Caltrans Sustainability News
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Creating District Active Transportation Plans
Caltrans has set ambitious goals to increase walking, bicycling, and transit trips statewide, while improving safety for all users at the same time. To meet those strategic goals, we need to envision a network of facilities for walking and biking on and across the State Highway System (SHS) that seamlessly link to local streets and trails in every neighborhood. The work to plan those networks started in 2018 with first-ever Caltrans Active Transportation Plans (CAT Plans).
Creating twelve, context-specific active transportation plans
Did you know that Caltrans is developing active transportation plans for all twelve districts? Active transportation includes walking, biking, and other “human-powered” ways that people get from one place to another. Active transportation offers a wide range of benefits from improved cardiovascular fitness for individuals to carbon-free travel consistent with climate goals. The development of the CAT Plans is one of many implementation actions outlined in
Toward an Active California
, the state bicycle and pedestrian plan released in 2017. The CAT Plans will strive to meet state goals for active modes by identifying opportunities for better connectivity along the state highway system and to local active transportation networks.
Each Caltrans district plan will include:
- An asset inventory of existing bicycle and pedestrian facilities, built by district staff who will compile data on the location of sidewalks, bike lanes, crosswalks, etc., and their respective conditions.
- The inventories will be analyzed to identify where gaps in the active transportation network exist on, across, and adjacent to the 50,000+ lane miles of the state highway system.
The objective of this inventory process, in conjunction with public input and other data, such as safety and collision info, volume data, equity data, is to produce a list of location-based needs which can help plan funding priorities for bicycle and pedestrian facilities in one of the Department’s largest funding program, the
State Highway and Operations Protection Program
(SHOPP).
Public Involvement
Throughout the study process, District-led public engagement will be exercised through collaboration with community-based organizations and at community events and venues, especially at locations accessible to low-income and communities of color. Additionally, each CAT Plan will strive for equity outcomes—to result in reconnecting communities previously divided by state highways and safety and access improvements for people who walk, bicycle, and use transit.
Schedule
The planning and public engagement process is kicking off in two districts this spring– Districts 5 (Central Coast) and District 4 (Bay Area). Each district plan will be data-driven and will focus on developing context-appropriate recommendations on, across, and adjacent to the Caltrans State Highway System. All plans are expected to be completed prior to February 2023. Stay subscribed to this newsletter for CAT Plan updates.
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Benefits of Walking, Biking, and Using Transit
•Improve physical and mental health
•Are free or low-cost
•Offer reliable travel times
•Enable people to opt-out of congestion
•Are Zero Emission, resource and space efficient
•Promote social interaction and vibrant communities
•Support local economic activity
•Use low-impact, low-cost infrastructure
•Are “good neighbor” modes
•Can substitute for auto trips and reduce needed infrastructure for roads and parking
•Are First/Last mile solutions
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Water Conservation
"Caltrans’ effort to limit water use on its irrigated acreage was accomplished despite a 77 percent increase in amount of landscaped acres under its control since 1990." -
page 16 of article
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Caltrans' Operational Sustainability: Do More, Use Less
Sustainability Roadmap Cites Progress in Managing Resources
The
Sustainability Roadmap 2018-2019
is a two-year progress report and action plan for state agencies to implement sustainable practices. The Caltrans Roadmap covers five key sustainability topics that relate to reducing the environmental footprint of our building facilities and day-to-day enterprise operations:
- Energy conservation
- Water conservation
- Green operations
- Zero-emission vehicles (focusing on Department fleet and workplace charging for employees)
- Climate adaptation
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Zero-Emission Vehicles (ZEVs) Update
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ZEVs in California
ZEVs are an essential part of our state's climate strategy, as well as a vital component of the effort to eliminate harmful auto exhaust. Transportation is a
dominant source of carbon emissions
in California—1/3 of those emissions being from tailpipes. By increasing the number of clean vehicles on the road through widespread adoption of ZEVs, California will take a critical step towards reaching our statewide goals of improving air quality and reducing the transportation sector’s climate impacts.
