The New Mexico Department of Transportation is re-launching its “Toss NO Mas” anti-litter campaign; a public outreach effort originally created in the 1990s by Cooney-Watson Productions.
[Above graphic via the New Mexico DOT]
Jim Terr, a Santa Fe songwriter, originally wrote the song “Toss No Mas” – with singer/guitarist Michael Hearne of Taos brought on to sing a “soulful version” of it, which the new Mexico DOT said eventually became “a well-known anthem” statewide.
However, as littering is a “recurrent” issue, the agency decided to bring back this successful anti-littering Spanish slogan and give it a “modern facelift.”
For example, the New Mexico DOT found the largest litter accumulations come from people not tying up their garbage bags, covering loads with tarps, or picking up dropped debris or litter. As a result, the agency constructed two new logos and slogans: “Can the Trash,” created by RK Venture, along with a broader message called “Tie it. Tarp it. Pick it up,” suggested by a state resident.
New Mexico DOT
“Roadside litter has become a persistent issue for the department and New Mexico,” explained Mike Sandoval, New Mexico DOT’s secretary, in a statement.
“We have 886 boots on the ground picking up litter and roadside debris throughout the year, but the problem is ongoing,” he said. “The day after a stretch of road is cleaned, new trash starts to accumulate. During the [COVID-19] pandemic, the problem seemed to get worse as PPE [personal protective equipment] was found everywhere.” Other state departments of transportation encountered similar issues with PPE litter. For example, the Tennessee Department of Transportation, the Tennessee Department of Environment & Conservation, and Keep Tennessee Beautiful joined forces in August 2020 to focus specifically on reducing PPE litter along state roadways.
The National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP) released a report in February 2021 highlighting several state agency efforts to incorporate Green Infrastructure (GI) solutions into transportation drainage and landscaping design.
The American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials helped research and publish that report – entitled Landscape Design Practices for Roadside Water Management: Domestic Scan 16-02– as part of the joint AASHTO and Federal Highway Administration’s NCHRP “Domestic Scan Program.” That program helps speed up the transfer of information and technology among transportation agencies.
This article is the second of a two-part series – focusing on GI recommendations for state transportation agencies.
How and where can state departments of transportation incorporate Green Infrastructure or “GI” practices into their ongoing infrastructure programs? A four-day workshop organized by the team that crafted the Landscape Design Practices for Roadside Water Management: Domestic Scan 16-02 report came up with eight recommendations that can help build a successful GI program with long-term results, across varied climates, geographies, and topographies.
[Above photo by Colorado DOT]
The first is to define what GI is, as the workshop participants discerned at the outset that there is no nationally recognized standard GI definition – and an agreed-upon definition is needed to support grant funding consistency, federal eligibility, categorization of GI projects, design approaches, and recognition in the transportation realm.
As a result, the report team recommended that AASHTO, in conjunction with FHWA, develop a national GI definition as it relates to transportation for consistent adoption throughout the country – one also be incorporated into “A Policy on the Geometric Design of Highways,” which is known colloquially as the “Green Book.”
Steve Sisson – a design resource engineer with the Delaware Department of Transportation and member of the AASHTO Technical Committee on Hydrology and Hydraulics – believes there are several other areas where more GI information could be included in AASHTO documents.
He pointed to two current AASHTO publications – Highway Drainage Guidelines (HDG) and Drainage Manual (ADM) – currently undergoing updates to incorporate GI and new stormwater management (SWM) systems earlier into the infrastructure design process. Those particular areas include advancing setting-based site assessment, runoff reduction opportunities, and public private partnerships.
“The latter also will include support for more watershed-based approaches that minimize long term maintenance costs while increasing return on investment for public and private dollars,” Sisson explained.
“[Those] updates will draw on additional studies like NCHRP Research Report 840, ‘A Watershed Approach to Mitigating Stormwater Impacts,’ and NCHRP 25-60. ‘Watershed Approach to Mitigating Hydrologic Impacts of Transportation Projects,’” he said.
