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 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 Project CSX 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 Project US 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 Project Birmingham 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 Project I-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 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.