Conference Program

Concurrent Technical Sessions (61-66)
Wednesday, June 9, 2010 - 1:30pm - 2:45pm

61. The Super Collider of Ideas - Thinking Out of the Box about Radical Changes to Environmental Management (33KB)
Moderator: Burr Stewart, Principle Burrs; Shari Schaftlein, Federal Highway Administration

Incremental improvements in government regulations and business processes are not necessarily capable of keeping up with the rapid changes in technology, knowledge, and the integration of the global economy that are going to be taking place in the next ten years. This actively facilitated roundtable will explore the implications of the four Global Development Scenarios from the UN's Millennium Assessment (http://www.greenfacts.org/en/ecosystems/toolboxes/scenarios-go.htm) and likely trends in internet-based social organizing and economic markets, to develop a list of ideas for "remapping decision support systems" to create rapid local and global outcomes. The results from the session will be fed into the subsequent wrap-up plenary session on future research needs.

This will be a facilitated roundtable of participants.

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62. Balancing Energy, Security, Carbon Mitigation, and Sustainability
Moderator: Paul Leiby, Oak Ridge National Laboratory

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63. Air Quality and Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Freight Transportation
Moderator: Jane Lin, University of Illinois at Chicago

This session will cover GHG emissions from freight transportation including innovative approaches for reducing freight emissions.

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64. Innovative Environment and Planning Decision Making Tools
Moderator: Steve Andrle, Transportation Research Board

This session will highlight two recent Strategic Highway Research Program (SHRP2) initiatives which provide innovative approaches to improving environmental and planning decision making. The SHRP2 is implemented by the National Academies of Science through a cooperative agreement with the Federal Highway Administration.  Funding for SHRP2 is provided in SAFETEA-LU. The SHRP2 Capacity research area includes several research initiatives that focus on developing approaches and tools for systematically integrating environmental, economic and community requirements into the analysis, planning and design of new highway capacity.
This session will focus on the following research initiatives:
1. Development of an ecological approach to environmental mitigation; and a new approach for conducting an ecological assessment and ecosystem crediting. A Request for Proposals will be issued on July 27, 2010 to pilot test the products that will be discussed in this session. $1.25 million is available and multiple awards are anticipated.
2.Demonstration of the SHRP2 Transportation for Communities Advancing Projects through Partnerships web-based tool for improving collaborative decsion making related to highway projects. Additional information regarding this tool can be found at www.transportationforcommunities.com

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65. Livability: What Is It and How Do You Measure It?
Moderator: David Carlson, Federal Highway Administration

Current federal policy is clearly focused on investing in transportation infrastructure that supports livable and sustainable communities. In order to ensure that transportation decisions deliver results reflective of livable communities we must first have a clear definition of livability and; therefore, be able to identify ways to measure our performance.

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66. Environmental and Historic Preservation Regulations: Overlap and Divergence - Part II
Moderator: David Grachen, Federal Highway Administration

Participants will learn to identify the similarities and differences between certain requirements of NEPA, Section 106 regulations implementing the National Historic Preservation Act, and Section 4(f) of the US DOT Act in the context of transportation project development. Issues to be considered include public involvement, alternatives analysis, and Section 4(f) least harm analysis. In addition, participants will be provided with an understanding of opportunities to achieve efficiencies with overlapping requirements.

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