Streamlining Environmental Impact for Planning New Corridors and Relocations

October 9, 2003

Washington, DC

Roger L. King & Charles G. O’Hara

Mississippi State University

Relevancy to USDOT Mission

President Bush issued Executive Order 13274 on September 18, 2002 to enhance environmental stewardship and streamline the decision-making process in connection with major transportation projects.

This project will help answer how RSSI technologies can be used to implement this EO.

Selected Legacy NCRST-E Projects

Representative NCRST-E projects in last 3 years include:

– Use of remote sensing for wetlands mapping and analysis– Use of remote sensing for land use/land cover assessments

for transportation planning– Development of automated tools for optimum corridor

planning – Use of remote sensing and corridor oriented regional GIS

databases for multimodal transportation planning– Projects with state DOTs in AL, IA, MS, NC, VA, WA

Fundamental Premise

Shared foundational data is needed to yield consistency in the project development decision-making process and to lead to a streamlining of the NEPA process.

Research Challenges in Using RSSI Technologies for Corridor Analysis, NEPA Streamlining, and Planning

Ability to “collect once - use many” Process methodologies to assist agencies in

determining dataset collection requirements Improved data archive, storage, and distribution

methodologies Increased use of imagery in GIS applications Improved access to multiple GIS datasets across

agencies/jurisdictions

A Spatial Decision Support System: Applications and Tools for Transportation Corridor Planning and Environmental Streamlining

Identify, select, and develop specifications of appropriate data for specific tasks

Develop enterprise architectures for the broad use of data

Develop extensible tools to extract (from interoperable data) information products for the corridor planning process (e.g., alternate selection, boundaries of corridors, etc.)

Develop decision support environments for comparative analysis of alternate solutions

A Spatial Decision Support System: Applications and Tools for Transportation Corridor Planning and Environmental Streamlining

Prepare methods and materials for public processes V&V results with stakeholders and natural resources

agencies Conduct outreach to gain acceptance of results and

benefits of RSSI technologies

Partnerships – Agency

CSX Corridor Project – Mississippi DOT– Federal Highway Administration

Birmingham Northern Beltway Corridor Project – Alabama DOT– Birmingham RPC and MPO – Alabama Department of Revenue

I-840 Beltway – Nashville MPO– Tennessee DOT

US Highway 98 corridor from Pensacola to the Big Bend– Florida DOT– Pensacola Urbanized Area MPO (Escambia and Santa Rosa Counties– Ft. Walton Beach Urbanized Area MPO (Okaloosa and Walton Counties)– Cities of Ft. Walton Beach and Destin, FL– Panama City Urbanized Area MPO (Bay County, Panama City, FL)

Partnerships – Value Added Software Providers

Z/I Imaging – Enterprise architecture for RSSI data

Intergraph Corporation– Corridor analysis and spatial decision support tools

HSA Consulting Group, Inc. – Feature extraction, attribution, and management tools

SimWright– Engineering analysis and visualization tools

Smart Data Strategies, Inc.– Land ownership and business process analysis tools

Partnerships – Data Types

Aerial image data and elevation data– EarthData Technologies LLC– Z/I Imaging

Satellite image data – Digital Globe – RESOURCE21

Hyperspectral image data – Itres Corporation

Demographic and parcel data– Smart Data Strategies, Inc.

Time Frame (Phased Deployment)

Years 1-2: Technology Development– Development/implementation of analysis tools that include business

process automation/rules– Enterprise data architecture (Z/I, Intergraph)– Integrate value added software corridor planning tools (MSU, HSA,

SimWright, SDS, Intergraph, Z/I) Years 1-5: Selected pilot/deployment projects span planning life

cycle to permit lessons learned to be incorporated Constrained intermodal corridors

– CSX US 98 Beltways in urban areas

– Birmingham Northern Beltway Nashville I-840

Technology Development and System Requirements

Conduct user needs assessment and compile system requirements

Identify top technical challenges in the planning process Specify the data types/content required to support regional

network planning and decision-making Analyze lessons learned in previous TAP’s and assess their

ability to alleviate technical challenges Assess the technical and political hurdles that must be solved in

order to implement a system. Conduct technology development and user acceptance testing

on pilot projects

Pilot Implementation

Pilot projects – CSX Corridor, Birmingham Northern Beltway Corridor

Conduct cooperative development of a regional transportation oriented geospatial database

Develop methods and tools to support multi-modal and multi-agency transportation planning

Data Acquisition

Deployment

Deployment projects - Birmingham Northern Beltway Corridor, US 98, & I-840 Beltway

Integrate previously developed transportation tools into the State DOT and MPO (long range) transportation planning process

Linkage of regional geospatial database to travel demand models

Integration of regional geospatial database to support land use/transportation planning linkages

Data Acquisition

Pilot Deployment ProjectCSX Corridor

Acquire additional imagery Enhance capability to differentiate

forest cover and understory density for habitat modeling

Improve current and projected land use data for the corridors

Improve land acquisition planning and mitigation tools to fully assess transportation development impacts as well as right-of-way and mitigation costs

Include the new highway capacity in assessing multimodal capacity, demand, adequacy, and performance characteristics of the transportation system

Deployment ProjectUS Highway 98

US 98 coastal corridor traverses from the eastern shore of Mobile Bay, AL to Tyndall Air Force Base in Bay County, FL

High vulnerability to hurricane damage, rapid growth in regional travel demand and population growth along the corridor

Complex transportation planning landscape with multiple state, regional, urbanized area and local jurisdictions.

Close regional collaboration in developing multi-modal alternatives and travel demand management strategies throughout the region is critical.

Pilot Deployment ProjectBirmingham Northern Beltway Corridor

53 mile corridor from Bessemer to Trussville, AL Designed, but not built (to be delivered in 2020) Need land development and access management

plan to maximize economic development potential of corridor

Appropriate land defined for the connecting roads Desirable intersection and signal spacing Optimum number and spacing of driveways and

median openings Frontage roads.

Deployment ProjectI-840 Project

78 mile corridor through 7 rural TN counties

Environmental, archeological, and community challenges

Alternative corridors to SR-840 are needed

Project designed to plan and manage growth so as to minimize environmental effects and maximize quality of life issues while developing new infrastructure.

Summary

Project supports implementation of EO 13274 by using RSSI technologies to streamline transportation planning process.

Nominate candidate deployment project for consideration of priority project status.

Deployment project results will document improvements in streamlining NEPA planning process for transportation corridors through the use of RSSI technologies.

Explore how to transfer results to regional interconnecting corridors.