1. Home
  2. TRID
  3. View Record
https://nap.nationalacademies.org/catalog/27432/critical-issues-in-transportation-for-2024-and-beyond

SCOE Strategic Plan and Research Plan

The American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) has many committees focused on specific topics of interest to state Departments of Transportation (DOTs), herein referred to as “members”. The Standing Committee on Environment (SCOE) covers four primary areas of environmental interest: air quality, climate change, and energy (AQCCE); communities and cultural concerns (CCC); environmental process (EP); and natural resources (NR). As first developed in its 2003 Strategic Plan, the vision of SCOE is to assist members in delivering “a national, regional and local intermodal transportation system that is safe, economical, efficient, environmentally sound, and aesthetically and culturally sensitive.” This vision was accompanied by SCOE’s mission, goals, and strategies to achieve those goals. Although no formal updates have been made to the 2003 Strategic Plan, SCOE revisited its plan proposing an updated mission and goals in 2011. In 2015, the vision and mission of SCOE, while faced with new challenges, has not changed significantly. A number of environmental topics, concerns, and responsibilities have arisen over the past decade at both the national and state levels with profound impacts on members. These topics include but are not limited to: streamlining project delivery, climate change and adaptation to extreme weather, environmental justice, asset management, health assessments, and public‐private partnerships. Performance metrics have also become a recent focus resulting from the passage of the Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century Act (MAP‐21). Multimodal and intermodal issues, along with programmatic approaches to transportation impacts, resources, and corridors, have also become increasingly important as the nation’s highway system becomes increasingly built out and subject to matters of service, safety, and efficiency. As the industry’s leader for members on environmental topics, SCOE continues to face these evolving issues and is challenged to provide the policy and technical support needed by members in an environment of dwindling financial resources and changing requirements, including those under the latest surface transportation reauthorization bill, MAP‐21. To address these new and evolving issues, in 2014/2015, SCOE, with the support of the National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP), revisited and updated its strategic plan and research plan to reflect the current and future environmental priorities of the members. The effort involved extensive data gathering through interviews with committee and subcommittee members and a series of surveys to identify priorities and needs at the committee level and in the four environmental areas of interest. This resulting Strategic Plan retains the high level goals and objectives for the SCOE Full Committee, while outlining goals and objectives for each of the four subcommittees to increase the capacity of members to efficiently and reliably deliver environmentally sound transportation projects, programs and services; and, to create the knowledge foundation for examining current and future environmental issues.

Language

  • English

Media Info

  • Media Type: Digital/other
  • Features: Appendices; Figures;
  • Pagination: 49p

Subject/Index Terms

Filing Info

  • Accession Number: 01672217
  • Record Type: Publication
  • Report/Paper Numbers: NCHRP Project 25‐25, Task 95
  • Files: TRIS
  • Created Date: Jun 18 2018 12:26PM