ZEV Workplace Charging Installations
The Department has actively pursued workplace Electric Vehicle charging installations through a partnership with Electrify America, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Volkswagen that was created to implement settlement agreements with California and other states. Electrify America, via its contractor EV Connect, has committed to install 314 Level 2 charging stations at eligible workplace sites. Full implementation of these sites is expected by June 30, 2019.
Table 1. Caltrans / EV Connect Workplace Charging Stations
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Pictured: ZEV charger from District 4
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Caltrans, in collaboration with the Department of General Services and the Government Operations Agency, is working on identifying future funding for an additional 700 ports across Caltrans workplace sites.
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Best Practice: Overcoming Siloes to Grow a Culture of Sustainability in District 5 (Central Coast)
This section celebrates the outstanding sustainability work in our Caltrans districts and will feature an activity each issue; content provided in support for this issue from District 5's Aileen Loe and John Olejnik.
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In an organization as large as Caltrans, progress on interdisciplinary issues like sustainability are a particular challenge. District 5 has a best practice for overcoming the challenge of often-siloed priorities.
Every two months, at the recurring District 5 Branch Managers meeting, one Division per meeting (assigned on a rotational basis) gives a presentation about sustainability. The intention is to involve everyone in exploring how they contribute to sustainability and to inspire each other in new ways. This practice provides opportunities for the various units to showcase their work. It also ties everyone together in promoting unique and valuable ways to carry out the Caltrans mission.
The idea originated in 2016/17 when District Director Tim Gubbins and his executive team added an “innovation spotlight” to the agenda where Divisions took turns making presentations at the meetings regarding innovative ideas or programs that they are implementing with their work. Following the success of this model, the “Sustainability Corner” was introduced for 2018/19. With nine functional units, it takes about 18 months to complete the rotation on the Branch Managers meeting cycle.
Could this model work in your office to grow sustainability? Give it a try!
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Sustainability News from Around the World
Throughout 2018/19 the Sustainability Program used the Department’s three sustainability priorities to help focus our efforts and link Department and state goals--to champion active transportation; advance clean fuels, vehicles, and materials; and, prepare for climate change and extreme weather. This section of the newsletter brings you news items from around the globe related to the three priorities.
*Disclaimer: The following content was curated by Jeff Woods, Sustainable Transportation Media Consultant.
The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed in the following linked articles belong solely to the authors of those articles, and not necessarily to Caltrans or its Sustainability Program.
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Champion Active Transportation
An experimental program approved by Utah legislators would fund free transit for at most seven days over the next three years during days of bad air quality and inversion on the Front Range. During the free transit days, the Utah Division of Air Quality and the Utah Transit..
.
(Salt Lake Tribune)
Many transit agencies around the country are losing riders but according to researchers at the University of Kentucky the drop couldn’t just be from service reductions, which mostly happened during the recession...
(Curbed)
In the Netherlands, 25% of trips are made via bicycle, a higher proportion than any other country. But the Dutch still want to do better. The government is incentivizing bicycle commuting by allowing workers to claim about...
(Huffington Post)
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Advance Clean Vehicles, Fuels and Materials
After finding that Volkswagen AG used devices that allowed their diesel vehicles to pass inspections and release up to 40 times the allowed nitrogen oxide into the air, states were awarded settlement money. Maryland is set to...
(Government Technology)
Transportation agencies and private companies all over the country and world are always working on more innovative and sustainable technologies. But Dutch architect Daan Roosegaarde believes that while we’re moving forward...
(The Driven)
As part of the City of Seattle’s climate change strategy, Mayor Jenny Durkin is proposing that all new buildings be equipped with electric vehicle chargers. Every new single family residence...
(Smart Cities Dive)
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Prepare for Climate Change and Extreme Weather
When we hear about climate change in the news we often see stories of rising sea levels and raging storms, but there are smaller and perhaps more insipid effects as well. According to research from MIT, climate change...
