Integrating Climate Change into State and Regional Transportation Plans

Abstract

This paper aims to advance the practice and application of transportation planning for state, regional, and local transportation planning agencies to address the relationship between transportation and climate change. The focus of the paper is on long-range planning documents as tools for climate change planning. Reviews included federal regulations and statutes that govern transportation planning as well as a sample of current planning documents from state departments of transportation (DOTs) and metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs). Interviews were conducted with four DOTs and eight MPOs that were incorporating climate change into long-range transportation plans. The text of federal statutes provides opportunities to link climate change considerations with transportation planning. The current practice in transportation plans varies widely by agency. Climate change can appear in the vision, goals, policies, strategies, trends and challenges, and performance measures of planning documents. Some plans merely recognize that climate change is related to transportation and begin to relate existing plans and strategies to climate change. Other plans make climate change more central to their goals and policies. Some agencies are quantifying greenhouse gas emissions related to transportation plans and programs. Quantification will likely be a key component of plans in the future. Research highlighted several types of barriers and needs for agencies considering climate change in transportation plans. These barriers were reviewed. Some simple recommendations were provided for how state DOTs and MPOs could address them.