Strategic Issues Facing Transportation, Volume 4: Sustainability as an Organizing Principle for Transportation Agencies (2014) / Chapter Skim
Currently Skimming:
Pages 1-22
The Chapter Skim interface presents what we've algorithmically identified as the most significant single chunk of text within every page in the chapter.
Select key terms on the right to highlight them within pages of the chapter.
From page 1... ...
1 Research Approach Overview The research for National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP) Project 20-83(7)
|
From page 2... ...
2 Sustainability as an Organizing Principle for Transportation Agencies Anticipating that audiences will include industry practitioners of various levels and disciplines, as well as academic researchers, the research was guided by the intent to support all of the findings, opinions, theory, logic, and case experience to the fullest practical extent in the report -- so that all audiences may find the explanations and sources they need for the material to be useful. This research is not intended to advocate or to predict that sustainability will become a viable overarching organizing principle for transportation.
|
From page 3... ...
Sustainability as an Organizing Principle for Transportation Agencies 3 • TBL is an integrated rather than a stand-alone concept: TBL is not exclusive to any one policy area or system. Given the integrated nature of transportation with the rest of human activity, it is difficult to view the transportation system in isolation.
|
From page 4... ...
4 Sustainability as an Organizing Principle for Transportation Agencies resources -- and transportation consumes about a quarter of all the energy used in the United States. • Social well-being depends heavily on accessible and efficient transportation services; however, extensive fixed infrastructure and operations that intrude on quality of community life strongly affect social well-being.
|
From page 5... ...
Sustainability as an Organizing Principle for Transportation Agencies 5 adopt new policy frames that reframe the issue of transportation within a sustainability context and reach consensus with the public and specific policy actors within the process. Policy systems have evolved in this way for generations.
|
From page 6... ...
6 Sustainability as an Organizing Principle for Transportation Agencies Focus of Sustainability Initiatives A b il it y to S u p p or t a S u st ai n ab le S oc ie ty Compliance/Short-term Focus Sustainability/Long-term Focus Fo cu s on H ig h w ay T ra n sp or ta ti on O n ly Fo cu s on S oc ie ta l S u st ai n ab il it y LEVEL 0 – SAFE MOBILITY • Supports societal mobility & safety • Favors government ownership & control of the transportation infrastructure • Transportation agency: infrastructure owner-manager and regulator LEVEL 1 COMPLIANT TRANSPORTATION • Supports societal mobility & safety • Compliance with environmental, economic, and social legislative requirements • Transportation agency: infrastructure owner-manager & and regulator • Top-down planning LEVEL 2 - GREEN TRANSPORTATION • Supports societal mobility, safety, environmental, economic, and social needs -Emphasizes Environment • Transportation agency: infrastructure owner-manager and regulator LEVEL 3 SUSTAINABLE TRANSPORTATION • Supports sustainable transportation • Risk-sharing between public and private sector • Infrastructure integrator (some owner-operator & some private) • Regulator LEVEL 4 - TBL SUSTAINABILITY • Supports societal sustainability • Broad agency decision-making partnerships • Risk-sharing between public and private sector • Infrastructure Integrator (some owner, some owner-operator, and some private)
|
From page 7... ...
Sustainability as an Organizing Principle for Transportation Agencies 7 of tradeoffs and decisions, information to be processed, geography, and cross-sector and multimodal issues and strategies will ultimately drive the basic institutional, commercial, and government structures and relationships that make best sense at the time. Key Research Findings For this project, the research team performed an extensive literature review and interviewed subject matter experts (SMEs)
|
From page 8... ...
8 Sustainability as an Organizing Principle for Transportation Agencies The literature review aligned with the interview findings overall and added best practice information. Information from the review and interviews on specific subject areas and on transportation agency initiatives is provided in Appendix D
|
From page 9... ...
Sustainability as an Organizing Principle for Transportation Agencies 9 government. It was noted in interviews and from the literature review that unless state DOTs improve coordination of land use issues with local governments, there would be little hope of improving the sustainability of state transportation initiatives.
|
From page 10... ...
