The Stream Podcast Examines Noise Reduction Efforts
A recent two-part series on “The Stream by AASHTO” podcast illustrated how state departments of transportation are working to minimize the impact of roadway noise.
[Above image by AASHTO]
“The Stream by AASHTO” podcast is part of the AASHTO Environmental Management technical service program for state DOTs. It explores a wide array of environmental topics that affect transportation and infrastructure programs.
The first episode of this two part series featured Ross Hudnall, noise abatement coordinator for the Virginia Department of Transportation, discussing how his agency is working to reduce the noise impact from roadways on local communities.
In the second episode, Kevin Robertson – surface treatment engineer at the Arizona Department of Transportation – discussed the benefits of quiet pavements and other cutting-edge noise reduction technologies being deployed as part of Arizona’s transportation projects.
Additionally, AASHTO’s Center for Environmental Excellence offers a resource page on its website regarding noise abatement topics, case studies, and other information.
Environmental News Highlights – September 11, 2024
The Pennsylvania Department of Transportation and volunteer-based education organization Keep Pennsylvania Beautiful (KPB) recently announced the 2024-2025 cohort of “Young Ambassadors of Pennsylvania” – a program launched by the agency in 2021 as a way to grow the next generation of leaders and help keep communities statewide be free of litter.
[Above image via PennDOT]
PennDOT conducted the Pennsylvania Litter Research Study from 2018 through 2019 along with the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), Keep America Beautiful, and KPB, to determine the impact and removal cost of litter along state roadways – which, at the time, came to $13 million annually for the agency alone and $68 million every year for city governments across the state.
The study also recommended creating a youth education and outreach program to help reduce littering, which resulted in the creation of the “Young Ambassadors” program.
KPB provides education and training to program participants on topics related to the impacts of litter, litter prevention, waste management and recycling, civic engagement and related public policy, volunteer management, and social media marketing.
“Programs like ‘Young Ambassadors’ are the first step in creating lasting impact on Pennsylvania’s ecological health,” said PennDOT Secretary Mike Carroll in a statement. “These students will go on to become decision-makers and steer the state’s green future. Starting now is critical.”
KPB will also be awarding a minimum of two $1000 scholarships to high school seniors involved in the “Young Ambassadors” program, which includes both current and past participants.
“We are proud to welcome this new slate of Young Ambassadors to our program and excited to provide opportunities for them to engage and activate within their own community,” added Shannon Reiter, KPB’s president.
“Together, we will explore and connect with young professionals and like-minded students from not just Pennsylvania, but across the country and make a positive impact in our shared communities,” Reiter said. “We look forward to witnessing the remarkable achievements and positive changes that will emerge from this dynamic group.”
State departments of transportation across the country are involved in a wide variety of litter removal efforts, as well as public awareness campaigns that seek to eliminate roadway littering – in no small part due to the growing cost of roadside cleanup efforts.
The Ohio Department of Transportation, for example, note that it is now spending $10 million annually to collect trash along state and U.S. routes outside municipalities and all interstates except the Ohio Turnpike.
In May, the Utah Department of Transportation launched a new volunteer litter removal program called “Keeping Utah Beautiful” – a program designed to make it easy for members of the public to go online and sign up for a one-time cleanup of state roads.
The agency said these volunteer cleanups will supplement the work of Utah DOT crews who regularly pick up litter statewide. To ensure volunteer safety, “Keeping Utah Beautiful” participants will not clean interstates or some state routes, the Utah DOT stressed – and requires that program volunteers be a minimum of age 14.
That same month, the Oklahoma Department of Transportation and Missouri Department of Transportation announced the winners of their respective 2024 “trash” contests; poster-making and trash-can decoration campaigns involving elementary though high school students in order to help raise awareness regarding roadway litter removal needs.
And in July, crews from the Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development picked up more than 76 tons of roadside litter in one week, earning the department the 2024 Outstanding State Agency award from Keep Louisiana Beautiful or KLB.
The litter removal was part of the KLB “Love the Boot Week,” a statewide event in which groups compete to win the award, which gets its name from Louisiana’s boot-like outline. The agency picked up more litter than any other group during the week in April, cleaning up 152,475 pounds at more than 10 cleanup sites across the state.
Utah DOT Using Recycled Concrete for Highway Project
The Utah Department of Transportation is recycling old concrete on the site of its Bangerter Highway project to help build the highway’s new interchanges.
[Above photo by Utah DOT]
“In the past all of this concrete would have gone to waste and now is being recycled and reused for other projects,” noted Robert Stewart, director of Utah DOT’s Region 2, in a statement. “This pavement has been here for 30 years and it’s a great to be able to give it new life.”
He noted that construction crews have been working every day for the past five months on the recycling process, with Utah DOT opting to recycle the material on site instead of hauling off the material to another location to reduce the number of truck trips in the area.
To recycle concrete for reuse, the project’s construction crews use heavy machinery to break up the old sections of the highway, placing that material into an onsite crushing machine equipped with a large magnet inside to separate the concrete from the metal rebar, which is also recycled.
