by Christine Colley, RLA, ASLA

TRB Standing Committee on Landscape and Environmental Design: Call for Posters

The Transportation Research Board’s Standing Committee on Landscape and Environmental Design (AKD40) invites submissions of your work as part of a landscape and environmental design poster session at TRB’s 2023 Annual Meeting. The theme of the Annual Meeting is Rejuvenation Out of Disruption: Envisioning a Transportation System for a Dynamic Future.

Please submit your abstract for consideration for presentation at AKD40’s poster session at the TRB Annual Meeting. Topics that emphasize the following, as they relate to transportation, landscape and environmental design, are a priority for AKD40:

• Energy and Sustainability – design, policies, and practices to protect the planet.
• Policy needs related to the roadside environment and autonomous vehicle technology.
• Resilience and Security – preparing for floods, fires, storms, and sea level rise.
• Transformational technologies that will change how transportation environments could be retrofitted or rebuilt.
• Roadside design to serve growing and shifting populations.

AKD40 also welcomes completed and on-going projects from broad landscape and environmental design areas such as Green Streets, roadside environments for pollinators, Complete Streets, transportation design impacts on Main Streets, landscape design to safeguard the public, and art in transportation.

The deadline for submissions—by email to Christine Colley, TRB AKD40 Annual Meeting Poster Coordinator—is September 15, 2022.

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by Christine Colley, RLA, ASLA

The Transportation Research Board’s Standing Committee on Landscape and Environmental Design (AKD40) is seeking papers to be considered for publication and/or presentation at the 2023 TRB Annual Meeting. The theme of the Annual Meeting is Rejuvenation Out of Disruption: Envisioning a Transportation System for a Dynamic Future.

This Committee is concerned with design parameters that relate to protecting, conserving, restoring, and enhancing safe, sustainable, and livable transportation systems, facilities, and their associated environments. The Committee promotes research to advance design principles and practices that enhance:

1. safety and traveler experiences;
2. scenic, aesthetic, and visual quality;
3. harmonious integration of facilities within their natural, cultural, and social environments;
4. sustainable solutions and systems; and
5. the quality of life for transportation system users and surrounding communities.

The following categories were identified by the AKD40 Committee as being critical areas of research:

• Energy and Sustainability – design, policies, and practices to protect the planet.
• Policy needs related to the roadside environment and autonomous vehicle technology.
• Resilience and Security – preparing for floods, fires, storms, and sea level rise.
• Transformational technologies that will change how transportation environments could be retrofitted or rebuilt.
• Roadside design to serve growing and shifting populations.

The deadline for paper submissions is August 1, 2022.

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by Christine Colley, ASLA, RLA, and the Transportation PPN Leadership Team

The Transportation Professional Practice Network (PPN) meeting at the 2018 ASLA Annual Meeting and EXPO in Philadelphia last month was well attended and chock-full of content. Incoming PPN Co-Chair Jean Senechal Biggs, ASLA, opened the session by introducing the PPN leadership team (read more about the team here). She described the PPN’s mission and referenced associated practice networks and ASLA initiatives, including the New Mobility and Emerging Technologies Subcommittee (previously Autonomous Vehicles) of ASLA’s Professional Practice Committee. The PPN’s Online Learning sessions, newsletter, and website were also discussed.

In keeping with the Transportation PPN’s annual tradition, ASLA’s Director of Federal Government Affairs, Roxanne Blackwell, Esq., Hon. ASLA, provided a legislation update. Roxanne was pleased to report no threats to funding for major federal programs relevant to landscape architects at this time. She noted that the very popular TIGER (Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery) program had been renamed. The new BUILD (Better Utilizing Investments to Leverage Development) Transportation Discretionary Grants program maintains the TIGER program’s singular focus on surface transportation infrastructure investments by offering competitive grants that favor projects with significant local or regional impacts. The funding level for the BUILD grants has been set at $1.5 billion dollars.

