The much-anticipated Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) was finally signed by President Biden on Monday, and state DOTs are preparing for what will amount to around 50 percent more transportation spending than originally planned for over the next five years. The act includes an additional $110 billion for roads and bridges, $11 billion for safety, $39 billion for public transit, and $66 billion for freight and passenger rail (a five-fold increase).
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Renewable Energy in the Right of Way
At SSTI’s first Sustainability Directors Community of Practice meeting in June 2015, attendees discussed their states’ interest in siting solar and other renewable energy generation facilities in the highway right-of-way but cited uncertainty regarding FHWA rules and unfamiliarity with the business side of renewable energy production as major hurdles. In an effort to support these efforts and allow interested states to learn from others, SSTI has gathered the technical documents gathered here, under the headings below, comprise a living repository for state DOTs and others to use as examples as they develop their own ROW renewable energy projects.
Materials from the June 2016 Sustainability Directors meeting
The agenda and meeting materials from the June 14-15, 2016 meeting of state Sustainability Directors can be found here.
Building Resilient States: A Framework for Agencies (Smart Growth America and Governors’ Institute on Community Design, 2015)
Where and how communities grow and build homes, transportation, and other infrastructure is likely not at the forefront of most disaster preparedness agencies’ agenda. Yet a community’s decisions about land use and transportation have significant impacts on how resilient it can be in the face of disasters. This document is intended to introduce and integrate land use and transportation issues into states’ conversations about resilience. Disaster preparedness professionals can use it to understand how strategic decisions about land use and transportation can build communities that are more resilient from the ground up.
Materials from SSTI Community of Practice – October 2014
SSTI’s fall 2014 Community of Practice meeting was held October 8-9, 2014 in Salt Lake City. These gatherings focus on peer-to-peer interaction between CEOs of state departments of transportation. The meetings allow attendees to share ideas and learn from one another’s experiences leading state DOTs.
Sustainability Directors meeting materials – June 10-11, 2015
The materials from the first Sustainability Directors meeting, held June 10-11, 2015 in Sacramento, California, can be found below. The meeting explored topics related to implementing sustainable practices as well as the creation of a sustainability …
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Which transportation sustainability rating system works for your state?
States are using transportation sustainability rating systems (TSRSs) to assess the impacts of their planning, project development, operations, and maintenance decisions and actions. A recent Mountain-Plains Consortium report looks at which of the many available TSRSs would be appropriate in the four western states they studied.
Advancing a Sustainable Highway System: Highlights of FHWA Sustainability Activities (FHWA and Volpe Center, 2014)
This report from FHWA illustrates how sustainability has been incorporated into a wide variety of FHWA programs, projects, policies, processes, and partnerships. It is intended to be used by a diverse audience of transportation agency professionals at the Federal, State, and local level as well as the general public.