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The Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) recently released its Resilience Plan, outlining ways to incorporate resilience strategies into transportation planning, project development and delivery, operations, maintenance, and asset management.
It includes methods for preparing for and mitigating hazards that can put the transportation network at risk of disruption and deterioration.
The plan includes six objectives. VDOT will:
- Develop a data-and-research plan to ensure transportation decisions are informed by the best available data and research
- Implement a coordination and outreach plan to help leverage existing efforts, maximize benefits, and ensure decision-making is coordinated with statewide policy
- Create a risk-based methodology to measure the vulnerability of current and planned transportation infrastructure assets.
- Develop feasibility and economic analyses compatible with existing processes to ensure the appropriate selection of resilience measures.
- Identify new funding opportunities for resilience projects and initiatives and identify and implement steps to incorporate resilience into current investment processes and programs.
- Establish a suite of resilience measures available for incorporation into planning, design, operations, and maintenance programs. The measures will include nature-based resilience measures; operations, maintenance, and emergency management enhancement measures; adaptive design criteria; and other administrative/policy measures.