(Bloomberg)
New York Mayor Bill de Blasio has unveiled a $10B plan to extend Manhattan's waterfront 500 feet into the East River in order to give the city more protection during big storms and rising seas. In 100 years, 20% of downtown ...
(Curbed)
Kansas City has voted to change its municipal energy sources to renewable energy in an effort to make the city carbon free by 2020. They’ll accomplish this feat by also creating a 5 megawatt community solar installation...
(Next City)
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March was Caltrans’ First-ever Try Transit Month
In this video,
Caltrans' Alisa Becerra takes employees through the time and cost saving benefits of using transit.
While some employees had the opportunity to try transit for their first time this March, many DOT employees and Californians rely on transit as their primary mode of transportation. Improving service and quality for transit riders through an integrated statewide rail and transit system is a focus for Caltrans.
With a goal to double transit trips by 2020 from the baseline year of 2012, Caltrans Division of Rail and Mass Transportation is coordinating with partner agencies across the state to implement projects that improve rail and transit safety, efficiency, and connectivity statewide. By implementing the
State Rail Plan Vision
,
of the projected total growth in California by 2040, 74 million daily VMT will be diverted from highways to rail, helping to manage on-road congestion and reduce GHG emissions. SB 1 provide
s
significant investment
for this vision, including more than $700 million annually for rail and transit projects. These include, for example: deployment of zero-emission bus fleets to increase service and capacity on key routes across the state; new BART rail cars to increase frequencies and add train cars to improve efficiencies and decrease crowding; and investments for a statewide integrated travel smartphone application to allow riders to seamlessly plan and pay for a trip across multiple transit types.
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Video production credit: Caltrans HQ Public Affairs Team; Video Reporting: Public Information Officer Alisa Becerra
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Walk, Bike, Transit (WBT) Encouragement for Caltrans Employees
Recap of Try Transit month
At Caltrans headquarters, the WBT Encouragement Committee hosted three Try Transit events in March, promoted to 1,000+ employees, with participation from five Sacramento-area transit agencies. At these events, employees enrolled in local commute programs, received tutorials on how to purchase tickets and got comfortable with mounting their bike to a bus. Try Transit events were also held in
District 7 (Los Angeles)
among other districts. Thank you for participating!
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Special Advisor to the Director Jim Davis enrolls in the transit Connect Card program with guidance from Kareniece Hannon
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Emily Abrahams practices loading a bike onto the bus during a "Try Transit" tutorial
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The WBT Encouragement Team rewards riders on "Transit to Work Day"
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SAVE-THE-DATE
MAY IS BIKE MONTH (MIBM)
Now is the time to get your two-wheeler tuned up! May is National Bike Month, sponsored by the League of American Bicyclists and celebrated in communities from coast to coast. Established in 1956, National Bike Month is a chance to showcase the many benefits of bicycling and encourage more folks to giving biking a try.
The WBT Encouragement Committee is already gearing up for events throughout the month to celebrate bicycling and the changing culture around active transportation at Caltrans. Stay tuned for information on how to log bike trips and miles and for chances to win prizes during MIBM.
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Planning a MIBM event?
Find MIBM promotional materials from the
League of American Bicyclists to assist with leading events in your very own community to encourage bicycling!
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LAO's Review of the Active Transportation Program
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On March 1, 2019, the Legislative Analyst Office (LAO) published its review of the statewide Active Transportation Program (ATP), a program administered by the Caltrans Division of Local Assistance in the Office of State Programs. The purpose of the review was to help determine if, after five years, ATP was meeting its intended goals and whether any changes to the program were warranted.
Report Findings
For the first three funding cycles, the most common project types out of the 776 total projects were those that had benefits to both bicyclists and pedestrians, and either closed a gap in existing bicycle or pedestrian infrastructure or provided safer pedestrian access to schools.
Project costs and grant funding awards appear to be increasing with each subsequent program cycle, with the average award amount nearly three times greater in cycle 4 than cycle 1. Agencies seem to be applying for and getting funded to build larger and more transformative projects each cycle.
