Dive Brief:
- The Federal Transit Administration released its transit resilience guidebook on May 30, providing information and resources for transit agencies, local officials and others on adapting to and recovering from natural disasters, extreme weather and climate change-driven events.
- The 91-page publication addresses how to identify climate risks and makes recommendations for more resilient transit infrastructure.
- The guidebook is the latest in a range of tools, events and information the agency has prepared to help address transportation-related climate change impacts.
Dive Insight:
In 2012, Superstorm Sandy devastated the New Jersey shore, including New Jersey Transit’s Hoboken terminal and rail operations center. Although the agency has long recovered from that storm, the impacts of rising sea levels continue. “Today we see a lot of chronic high-tide or nuisance flooding at the terminal,” said NJ Transit’s resiliency capital planning manager, Emily Korman, on a May 30 FTA webinar. The transit agency has since completed several resiliency projects including replacing wooden catenary poles with steel structures, raising power substation and communications infrastructure and elevating essential infrastructure at the Hoboken terminal.
The FTA guidebook provides additional examples of how transit agencies are addressing resiliency and links to transit agency resiliency and sustainability plans. In addition, “The guidebook highlights four broad categories of resilience strategies which should be evaluated and then reevaluated throughout each phase of the project's lifecycle,” said Juliet Bochicchio from the FTA’s Office of Environmental Policy and Programs.
The strategies include:
- Avoiding or relocating vulnerable transit assets.
- Ongoing maintenance to preserve valuable property.
- Designing or retrofitting infrastructure to cope with future climate conditions.
- Enhancing redundancy so that transit systems can continue to provide service in the event of a catastrophe or evacuation.
“The guidebook provides recommended updated climate data sources, community vulnerability screening tools and links to where additional transit resilience resources can be found,” Bochicchio said. She encouraged transit agencies to refer to the FTA’s climate considerations webpage.