Sisson added that the GI section would also include an expanded generic Best Management Practices or BMP library, applicable over a wide range of regulatory jurisdictions, incorporating maintenance and construction recommendations.
The other recommendations made by the report team include:
Maintenance:Considered the most important project-related category identified for the success of GI, the teams believes in integrating maintenance plans incorporating GI elements into all transportation projects. However, training is needed to ensure proper workflow and actions for the GI solutions. Personnel with the right expertise and equipment are essential, along with policies, procedures, guidance, and manuals with standard operating procedures and maintenance plans to ensure long-term consistency in practice.
Watershed Approach versus Project Site Approach:GI solutions are often not available as an option when constrained by right of way or ROW on project sites. State DOTs typically obtain ROW in linear segments in alignment with the roadway, which can limit the opportunity for some GI practices, such as bio-retention areas, because there is not enough space within a linear ROW for effective treatments to be built. By taking a watershed approach and partnering with other agencies, the area for building GI is greatly increased. It is important for state DOTs and regulating agencies to develop common goals and outcomes for a watershed approach as well as educate practitioners on the benefits.
Information Sharing:The team identified a lack of generally available education, training, and research for interested agencies on the use of GI. While there is a considerable amount of information about SWM and GI, there is no central repository or clearinghouse for that information and research. The team recommends development more GI based conferences, peer exchanges and a data repository located on a free website to encourage the implementation of more GI solutions.
Public Outreach: Public and political support is important for acceptance GI infrastructure solutions as well as to obtaining funding for those solutions. Educating the public on the importance of GI to clean water and clean air shows both them and decision makers the environmental, social, and economic benefits. The team recommended that state DOT public information officers or communications experts develop a “GI factsheet,” relevant signage, and other materials to provide the public with a good understanding of the locations and importance of GI.
Asset Management: State DOTs track highway assets such as bridges, barrier rail, and pavement miles, but currently stormwater and GI are not necessarily included in geospatial tracking systems. Including GI in the general agency-wide asset management system allows a state DOT to report to regulatory agencies the types and quantities of GI components that are in place for stormwater controls. It also allows an agency to plan and budget for necessary maintenance staff, inspections, materials, supplies, and scheduling.
Design: GI and components often do not have a standardized design within DOTs. Design guidance would vary somewhat according to regional and local geography and climatic conditions, each state could develop standard criteria and design guidelines in order to prevent having to develop designs strictly on a project-by-project basis.
Construction Inspection: Vegetation establishment is a consistent challenge on transportation projects and issues that include process quality control, contractor compliance with specifications, and contractor and state DOT field personnel understanding of the overall re-vegetation process and specifications. The report team would like to see development of a process for ensuring correct implementation of permanent and temporary stormwater and GI features. The process would also include sequencing/time frames (e.g., contract hold points) for critical work and vegetation establishment. The team also recommended that standardized, recognized infiltration tests, such as ASTM standards, would be necessary for a successful program.
Overall, the report team believes that by using a holistic approach incorporating recommendations from those eight concentration areas, transportation agencies can provide long-term successful GI solutions to their roadway project.
The Washington State Department of Transportation recently made its new “Washington State Active Transportation Plan, 2020 and Beyond: Part 1” available online as part of its efforts to support more transit, bicycle, and pedestrian options.
[Above photo by WSDOT]
The plan assesses the needs for accessible pedestrian and bicyclist facilities, highlights safety concerns and provides the first-ever examination of state right of way and its suitability for active transportation.
WSDOT released a draft of part one of the plan in December 2020 and received more than 630 responses during an eight-week comment period. Those comments helped WSDOT identify policy topics for part two of the plan, scheduled for release later in 2021.
