State DOTs are slowly beginning to address climate change
resilience (AKA adaptation) in their statewide long-range transportation
plans. Why does that matter? Yes, I know today’s flood/fire/storm
demands urgent attention and total focus.
But what about all of the floods/fires/storms ahead? Long-range planning can easily be
overlooked but really needs to get serious attention if we are to succeed in
mastering these challenges.
So it’s important that California’s new draft long-range
transportation plan (California
Transportation Plan 2040, available here) takes on this challenge pretty
directly. Perhaps that’s not so
surprising in a state prone to sea level rise, drought, wildfires, tropical
storms, and mudslides – not to mention avalanches and volcanic eruptions!
California has been a leader in adopting policies to reduce
greenhouse gas emissions and is now set to become a leader in finding ways to
protect the state and its transportation system from the ravages of sea level
rise and extreme weather events.
The plan makes a direct link between climate change and
extreme weather events (some states are bashful about this) and between
mitigation efforts (cutting down on greenhouse gas emissions) and resilience
efforts (ensuring that reliable transportation routes are available despite
extreme weather events and sea level rise). Climate change – and especially sea level rise – poses “a
serious threat to California’s infrastructure.” The prescription is clear: “Incorporate system impacts from
climate change, risk, and vulnerability assessments into collaborative and
proactive planning, design, construction, operations, and maintenance to
provide affected agencies and freight partners with the ability to adapt and
recover from rising sea levels.”
Some steps the plan puts forward:
·
Use science: “Use available sea-level-rise tools
to prioritize and mitigate impacts to the multimodal system.”
·
Recognize uncertainties, which “create huge
challenges for transportation managers who need to ensure that reliable
transportation routes are available.”
·
Connect with land use planning: “Improve links
between land use planning and climate adaptation planning by using tools such
as the previous California Regional Blueprint Programs…to better integrate
adaptation strategies into regional plans.”
There is still a lot to be figured out about how to
incorporate climate change resiliency into long-range transportation plans, but
California has helped to move us forward.
