New York City Mayor's Office of Climate and Environmental Justice
At a Glance
Industry
Government/Public Administration
Project Types
Clean and Renewable Energy, Zero Emission Vehicles, Freight and Logistics
Year
2021
Location
New York, NY
Summary
Daniel Gonzalez worked on a transportation resiliency project for the NYC Mayor’s Office of Climate and Sustainability.
Goals
In 2021, the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine published “Investing in Transportation Resilience: A Framework for Informed Choices” at the request of the US Congress. This effort required a review of current practices by transportation agencies for evaluating resilience and measuring resilience of transportation systems. Sparked by this effort at the national level, the New York City Department of Transportation (NYCDOT) in partnership with the NYC Mayor’s Office of Climate & Sustainability (MOC&S) created this project to research, evaluate, and propose metrics that can be used to help guide resilient transportation planning and assess progress towards resiliency goals.
Solutions
A literature review was performed to identify resilience frameworks with emphasis on transportation resiliency, climate change effects on transportation, and transportation planning. Resiliency frameworks were reviewed from a variety of sources including the Federal Highway Administration and the American association of State Highway and Transportation Officials. From this research, the “AREA” framework (Weilant, Strong, Miller 20191) was selected to define a transportation system’s resilience, paired with an “outcomes” analysis to define performance.
Using NYC government documents such as A Stronger More Resilient New York, a matrix of potential climate related events and transportation assets was used to identify ten conceptual metrics that measure the resiliency performance of NYC’s transportation network. A case study was performed using a sample metric.
Potential Impact
Using the project’s proposal metrics and case study, the NYC DOT in partnership with MOC&S will have a foundation for a more in-depth analysis of each organization’s ability to collect and use transportation resiliency metrics to reach NYC resiliency goals and better protect the NYC transportation system from anticipated climate disruptions.