More people than ever are walking and bicycling statewide, according to WSDOT’s multimodal transportation dashboard, both as alternatives to transit use and to maintain physical and mental health during the pandemic. At the same time, “vulnerable road users” such as bicyclists and pedestrians now make up about 21 percent of all traffic deaths – far out of proportion to the fatality rates for other modes of travel, noted WSDOT Secretary Roger Millar.
“Whether you drive, bike, walk, or roll, the state’s highway rights-of-way serve as the backbone of our transportation system,” he said in a statement. “In the engagement for this plan, we heard very clearly that state routes need to connect people, not separate them. With this plan, we have new understanding to help us work with our partners to create complete, safer, and more accessible networks for each and every one of us, regardless of how we get around.”
Part one of the plan addresses those steadily increasing vulnerable road user fatalities and identifies driving speed and roadway crossings as top factors. It also:
Examines the effects of past infrastructure decisions on safety and mobility, particularly in places where those decisions affected transportation access and health.
Provides a first-ever needs assessment of the state system for active transportation use and estimates the cost of improvements in population centers.
Describes the concept of statewide bikeways and trails network.
Offers using “level of traffic stress” as a data-based evaluation tool for state right of way and population centers when analyzing the effects of land-use change. Level of stress is a method to objectively measure roadway characteristics that affect people’s ability to use active transportation.
The Maryland Department of Transportation recently unveiled three “smart ponds” built via a public-private partnership or P3 stormwater control project that seeks to reduce pollutants and curb local flooding.
[Above photo by Maryland DOT]
The agency said this “smart pond” project is the first of its kind involving a state transportation department and it involved the Maryland Department of Environment, Environmental Protection Agency, Walmart, and The Nature Conservancy.
The Maryland DOT said this “smart pond” technology – developed by Opti – uses sensors and software to monitor real-time conditions such as water level and storage volume. Then, using Internet-based weather forecasts, the system remotely operate valves that control timing and volume of water discharge from the ponds as longer retention time increases water quality by capturing more sediment and nutrients.
Thus, when rain is in the forecast, the system can automatically open valves to drain the pond prior to precipitation, the agency said – helping maximize stormwater storage efficiency and reducing downstream flooding.
“These smart ponds are another innovative way we’re working to improve the communities we serve,” explained Greg Slater, Maryland DOT secretary, in a statement. “We’re being responsible stewards of the environment while at the same time helping protect the infrastructure that supports our hard-working residents and businesses.”
The Maryland Environmental Service, The Nature Conservancy, and Opti originally signed a contract in July 2020 to retrofit three stormwater runoff ponds located at Walmart stores as “smart ponds.” Concurrently, the Maryland DOT plans to spend $3.25 million to purchase 80 acres worth of Chesapeake Bay impervious area treatment credits generated by the smart ponds at Walmart. After certification of the credits, the Maryland DOT will begin purchasing the credits this spring.
The agency said this smart pond partnership represents the first time a state department of transportation is purchasing credits from a Water Quality Trading Program. Maryland’s program created a water quality marketplace for credits generated by pollutant reductions elsewhere in Maryland’s portion of the Chesapeake Bay watershed – offering “market-based” economic incentives for pollutant reductions.
The cost to Maryland DOT for these new credits is about $37,500 per acre, including installation of smart pond technology and 20 years of monitoring, inspecting, operating and maintaining the ponds by The Nature Conservancy and Opti. That is significantly less than the average construction cost of $150,000 per impervious acre treated through stormwater control devices such as swales, bio-retention cells and stormwater ponds, the agency noted – and that $150,000 cost does not include operation and maintenance. Overall, the Maryland DOT said it owns about 800 ponds that could benefit from this smart pond technology.
Two key Senate Democrats introduced a $73 billion plan on May 4 to transition the nation’s transit buses and vans to Zero Emission Vehicle or ZEV platforms.
The “Clean Transit for America” plan – introduced by Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., the senate’s majority leader, and Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, chairman of the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs – would replace America’s 70,000 mass transit buses and 85,000 cutaway/transit vans to “clean energy vehicles.” The plan would also prioritize funding for areas with the worst air quality first.
