# Presentation: 673878

## SAFETEA-LU: Environmental Provisions for Transportation Planning 

- Michael Culp
- FHWA Office of Project Development and Environmental Review
- _[michael.culp@dot.gov](mailto:michael.culp@dot.gov)_

- Summer Meeting of ADC50
- Williamsburg, VA
- July 26, 2006

## SAFETEA-LU Section 6001

- 	Expanded environmental considerations in Metropolitan and Statewide Transportation Planning
- Consultation
- Mitigation

## Consultation Provision

- During development of long-range transportation MPOs and States must consult “as appropriate” with State and local agencies responsible for:
- Land-use management
- Natural resources
- Environmental protection
- Conservation
**Historic preservation**
- For Statewide plans, States must also consult with Tribal agencies

## Consultation Provision (cont)

- The consultation shall involve, “as appropriate”
- Comparison of transportation plans with State conservation plans or maps, if available; or
- Comparison of transportation plans to inventories of natural or **historic resources**, if available

## Plans and Inventories 

- What are the other plans or inventories that might be considered?

- Multi-Species
- Habitat
- Conservation
- Plans

- Wildlife
- Action
- Plans

- Special Area
- Management
- Plans

**Historic**
**Resource**
**Inventories**

- Watershed
- Plans

- Green
- Infrastructure
- Planning

- Land Use
- Plans

- Natural
- Heritage
- Databases

**Transportation**
**plan**

**Notes:**
The underpinnings of integrated planning are not new; there are related efforts that aim to accomplish similar goals.  Each of these efforts represents an evolution in one or more aspects of planning practice that moves closer toward an integrated approach.

Programmatic Approaches:  efforts to conduct planning, analysis, and permitting activities for multiple related projects at once, providing a perspective on the projects as a whole.

Special Area Management Plans:  efforts to plan for conservation and use of water resources, including wetlands, at the watershed scale, as well as mechanisms to coordinate management efforts among separate agencies.

Scenario Planning:  “a framework for developing a shared vision for the future by analyzing various forces (e.g., health transportation, economic, environmental, land use, etc.) that affect growth. Scenario planning can be done at the statewide level or for metropolitan areas. Scenario planning tests various future alternatives that meet state and community needs. Effective scenario planning will actively involve the public and elected officials on a broad scale, educating them about growth trends and tradeoffs, and incorporating their values and feedback into future plans.” - FHWA

Multi-Species Habitat Conservation Planning:  an effort that looks at habitat resources for multiple species on a landscape scale and identifies conservation and mitigation measures to protect listed species while allowing for orderly development and public agency activities.

Context-Sensitive Solutions:  "Context sensitive solutions (CSS) is a collaborative, interdisciplinary approach that involves all stakeholders to develop a transportation facility that fits its physical setting and preserves scenic, aesthetic, historic and environmental resources, while maintaining safety and mobility. CSS is an approach that considers the total context within which a transportation improvement project will exist." - FHWA

Transportation-Land-Use Integration:  efforts to consider local or regional land use patterns and transportation systems simultaneously so that each supports the other.

Green Infrastructure Planning:  Green Infrastructure is the interconnected network of protected land and water that supports native species, maintains natural ecological processes, sustains air and water resources and contributes to the health and quality of life.  Green Infrastructure Planning refers to efforts to coordinate planning for the components of this network as a holistic system, with the same approaches used for built infrastructure. 

Note:  six additional optional slides giving examples of innovative practice

## Mitigation Provision

- Long-range transportation plans must include a discussion of potential environmental mitigation activities and potential locations to carry them out
- Must be developed in consultation with Federal, State and Tribal wildlife, land management, and regulatory agencies

## How do the planning provisions relate to project development, NEPA and 106?

## A few differences...

- Local and State elected officials – driven process
- High level (systems-perspective)
- Produces Long Range Plan/TIP
- Process Certified by FHWA/FTA
- Not a Federal Action or reviewable by courts

- Lead agency/FHWA driven
- Project-Alternatives specific
- NEPA document/MOA
- Approved by FHWA
- Federal Action, reviewable by courts

- _Transportation Planning_

- _Project Development/NEPA/106_

## Consideration of Cultural Resources

- Preservation plans
- Data/inventories
- General assessment
- Fuzzy, systems-level

- Project –specific inventories
- Project-specific analysis
- Focused consideration of significance & eligibility

- _Transportation Planning_

- _Project Development/NEPA/106_

## Mitigation

- General discussion of mitigation “activities”
- Avoidance and minimization during plan development
- Eco-system-level, banking (most value)
- Fuzzy, systems-level

- Project –specific impact mitigation, avoidance and minimization
- Project-level, at project site and in-kind (may be costly and low value)

- _Transportation Planning_

- _Project Development/NEPA/106_

## What’s in it for you?Better Plans, Projects and Stewardship

- Early involvement in planning envisioned as part of NEPA to ensure better decisions
- Planning products are being encouraged to be used in NEPA, given that they are done appropriately
- Projects from a “environmentally-considerate” planning process will be better projects
- If resource agencies are not involved, may have problems down the road

## Some next steps

- NPRM for Planning is currently out for comment until September 7, 2006
- Deadline for Planning Agencies to comply with provisions is July 1, 2007
- Agencies will likely be developing approaches to meet requirements soon

## Thank You!

- _[michael.culp@dot.gov](mailto:michael.culp@dot.gov)_