Another promising legislative action is H.R. 5158. This bill was unanimously approved by the U.S. House of Representatives Transportation and Infrastructure Committee in September. The bi-partisan bill directs the Secretary of Transportation to reopen the nomination process for National Scenic Byways and All-American Roads. Roxanne reminded those in attendance that live social media alerts on H.R. 5158 had been sent out to members. She urged everyone to contact their Representative(s) to express support for the bill. The goal is to get as many co-sponsors in this Congress as possible—a show of bipartisan support—before Congress transitions in 2019. ASLA members continue to report using funds from the Federal Highway Administration’s (FHWA’s) Scenic Byway program. ASLA would consider it an incredible coup if program funding was re-established.

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by Christine Colley, ASLA, RLA

Context Sensitive Design (CSS) is having a moment. The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) has recently released three new publications on Context Sensitive Solutions (CSS) and Context Sensitive Design (CSD). The documents are excellent resources for seasoned and novice transportation landscape architects:

• Using Context Sensitive Solutions to Achieve Context Sensitive Design, State of the Practice Assessment (aka, CSS/D State of the Practice Assessment),
• Summary Report: Using Context Sensitive Solutions to Achieve Context Sensitive Design – Technical Assistance and Virtual Peer Exchanges (aka, Technical Assistance and Virtual Peer Exchanges), and
• Context Sensitive Solutions and Design: A Practical Approach to Transportation Decisionmaking (aka, CSS/D Practical Approach, from the Success in Stewardship newsletter).

Context Sensitive Solutions (CSS) and Context Sensitive Designs (CSD) are not new. The concept was first introduced in the 1997 FHWA publication A Guide for Achieving Flexibility in Highway Design and further defined during the May 1998 workshop Thinking Beyond the Pavement: A National Workshop on Integrating Highway Development with Communities and the Environment. CSS is a decision-making tool that emphasizes multidisciplinary, collaborative approaches to the planning and design of transportation infrastructure. Ideally, when following a CSS decision-making process, the result is a transportation facility uniquely suited to its setting. CSS is achieved by maintaining and enhancing scenic, aesthetic, historical, community, and environmental resources while simultaneously improving or maintaining safety and mobility.

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Who doesn’t love to drive down the highway listening to music, especially patriotic music around the 4th of July? Well, the folks at the New Mexico Department of Transportation are helping motorists enjoy this pastime by incorporating music into the road! National Geographic’s show Crowd Control initiated the project (with funding from Allstate Insurance) to help drivers focus on the road and drive the speed limit.

The installation is similar to rumble strips, the pavement grooves that alert drivers when they are drifting out of the drive lanes and onto the roadway shoulder. However, NM DOT’s musical highway has pavement grooves placed within the drive lanes. Vehicle tires emit a sound as they pass over the grooves. This sound varies in pitch according to the groove spacing. The correct sequence of grooves and spacing cause the vehicle’s tires to emit sounds that mimic a song, in this case, a famous, well-known, patriotic song, “America the Beautiful.”

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In September 2016, the U.S. Department of Transportation Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) published the Strategic Agenda for Pedestrians and Bicycle Transportation. The report updates DOT’s 1994 National Bicycling and Walking Study and informs FHWA’s focus for pedestrian and bicycle infrastructure for the next three to five years. The Strategic Agenda reinforces FHWA’s commitment to innovate on pedestrian and bicycle transportation issues by encouraging multimodal transportation options that are practical, safe, and efficient.

The Strategic Agenda was developed by US DOT practitioners and experts, with assistance from a Technical Working Group (TWG), pedestrian and bicycle practitioners, and the public. Intensive public involvement and research were used to develop the Agenda’s “core areas of focus, key consideration issues, opportunities and potential actions.” The Strategic Agenda identifies two main pedestrian and bicycle goals being pursued by FHWA:

• To achieve an 80% reduction in pedestrian and bicycle fatalities and serious injuries in 15 years and zero pedestrian and bicycle fatalities and serious injuries in the next 20 to 30 years.
• To increase the percentage of short trips represented by bicycling and walking to 30% by the year 2025. Short trips are defined as trips of 5 miles or less for bicyclists and 1 mile or less for pedestrians.

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