Currently in the United States, only 2 percent of buses are ZEVs, argued Sen. Schumer in a statement. He added that the volume of air pollutants from diesel buses disproportionally affects low-income communities and communities of color.
“To reduce the carbon in our atmosphere and address the climate crisis, we must transform our transit system,” he said. “The Clean Transit for America proposal will replace dirty, diesel-spewing buses, create new American jobs, help save the planet and protect public health, particularly in our country’s most vulnerable communities.”
“Americans deserve world-class public transportation that is delivered with modern, zero-emission buses built by American workers,” added Sen. Brown. “The Clean Transit for America Plan will create a significant number of good-paying, union jobs building zero-emission buses in the U.S. It is the kind of transformative investment we need in public transit that will put Americans to work [and] connects people with opportunity.”
In a related effort, Sen. Tom Carper, D-Del., recently outlined a “vision” for how the Environmental Protection Agency could adopt standards to reduce greenhouse gas or GHG emissions in the automotive industry and eliminate tailpipe pollution from new cars by 2035.
“The future of the automobile manufacturing sector is at a crossroads,” Sen. Carper – chairman of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works – explained in a letter to EPA Administrator Michael Regan.
“The Clean Air Act provides sufficient authority for the EPA to rise to this challenge,” he said in a statement released with the letter. “EPA can establish requirements on new cars that would significantly reduce air pollution harming communities, put the nation on track to maintain its leadership in vehicle technology, and make significant progress in fighting climate change.”
Sen. Carper added that “if the U.S. does not establish a robust policy that leads to ZEV deployment” he warned the nation “will be at risk of losing our automotive jobs and industry leadership to other nations, as well as enduring unnecessary public health impacts from pollution.”
The National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP) released a report in February 2021 highlighting several state agency efforts to incorporate Green Infrastructure (GI) solutions into transportation drainage and landscaping design.
The American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials helped research and publish that report – entitled Landscape Design Practices for Roadside Water Management: Domestic Scan 16-02– as part of the joint AASHTO and Federal Highway Administration’s NCHRP “Domestic Scan Program.” That program helps speed up the transfer of information and technology among transportation agencies.
This article is the first in a two-part series – focusing on the state of the practice in GI in several agencies, as well as policies in place and challenges found in the industry. The second article will focus on recommendations for the future of GI implementation state transportation agencies.
According to the FHWA, “green infrastructure” is defined as “strategically planned and managed networks of natural lands, working landscapes and other open spaces that conserve ecosystem values and functions and provide associated benefits to human populations.” It also applies to various water management approaches where transportation infrastructure is concerned, including technologies that “infiltrate, evapotranspire, capture, and reuse stormwater to maintain or restore natural hydrologies.”
[Above photo by the Virginia DOT]
The NCHRP’s new report — Landscape Design Practices for Roadside Water Management: Domestic Scan 16-02 – developed a more specific definition for GI. That definition included “roadside stormwater management, Low Impact Development or LID, hydro-modification, and watershed actions that conserve water, buffer climate change impacts, improve water quality, water supply, public heath, and restores and protects rivers, creeks and streams as a component of transportation development projects and operations.”
The team compiling the report found, however, that the practice of incorporating GI is inconsistent among state departments of transportation – employed only when required. Overall findings suggest GI is not yet a part of the state DOT stormwater management toolbox and is not routinely employed as a standard stormwater management method.
That team included:
Jennifer Taira, senior landscape architect for the California Department of Transportation and chair of AASHTO’s NCHRP committee.
