Testing your INVEST-ment in highway sustainability Monterey Bay project gets the gold Debbie Hale, Executive Director, Transportation Agency for Monterey County, California, and Chair, APWA Transportation Committee; Lisa Reid, P.E., PMP, Senior Sustainability Consultant, CH2M Hill, Bellevue, Washington, and member, APWA Transportation Sustainability Subcommittee
he Monterey Bay is known for its interest in preserving the environment, an environment that draws over eight million visitors a year to this scenic destination. As planners with the Transportation Agency for Monterey County, we are sensitive to the notion that our projects should be as sustainable as possible. We want to honor the three “e”s of sustainability by balancing the equity concerns for our residents, the impacts to our natural environment, and the needs of our $2.5 billion per year tourism economy. But how can a highway project be sustainable? That is where sustainability rating systems come into play. When we heard that the Federal Highway Administration was planning a pilot
test of its new INVEST (Infrastructure Voluntary Evaluation Sustainability Tool) sustainable self-evaluation system for highways, we were eager to sign up. Our State Route 156 west widening and interchange project became one of just two projects in California, and 17 projects nationwide, to participate in testing of the Pilot Test Version of the Project Development module of INVEST. INVEST identifies the characteristics of sustainable highway development via a web-based self-evaluation tool. The tool is intended to provide a method for practitioners to evaluate their transportation projects and to encourage progress in the sustainability arena. It is not required
Traffic on eastbound Highway 156 as it narrows from two lanes to one lane. 44 APWA Reporter
July 2012
in order to receive federal funding and it is not intended to result in comparisons across transportation agencies and projects, but it is intended to encourage project managers to learn how to make their projects more sustainable, according to a set of 29 criteria that assign points to specific sustainability best practices (see chart for Version 1 criteria). Projects can reach four different achievement levels of sustainability: bronze, silver, gold and platinum. We evaluated the Project Development module, but there are also System Planning and Operations & Maintenance modules that cover the rest of the project life cycle. The Pilot Test Version of the Project Development module had basic and extended scorecards that filtered applicable criteria depending on the type of project being evaluated. The INVEST web-based tool was a good fit for our project and our team. As a small agency in a mediumsized county (425,000 people), it would be difficult to participate in a sustainability analysis that would be costly or time-consuming. Our State Route 156 project will improve safety and mobility by creating a new four-mile, four-lane highway segment, converting the existing highway to a frontage road, replacing an existing traffic signal with an interchange, and rebuilding the highway to highway connection. The project had just completed the state and federal environmental review process, so a great deal of
