District 11 of the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) has been a leader in instituting sustainability practices to minimize transportation project impacts and enhance communities through which its facilities cross. Many of Caltrans' practices exceeded typical environmental mitigation commitments, but had not been gathered collectively into one set of sustainability practices or evaluated against industry standards. Parsons Brinckerhoff led an analysis for Caltrans District 11 to inventory sustainable practices implemented as part of the widening and realignment of State Route (SR) 76 in San Diego County. The team assessed the project against two leading national green infrastructure rating systems (FHWA and Greenroads) to help inventory the project's performance, developed a preliminary project "score," and gathered associated supporting documentation. The overall intent of this project was to help Caltrans raise the bar on its sustainability practices by identifying tangible steps that could be taken during both design and construction. This analysis found that the SR 76 would achieve most of the credits under the Environment and Water and Access and Equity categories, but not under Pavement Technologies. Assuming the Greenroads project requirements were met, the project would likely receive a Silver rating. Under the extended scorecard from the INVEST beta version rating system, the project would likely score a Gold rating. Enhancing pavement technology applications would help boost the rating under both systems. The analysis also confirmed that selection of a sustainability rating system would depend greatly on the needs and goals of an agency or project considering utilizing such a system.
Innovative Methods to Inventory Sustainability Practices on State Route 76, San Diego
Second Conference on Green Streets, Highways, and Development ; 2013 ; Austin, Texas, United States
2013-11-02
Conference paper
Electronic Resource
English
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