By Matt Alderton
August 8, 2020 at 6:37 p.m. EDT
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Most motorists are familiar with many of the reasons for bad traffic: more cars on the road, unskilled drivers, construction, inadequate mass transit, crashes. Increasingly, however, there’s at least one more culprit to consider: climate change.
“America’s transportation system is not set up to recover and regain
functionality after a major disruption or disasters,” said Paula
Pagniez, director of the Climate and Resilience Hub at global risk
management firm Willis Towers Watson. “Both chronic and acute changes in
weather impact America’s roads, bridges, tunnels and transit.”
In fact, weather already causes approximately 15 percent of congestion, according to the Federal Highway Administration. And with climate change escalating — scientists expect extreme weather events such as heat waves, snow storms, hurricanes and floods to increase in both frequency and intensity — gridlock will only grow. That is, unless governments change the way they plan, design and manage climate-sensitive infrastructure.
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“Everything that is built around you is built with some consideration for how much environmental exposure it’s going to be able to tolerate,” Chester explained. “When it comes to roads, for example, the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials has guidelines that say asphalt should be engineered to withstand the hottest week on record during a certain historical period — say, 1970 and 2000. In Arizona, that might be 115 degrees, and in Chicago, it might be 105 degrees.”
The problem is, thanks to climate change, past is no longer prologue. “We’re not going to shut off CO2 emissions overnight, so the climate is going to continue changing. The question is, by how much and in which direction?” Chester said.
“Let’s say you design a road in Chicago for the hottest week on record, which might be 105 degrees. Well, the hottest week going forward might be 108 degrees, or it could be 120 degrees,” he said.
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It’s not just roads, either. Also vulnerable are railroads, whose tracks can buckle in extreme temperatures; power lines, which can sag and fall during heat waves and topple during windstorms; dams and sewers, which can flood and fail during extreme rains; and bridges, which expand and contract with the temperature in ways that can degrade their structural integrity.
And along with fiscal and physical fallout, there are economic consequences.
“We need infrastructure to move the goods and people that make the economy go,” said Bob Perciasepe, president of the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions, adding that infrastructure failure can hamper employment, productivity, logistics and commerce.
Even without the specter of climate change, U.S. infrastructure is in dire straits, according to the American Society of Civil Engineers, which gave the nation a D+ on its most recent “Infrastructure Report Card.”
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Creativity and adaptability are also essential. Along its 18-mile stretch of Interstate 85, for example, the Ray tests new infrastructure solutions that deliver cost savings, performance improvements and climate resilience. Two that show particular promise are roadside vegetation and rubber-modified asphalt. The former fills vacant roadside land with perennial grains whose deep roots retain water and hold soil against storm water flooding. The latter, made with recycled tires, are rutting- and crack-resistant, which increases road durability and extends the life of the pavement by up to 30 percent or more.
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“The nation can save $6 in future disaster costs for every $1 invested in hazard mitigation,” Pagniez said, citing data from the National Institute of Building Sciences. “Beyond a misuse of taxpayer dollars, the consequences of not acting include lives and livelihoods lost and assets damaged — sometimes beyond repair.”
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