In May, representatives from New Hampshire, Connecticut, and Maine Departments of Transportation presented their states’ current resilience planning and design practices at the Northeastern State Transportation Officials (NASTO) 2026 Emergency Management Peer Exchange in New Haven, CT.
[Above photo by AASHTO]
The session focused on current infrastructure “future proofing” initiatives along the U.S. east coast. Speakers at that session were Raquel Ocasio, transportation supervising planner from the Connecticut Department of Transportation’s Office of Sustainability and Resiliency; Tobey Reynolds, director of project development from New Hampshire Department of Transportation; and Eric Ham, senior environmental manager from the Maine Department of Transportation.
[Editor’s note: The American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials hosted a knowledge session on future proofing at its 2026 Spring Meeting in Savannah, GA, featuring speakers from state departments of transportation in Texas, Georgia, North Carolina, and Alabama.]
“The Connecticut DOT has adopted AASHTO’s and the Federal Highway Administration’s definition [of resilient transportation],” explained Ocasio, “which is the ability to anticipate, prepare for, and adapt to changing conditions and withstand, respond, and recover rapidly from disruptions.”
Ocasio explained that several resilience initiatives across Connecticut, including Conneticut DOT’s Culvert Program Pilot Study, aim to prioritize key infrastructure across the state that
require improvements with fast, robust resolutions. Ocasio mentioned that the first phase of that Culvert Program Pilot Study should be completed in the next few months.
In New Hampshire, Reynolds said that many state and local agencies are looking at how to improve resilience alongside coastal roadways. He said New Hampshire DOT’s new Coastal Hydraulic and Hydrodynamic Supplement, which is nearly complete, provides guidance on resilience projects across the state. Reynolds also noted that the supplement is a continuation of research from New Hampshire’s Coastal Flood Risk Summary and the state’s Resilience Improvement Plan.
“It takes the science of [the Coastal Flood Risk Summary], and it gives guidance on how the DOT is going to apply that science to their projects,” he explained.
Reynolds also emphasized that the supplement was designed to apply to all New Hampshire government projects, at both the state and local levels.
“What we were finding was, we would do bridge projects or culvert projects along the coast and, depending on who was designing them, we would have different opinions to what sea level rise would be,” he said. “This document is going to help us apply that data consistently across projects.”
Maine DOT’s Ham also highlighted his state’s work in regulating coastal road erosion, including a recent project along North Deer Isle Road, which connects island communities like Stonington to the mainland, that consistently faces causeway overtopping.
Ham explained that, across Maine, many agencies are exploring nature-based infrastructure solutions that are less invasive, yet durable. In coastal areas, the issue of resilient, non-invasive, and affordable infrastructure becomes even more challenging.
“You can’t just build vertical walls everywhere and not touch anything,” Ham noted. “In these high-energy coastal environments, [the issue is] how you stabilize the roads and keep them resilient.”
AASHTO