10 Sustainability as an Organizing Principle for Transportation Agencies in coordinated land use planning. This leads to better integration of transportation planning with societal needs, including opportunities for recreation and social interaction, and accessibility for children and the poor.
|
From page 11... ...
Sustainability as an Organizing Principle for Transportation Agencies 11 The current policy system is far from able to support a TBL sustainable society.
|
From page 12... ...
12 Sustainability as an Organizing Principle for Transportation Agencies When and if TBL policy systems do evolve, decision models for policy and funding will probably cross organizational and jurisdictional lines as they are currently known. Responsibility for supporting, planning, and executing sustainable TBL will likely extend beyond the traditional jurisdictional and modal organizational boundaries of national, state, and local transportation agencies, because TBL policymaking and resource decisions will involve coordinated selection and execution of strategies by agencies and entities focused on all three bottom lines.
|
From page 13... ...
Sustainability as an Organizing Principle for Transportation Agencies 13 This concept fits well for transportation. Under a TBL sustainability model, a transportation agency would retain full responsibility for transportation services and stewardship by collecting data, developing intelligence, and analyzing transportation needs and how they affect societal sustainability; formulating strategic policy; developing tools for implementation; building support for policy; developing the appropriate structures to implement policy; and ensuring responsiveness and accountability.
|
From page 14... ...
14 Sustainability as an Organizing Principle for Transportation Agencies assessment models, various decision-support tools (ROI-based) to assess multiple effects of transportation investments, and related cost-analysis tools.
|
From page 15... ...
Sustainability as an Organizing Principle for Transportation Agencies 15 gaps (maturity) relative to a future TBL policy system end state; and (3)
|
From page 16... ...
16 Sustainability as an Organizing Principle for Transportation Agencies Scenario Challenges Crisis World • Recurrent environmental crises that have dramatic negative impacts on transportation infrastructure; greater demands to maintain basic services. • Gradual, persistent, long-term economic decline and slow growth mean fewer resources available to achieve goals.
|
From page 17... ...
Sustainability as an Organizing Principle for Transportation Agencies 17 Key Functional Gaps for Agencies The research team compared the high-level functional characteristics of the current predominant transportation policy systems (Green Transportation, Level 2) to the functional characteristics needed for a TBL Sustainability (Level 4)
|
From page 18... ...
18 Sustainability as an Organizing Principle for Transportation Agencies • Choosing flexible or adaptive management options. Flexible or adaptive management strategies are based on the insight that knowledge and understanding of social, economic, and environmental conditions is inevitably partial; limited; held in different forms (e.g., data, tacit knowledge and understanding, experiential information)
|
From page 19... ...
Sustainability as an Organizing Principle for Transportation Agencies 19 Although the research shows that significant activity and momentum have been building around green transportation and context-sensitive development, there is no established experience with TBL sustainability to conclusively show that it is practicable. TBL sustainability is a concept whose practicality and results have to be measured over a period of years if not decades.
|
From page 20... ...
20 Sustainability as an Organizing Principle for Transportation Agencies – Coordinate data collection activities with engaged partners, including state and local agencies, as well as system operators and the private sector. – Connect the prioritization process and project development process to proposed TBL goals, measures, and objectives, such as ROI estimators, the Economic Assessment of Sustainability Policies of Transport (ESCOT)
|
From page 21... ...
Sustainability as an Organizing Principle for Transportation Agencies 21 Sustainability Tools and Methods -- Key Directions for Development A substantial body of knowledge and opinion has been growing in the last few years on sustainability performance measures and assessment/rating systems that address one or more of the three sustainability bottom lines addressed throughout this report. At the level of transportation support for societal TBL and generational equity, models for the contributions of transportation investments and returns on TBL are easier concepts to visualize but challenging to develop and implement with current data and available algorithms.
|
From page 22... ...
22 Sustainability as an Organizing Principle for Transportation Agencies decisions with confidence. Major technological and scientific advances are envisioned in four critical areas: • Credibly supported and clearly understandable public information and measures to inform the public on TBL conditions and expectations -- possibly including an authoritative quality-of-life index that incorporates the three bottom lines.
|
Key Terms
This material may be derived from roughly machine-read images, and so is provided only to facilitate research.
More
information on Chapter Skim is available.