Once all the large cement chunks are crushed into tiny pieces, Utah DOT reprocesses the material into a road base for the new interchange.
“We are taking the old Bangerter Highway, crushing it up and making it into a product to put into the new Bangerter Highway,” said Jake Nielson, contractor project manager on the Bangerter 4700 South project. “What most people don’t know is that most of the materials in our highways are 100 percent recyclable, whether that’s concrete or asphalt.”
Utah DOT noted that, for more than a decade, it has been working to eliminate stoplights on Bangerter Highway by converting intersections into interchanges.
As Bangerter Highway is one of the Salt Lake Valley’s largest north-to-south corridors – moving an average of 60,000 vehicles per day – removing stoplights and converting all intersections into freeway-style interchanges will enhance safety and help keep traffic moving in the ever-growing west side of the Salt Lake Valley.
State departments of transportation across the country are involved in a variety of material recycling and reuse efforts.
For example, the Idaho Transportation Department is engaged in a broad effort to develop environmentally-friendly solutions that reduce plastic waste from entering the natural environment; particularly where infrastructure projects are concerned.
For instance, the agency is now using biodegradable erosion control loose weave “blankets” without joints that allow snakes and other wildlife to easily move over or through them. Those “blankets” play a key role in the agency’s Erosion and Sediment Control or ESC practices that prevent soil loss and reduce sediment-laden stormwater runoff in and around transportation infrastructure.
In 2023, the New Jersey Department of Transportation released a video detailing how its use of “foamed glass aggregate” provides a multitude of green benefits to the state – especially as the material is made from recycled glass bottles.
The Illinois Department of Transportation began working with the Illinois Center for Transportation in December 2021 to develop more “sustainable pavement practices,” which includes ways to incorporate more recycled materials such as plastic into asphalt mixes.
Their joint project – dubbed “R27-196-HS: Rheology-Chemical Based Procedure to Evaluate Additives/Modifiers Used in Asphalt Binders for Performance Enhancements: Phase 2” – investigated methods to “soften” asphalt binder to reduce pavement cracking.
As recycled materials are added to hot mix asphalt, the asphalt tends to harden and become brittle, potentially leading to premature cracking. As a result, the project’s researchers began testing the use of different “modifiers” or softening additives to asphalt binders to improve long-term pavement performance, especially when recycled materials are used in the mix.
Meanwhile, the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation wrapped up a pilot project in 2021 that used pellets made from grocery bags, milk jugs, and other recyclable plastics in an asphalt reconstruction project.
Those pellets were added to the asphalt in two quarter-mile test sections of the project at the entrance to Ridley Creek State Park, about 15 miles west of Philadelphia.
Utah DOT Deploys LiDAR to Boost Intersection Safety
The Utah Department of Transportation is using Light Detection and Ranging or LiDAR technology as a design tool to improve safety at intersections, specifically for pedestrians and bicyclists.
[Above image by Utah DOT]
LiDAR is a remote sensing system that uses light in the form of a pulsed laser to measure variable distances to generate precise three-dimensional or 3D information. In Utah DOT’s case, traffic engineers are using LiDAR to recreate an entire intersection – including vehicle, pedestrian, and cyclist movement – in 3D; providing a complete view of an intersection, including several hundred feet in each direction.
That allows the agency’s traffic engineers to track all movements at intersections and identify areas for safety countermeasures.
Mark Taylor, Utah DOT’s traffic signal operations engineer, pointed out that the LiDAR system also captures data on red light runs, “near miss” situations, jaywalking, typical pedestrian pathway movements, and other key traffic movements.
“We are always looking at ways to use emerging technology to increase safety on our roads,” he said in a statement. “This technology will help us pinpoint why and where safety issues are occurring.”
[Editor’s note: The Utah DOT received an award for this intersection safety improvement effort from the U.S. Department of Transportation in January.]
For example, Taylor said LiDAR data will help Utah track “high frequencies” of near-miss crashes that, in the past, has been hard to track with real data, as well as “green light” times that are too short. “These, and countless other safety solutions, will be made possible through the patterns that LiDAR illuminates,” he explained.
Utah DOT has installed LiDAR technology in several Salt Lake areas and is also testing LiDAR capabilities in conjunction with connected vehicle technology at two Provo locations—another area where pedestrians and cyclists are vulnerable.
“The more we can get cars talking to our roads, the safer we will all be,” noted Blaine Leonard, Utah DOT’s transport technology engineer. “We’re hoping this LiDAR data will be another key component of this new connected future.”
Utah DOT added that it is working with Panasonic in further developing this technology package and is using part of a $20 million grant issued by the Federal Highway Administration in June to expand this concept at other locations beyond Provo.
Other state departments of transportation are also using LiDAR in a variety of high-detail mapping exercises.
For example, in June 2023, the Indiana Department of Natural Resources called upon the Indiana Department of Transportation for help “mapping” a historic water-powered grist mill at Spring Mill state park in Mitchell, IN, prior to the structure’s renovation.