LAO also reported that most of the ATP projects did in fact succeed at providing benefits to disadvantaged communities, as per the program goals.
LAO’s Key Recommendations
The key recommendations from this report are to require Caltrans and the California Transportation Commission (CTC) to collect more accurate program outcome data, such as walk and bike counts, and safety data. Additionally, the report recommends that the CTC focus on funding larger, more transformative projects from the statewide competitive portion of funds.
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Meet Aileen Loe, Sustainability Representative from San Luis Obispo, D5
Each issue, the newsletter will feature a District Sustainability Representative from California.
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Aileen Loe,
Deputy District Director for Transportation Planning and Local Assistance
Caltrans District 5
What is a District Sustainability Representative?
Caltrans Districts play an important role in sustainability implementation—they are the boots on the ground which put Caltrans’ sustainability priorities into practice. All 12 Caltrans districts appoint a representative that works with the HQ Sustainability Program, referred to as a District Sustainability Representative.
Representatives implement sustainability by developing district-specific actions, sharing policy direction, providing training and technical assistance, and coordinating across multiple functions and with multiple entities.
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Meet Aileen Loe, Central Coast District Sustainability Representative
You may find her overseeing long-range planning activities, engaging with partners, or managing her staff--Aileen Loe is the Deputy District Director for Transportation Planning and Local Assistance in District 5 (San Luis Obispo), in which she also serves as District 5’s Sustainability Representative. Aileen personally embraces the principles of sustainability, “I always try to look at the long-term implications, the higher vision of what we’re trying to accomplish, when influencing the day-to-day.” Aileen works closely with colleagues Julia Bolger and John Olejnik to spread sustainability throughout the district, and she credits the power of sharing (communicating) as essential in the Department’s sustainable vision coming to life.
What is the vision for sustainability in the Central Coast?
District 5 is preparing to update its District System Management Plan, which is an opportunity to ingrain sustainability in the future of the central coast. Major sustainability activities for District 5 aim to implement complete streets facilities in more projects. She adds, “Preparation for the onset of zero-emission vehicles (ZEVs) and autonomous vehicles is another challenge—having our minds open to what the needs are, and an awareness of the trends, is important.”
Establishing a ‘new norm’
Aileen and her District 5 colleagues, in partnership with the local community, are working on a two-lane highway project in the Santa Cruz mountains. The project area is geographically constrained by rock, steep grades, and a river below, but Aileen is determined to deliver something that the community said they wanted—complete streets facilities. For Aileen, this project has reiterated the challenge of implementing sustainability, but she sees partnerships as key in overcoming the challenge. She identifies the main question to be, “How do we do things in new ways and define a new norm for how we work with local and regional partners moving forward?”
Aileen's career path
When Aileen started at the Department in 1987, after a time at the California Coastal Commission, she kicked off her Caltrans career in the environmental planning department. Eventually Aileen transitioned to a transportation planning position, which “opened [her] eyes to the role that transportation has in the economic vitality and livability of California.” Once in planning, Aileen worked in various areas of transportation planning before assuming her current role. She has now served 12 years as Deputy District Director for Transportation Planning and Local Assistance in District 5.
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Advancing Clean Materials: How Caltrans is Re-using Old Tires in Pavement Mixes
Article published in the Winter 2019 Caltrans Mile Marker; Source: 2016 Crumb Rubber Report; Jason Probst, Strategic Planning Manager, Caltrans Division of Maintenance
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"Caltrans’ research has shown that asphalt containing crumb rubber better resists reflective cracking than conventional asphalt pavement."
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Seeking Contributions and Feedback
Contributions:
The Caltrans Sustainability Program welcomes submittals of content for possible inclusion in our next issue, at
Sustainability@dot.ca.gov.
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Caltrans Sustainability Program
1120 N St,
Sacramento, CA 95814
Sustainability@dot.ca.gov
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