Ken Graeve, erosion and stormwater management unit supervisor with the Minnesota Department of Transportation
Charles Hebson, manager of the surface water resources division for the Maine Department of Transportation
Garrett Jackson, a hydrologist with the Washington State Department of Transportation
Laura Riggs, LRSP and SRTPP program manager for the Louisiana Department of Transportation
Brian Smith, ecologist and biologist for the FHWA
Lucy Joyce, former landscape architect supervisor with the Nevada Department of Transportation
That team further investigated how leading transportation agencies are applying principles and practices of GI for roadside water management and then planned to develop recommendations to help agencies look to the future of a higher level of implementation.
A central finding of this report is that, historically, managing the “peak flow” of water off roads to nearby waterways has been the traditional focus of transportation infrastructure design via techniques such as “gray infrastructure,” which includes culverts and pipes, to move the water offsite quickly. However, the report found that approach is sometimes neither the most efficient nor cost-effective in terms of managing that water flow. Newer GI techniques – such as water harvesting, landform grading, rain gardens, micro-catchment basins in arid climates, and large-watershed – are proving to be more efficient “green solutions.”
Photo via WSDOT
On top of that, many of the GI practices in use today resulted from various regulatory requirements for clean water/clean air imposed by the Environmental Protection Agency as well as state departments of environmental protection/quality. Yet the report discovered that many of those regulatory efforts – typically at the state level – often included barriers that hindered a state DOT’s ability to fully or successfully implement the switch to more efficient and low cost GI practices.
For example, the “gray” approaches to managing stormwater runoff from roads and highway can actually contribute to the problems of flooding and stormwater pollution in some cases.
To discern what GI practices work best, the report team sent out a survey to seven state DOTs (Arizona, Maryland, Michigan, Nevada, Oregon, Pennsylvania, and Washington) and five cities, counties, or regional agencies (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; New York City, New York; Long Creek Watershed Management District, Maine; Southeast Michigan Council of Governments [SEMCOG], Michigan; and King County, Washington).
Photo via Maryland DOT
In addition to the survey responses, the team met directly with several of them during a series of three-day workshops.
The survey and workshop discussions resulted in a series of key GI implementation focal points:
“Intensity of regulations really affects what gets implemented.”
“Technology matters, especially geospatial data management.”
“Training/education is important in implementing effective maintenance”
“Watershed approach is key.”
“Planning level of DOTs is important to coordinate stormwater needs and optimize opportunities.”
“Maintenance is important; we could have an entire scan on maintenance of these solutions”
“Standards, codes, policy, ordinances as important tools for driving/enabling green stormwater infrastructure”
While the survey answers and workshop discussions highlight “significant movement” toward more use of GI solutions in landscaping and storm water management, the funding, support, construction, and maintenance practice for GI remained inconsistent.
As a result, the report team outlined eight recommendations to promote GI practices among state DOTs in the future — recommendations detailed in part two of this series next week.
The Ohio Department of Transportation is joining forces with the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency and Ohio Department of Natural Resources to conduct a statewide anti-litter campaign.
[Above image via the Ohio DOT]
The campaign – called “A Little Litter is a Big Problem” – aims to show state residents the negative impact litter has on the state’s transportation system, parks, beachfronts, and waterways.
“Litter is ugly and costly,” explained Governor Mike DeWine (R) in a statement. “One of the things we can all do is help clean up litter, because a little bit of litter is a big problem.”
He pointed to recent research that shows 42 percent of state residents admitted littering in the past month.
The Ohio DOT noted that it alone has spent at least $48.6 million to deal with litter since 2011. Last year, its staff spent 151,410 hours picking up trash, the agency said.
“Every year [our] crews have to divert their attention from important maintenance work to pick up other people’s trash,” emphasized Ohio DOT’s director Jack Marchbanks – noting that the agency spent at least $48.6 million to deal with litter since 2011 and that its staff spent 151,410 hours picking up trash in 2020 alone.
“If we can work together to reduce the amount of litter that collects on our roadways, our crews can spend less time picking up trash and more time on critical maintenance work like pothole and guardrail repairs,” he said.
State departments of transportation across the country are conducting similar anti-litter campaigns.