The historic grist mill is located in the state park’s Pioneer Village – founded in 1814 – which contains 20 historic buildings to explore. The centerpiece is the spring-fed, three-story limestone grist mill, built in 1817, that still grinds corn today (though only for demonstration purposes) to produce cornmeal. INDOT noted that the last renovation of this grist mill occurred in 1930.
INDOT’s Land & Aerial Survey Office collected aerial imagery, light detection and ranging or LiDAR data, and other information on the grist mill via drone to create a three dimensional or 3D rendering of the building and water flume, including a fly-through video; a scaled and georeferenced point cloud of the mill building and water flume; and a publicly sharable link to an online geographic information system that features the 3D rendering and panoramic images.
And, in January 2022, the Mississippi Department of Transportation began using LiDAR-equipped aerial drones to help improve the efficiency and safety in the construction and maintenance of road projects statewide. Those drones take measurements and map out road construction projects while minimizing the exposure of ground crews to traffic, the agency said.
WSDOT Issues $26M to Port Electrification Projects
The Washington State Department of Transportation recently awarded $26.5 million to 11 state ports to help them electrify their operations.
[Above photo by WSDOT]
These are the first awards through the Port Electrification Grant Program created by the state legislature in 2023 and funded by Washington’s Climate Commitment Act. The WSDOT said all 75 public ports across the state are eligible to seek grants from this program, which is part of a larger statewide initiative to reduce carbon emissions in the transportation sector.
“We are pleased to support cleaner air quality for those who live and work near the ports,” said Jason Biggs, director of WSDOT’s Rail, Freight, and Ports Division, in a statement. “This program helps ports switch from using fossil fuels, creates a better work environment for port staff and ensures nearby neighborhoods are healthier places to live.”
WSDOT is also involved in a related maritime project to replace the ferry vessels it operates with hybrid-electric models.
To that end, Washington State Ferries (WSF) – a division of WSDOT – recently contracted with ABB to help design and build new hybrid-electric-powered 160-automobile-capacity ferry boats.
Per the new partnership, ABB will select and integrate the technology that will power the new vessels, which includes the engine, batteries, and propeller system. The firm is also in charge of designing a “complete propulsion system,” will oversee the timely delivery of equipment, and offer expertise in equipment installation and commissioning as part of its contract with WSF.
ABB will also play a critical role in training WSF’s crews on the operation and maintenance of these new systems, WSDOT noted.
The Oregon Department of Transportation recently distributed $1.4 million in grants to 14 school districts and community groups to get more children to safely walk and bike to school.
[Above photo by Oregon DOT]
The roots of agency’s Safe Routes to School or SRTS program are in the former Federal Highway Administration program of the same name. When FHWA shut down the program in 2012, Oregon DOT decided to convert it to a state program through a combination of discretionary federal funds and dedicated state money.
Part of the program is for infrastructure improvements – designing and building sidewalks, crosswalks, and pedestrian and bicycle paths. The program also funds an educational and outreach component to raise awareness of and promote safe walking and biking to school, which are what the latest grants cover, said Heidi Manlove, Oregon DOT’s SRTS program manager.
Many of the 14 competitive grants will pay for coordinators who work with students, parents, school officials, and other community partners to find active transportation solutions to get students to and from school.
“The coordinators’ jobs are tough,” Manlove said. “There’s a lot of time spent knocking on doors, trying to get people to come together on this stuff. Some of it is fielding transportation issues and doing a walkability trip, or checklist, and seeing what some of the barriers are around the school.”
Coordinators look at entry and exit points and times for car pools and buses, alternative paths around the schools that could be used for walking or biking, and strategies that make the best use of infrastructure.
Sometimes, Oregon DOT must convince school districts or municipalities that there’s more to promoting a safe way to walk or bike to school than building a sidewalk or installing a flashing beacon, Manlove said.
“People want sidewalks, crosswalks, speed bumps, and oftentimes, we have to sell them on the education piece because they’re so focused on the ‘build-it-and-they-will-come’ approach,” Manlove said. “The coordinator is that liaison who bridges the gap to have those conversations.”
One strategy coordinators use is to create a “walking school bus,” a group of students who walk together and “pick up” more students along the way. At least one adult, or “driver,” leads the group.
Several other state departments of transportation, including Florida, Alaska, Indiana, and Massachusetts, also promote walking school buses in their SRTS plans.
While many schools express interest in the SRTS program, it isn’t a given that they are implemented everywhere. But once a school or school district starts the program, they quickly buy into it, she said.
Some of the groups Oregon DOT has funded in the past “now have managed to get funding in the school district budget,” Manlove said. Schools in the 38,000-student Beaverton School District program, for example, have embraced the SRTS program, “and the schools now are “doing (active transportation) education pieces during P.E. [physical education] class,” she said. “Even if those students aren’t walking or biking to school, they’re learning bike safety and pedestrian safety in P.E.”
