transportation project and its surrounding environs could be established. Very little effort was made to examine a much broader application of environmental analysis to a region or a substantial portion of a region, except in the case of air quality analysis where it was obvious that a valid exam- ination of the problem required a scale of analysis at least at the level of an air basin (except for carbon monoxide). Two major problems led to such a limited experience with methods and tools applied at this level of analysis. First, the science was not yet fully developed for many environmental topics that could direct the development of valid models or tech- niques. Second, power of the computer, although developing rapidly, had not yet reached a level where reasonably priced and timed analyses of regionwide effects could be con- ducted. In both cases, significant advancements have been made. In particular, the level of sophistication of analysis tools has been increased dramatically with the introduction of geographic information systems (GIS), monitoring of changing environmental characteristics through satellite imagery and global positioning systems (GPS), and creation of powerful new simulation models that can replicate the physical phenomena associated with changing physical conditions. The evolution of agency relationships and the resulting organizational mindsets have created significant institu- tional barriers to promoting a closer integration of envi- ronmental factors and transportation planning. In most cases, concern for environmental quality rests with agencies and organizations whose major mission is to minimize harm to the natural and built environment. The history of trans- portation and environmental agency interaction in project development efforts has often included strong conflict over the intent and substance of environmental regulations. Even within state transportation agencies, environmental units are often at odds with the more traditional highway engineering groups with respect to the level of consideration that should be given to environmental factors in project development. Any effort to better link environmental factors to system planning probably will have to consider how institutional barriers to such an effort can be surmounted. ORGANIZATION OF THE REPORT The remainder of this report is organized as follows. Chap- ter 2 discusses the evolutionary context and key characteris- tics of environmental stewardship in transportation planning. This was achieved by examining important bodies of litera- ture, identifying ongoing research on similar topics, and reviewing federal and state legislation, policies, and regula- tions as they relate to how environmental considerations have 10 been or should be considered in systems planning. Special attention was given to literature created outside the United States, especially from Europe, where incorporating environ- mental considerations earlier in decision making has been developed to a much greater extent than in the United States. Appendix A presents guidelines on environmental assess- ments undertaken in Europe. Appendix B lists many of the state laws and policies that influence how transportation agen- cies approach environmental assessment. Both Appendix A and B are contained in NCHRP Web-Only Document 77. Chapter 2 also reports on the results of a national survey of state DOTs, MPOs, and state environmental agencies. This survey was an important point of departure for this research because it provided a snapshot in time of how states and metropolitan areas are viewing environmental factors in the context of transportation systems planning. In addition, the results of the survey were used to identify potential case studies of where the linkage between the environment and transportation investment was considered effectively in sys- tems planning. The survey instruments used for this research are found in Appendix C, contained in NCHRP Web-Only Document 77. Chapter 3 discusses how environmental factors can be integrated more deeply throughout transportation systems planning and project development. In particular, this chapter suggests where such factors can be considered early in the process and highlights case study strategies for doing so. Because systems planning is defined very differently for state-level transportation planning versus metropolitan-level planning, the chapter presents the research results targeted at both implementation environments. Case studies of both state and metropolitan transportation planning and decision making are used to illustrate how current best practice inte- grates environmental considerations into transportation sys- tems planning. Chapter 4 discusses emerging analysis methods and tools for integrating environmental considerations into transporta- tion systems planning. This chapter takes advantage of con- current NCHRP research that looked at different tools and techniques for environmental analysis, as well as reports on the activities of states and MPOs developing their own tools. As might be expected, the tools and methods appropriate for different parts of systems planning very much relate to data availability, agency modeling expertise, the importance of a particular environmental issue to the decision makers in a particular agency, and the level of guidance provided by fed- eral agencies or through professional organizations. Chapter 5 synthesizes the research results and presents overall conclusions. The institutional strategies used to fos- ter change in transportation agencies are emphasized. This final chapter also identifies future research directions.