For example, Rhode Island Governor Dan McKee (D) recently helped the Rhode Island Department of Transportation officially launch a new “Clean Rhodes” anti-litter initiative on April 22.
Gov. McKee and wife collecting trash/photo via the Rhode Island Governor’s Office
“Litter is one of the biggest sources of complaints for RIDOT and has us spending hundreds of thousands of dollars a year in a seemingly never-ending battle of picking up trash along our roads,” Peter Alviti, Jr., the agency’s director, said in a statement. “We’re upping our game and enlisting the help of the business and volunteer community to help us address this blight on our roads.”
RIDOT, which said it spends $800,000 annually to pick up trash on state roads, noted that the goal of this campaign is to remove 1 million pieces of litter. The agency is also seeking to buy specialized litter removal equipment that attaches to its maintenance vehicles for some $750,000 so it can rake and clean litter from strips of land and other larger green spaces along roads more easily.
Meanwhile, the Delaware Department of Transportation, for example, recently renewed focus on its “Keep DE Litter Free” campaign. To date in 2021, the agency said its crewed collected and cleared nearly 16,000 bags of trash from state roadways – adding to the more than 51,000 bags of trash collected and cleared in 2020. That includes more than 6,800 tires, 3,500 signs, and 250 appliances removed from Delaware roads, the Delaware DOT pointed out.
“Even with reduced traffic on our roads for a significant amount of time in the past year, our litter problem has persisted,” noted Nicole Majeski, Delaware DOT secretary, in a statement. “We are committed to reducing the amount of litter along our roads and I am grateful to our employees, partners, and volunteers who continue to work hard collecting litter across the state.”
Finally, the North Carolina Department of Transportation recently noted that its litter removal efforts – including the ongoing Litter Sweep annual trash removal effort – resulted in the collection and clearing of more than 4 million pounds of roadside litter so far in 2021.
NCDOT said in a statement that its ongoing litter management programs are “multifaceted,” making use of “state-owned forces and contract services.”
That includes its “Sponsor-A-Highway Program” that allows businesses, organizations and individuals to sponsor litter removal along roadsides as well as its Adopt-A-Highway Program, where volunteers pledge to clean a section of our highways at least four times a year.
Legislation recently proposed by Sen. Tom Carper, D-Del., chairman of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works would seek to “reconnect and revitalize” areas harmed by the construction of the Interstate Highway System over the past six decades.
[Above photo by the Massachusetts DOT]
Dubbed the “Reconnecting Communities Act,” Sen. Carper’s bill would establish a grant program within the U.S. Department of Transportation to help communities “identify and remove or retrofit highway infrastructure that creates obstacles to mobility and opportunity.”
In a statement, Sen. Carper said the Reconnecting Communities Act “would empower communities to reverse this unfortunate legacy by building spaces over and around our highways, revitalizing nearby areas as a result.”
His bill is also solely sponsored by Democrats including: Sen. Van Hollen; Sen. Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y., the Senate’s majority leader; Sen. Ben Cardin, D-Md.; Sen. Alex Padilla, D-Calif.; Sen Chris Coons, D-Del.; Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., Sen. Raphael Warnock, D-Ga.; and Sen. Edward Markey, D-Mass.
“The development of the Interstate Highway System connected our country in ways it hadn’t been previously, but it also upended neighborhoods and left communities divided, many times over economic and racial lines. In many communities of color, nearby highways continue to represent real barriers for getting around and getting ahead,” Sen. Carper pointed out.
“In cities across the country, communities of color have disproportionately seen their homes and businesses demolished for the construction of highways that in turn separate them from their neighbors and from economic opportunity. This is just one example of how government has disrupted and divided communities through the placement of infrastructure projects,” added. Sen. Padilla. “As we work to rebuild our economy and our infrastructure, we must do so equitably,” he said. “The Reconnecting Communities Act will play an important role in making sure that we don’t return to the status quo, but that we repair the harm and injustice these communities have faced.”
