The Greenroads project, a collaboration between the University of Washington and global design/build firm CH2M Hill, has for some time been studying roadway design/construction practices and environmental sustainability. The group has just announced the release of a Greenroads metric system[i] – similar to LEED for building construction – that “is applicable to new and reconstructed/rehabilitated roadways. It awards credits for approved sustainable choices/practices and can be used to assess roadway project sustainability.”
This is absolutely fantastic. Now road builders and municipal governments that claim to stand behind causes of environmental justice and sustainability have an incredible framework from which to base their design and build decisions.
“Greenroads is a collection of sustainability best practices that apply to roadway design and construction. These best practices are divided into two types: required and voluntary. Required best practices are those that must be done as a minimum in order for a roadway to be considered a Greenroad. These are called “Project Requirements,” of which there are 11. Voluntary best practices are those that may optionally be included in a roadway project. These are called “Voluntary Credits”. Each Voluntary Credit is assigned a point value (1‐5 points) depending upon its impact on sustainability. Currently, there are 37 Voluntary Credits totaling 108 points. Greenroads also allows a project or organization to create and use its own Voluntary Credits (called “Custom Credits”), subject to approval of Greenroads, for a total of 10 more points, which brings the total available points to 118.”
The Required Credits are broken up into:
- Environmental Review Process – Perform and document a comprehensive environmental review of the roadway project.
- Lifecycle Cost Analysis
- Lifecycle Inventory – Incorporate energy and emissions information into the decision‐making process for pavement design alternatives.
- Quality Control – to monitor and improve construction quality as well as personnel and their responsibility and qualifications. This includes all subcontractors.
- Noise Mitigation - Reduce or eliminate annoyance or disturbance to surrounding neighborhoods and environments from road construction noise.
- Waste Management – Create an accounting and management plan for road construction materials.
- Pollution Prevention – Storm water runoff prevention
- Low Impact Development – “ collection of engineered controls, stormwater management facilities, and other and evelopment BMPs that attempt to mimic pre‐development hydrologic conditions by emphasizing infiltration, evapotranspiration, or stormwater reuse for long‐term flow control and runoff treatment”
- Pavement Management System – a “process of maintaining, upgrading and operating a particular pavement or network of pavements”
- Site Maintenance Plan – Plan to manage and implement road repair and maintenance, including cracking, storm water system cleaning, vegetation, snow/ice control, traffic control, and general trash collection.
- Education Outreach – the promotion of public, agency, and stakeholder awareness of the roadway sustainability activities, including potentially: technical presentations, heavily documented case studies, or permanent signs giving public notice of the road’s certification level.
Voluntary Credits are broke up into:
- Pavement Technologies
- Access & Equity
- Materials & Resources
- Construction Activities
- Environment & Water
The current version of the system notably includes and excludes a number of things:
“Decisions regarding the location, type, timing, feasibility or other planning level ideas are excluded. […] these decisions are often too complex or political to be adequately defined by a point system.”
This is a notable exception as the position of a roadway effects more than traffic, it also affects animal migration patterns, the temperature and conditions of local water, urban heat island effects. But the organizers are right to cite political concerns and the feasibility of creating a ratings framework for such a thing. Also, long term maintenance and preservation efforts cannot be verified so any credits given for those plans exist solely as a promise to perform.
But foot and bike paths in the roadway project are considered and that is going to help the push towards complete streets and intermodal transportation.
The perfect cannot be allowed to be the enemy of the good and this is an absolutely phenomenal start. This is exactly the sort of precedent setting event and standards setting body that the road building industry needs. Just as LEED has become part of the building engineering and construction lexicon, hopefully Greenroads will quickly rise to the forefront of transportation officials and builder’s minds.
From The Guardian:
“We are trying to be very inclusive and address the range of roadway projects,” says Steve Muench, assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering at the University of Washington. “For example, in an urban project you might spend a lot of time and effort building a surface that lasts decades with minimum maintenance or reduces tyre noise. In a rural environment, you might be more focused on treating stormwater and including wildlife crossings.”
The Greenroads system already has the support of five US state departments of transport and the University is following 15 case study projects to see how its ratings system affects energy usage, carbon footprint and – where the rubber hits the road – cost. “We think it may cost a little more upfront but if you look at the total lifecycle cost of that road, you’ll be miles ahead,” says Muench. “I look at what has happened with green buildings. It started out as completely voluntary but it’s evolved over the last decade and now nearly 300 government and education agencies have policies that all their new buildings must be LEED-certified. In that sense, it’s no longer voluntary, it’s no longer an option: it’s required. With Greenroads, we want to push the industry in the right direction.”
The complete document outlining the key concepts and credit ratings can be downloaded here:
http://www.greenroads.us/files/84.pdf
A 2008 Sept/Oct ASTM news letter is another good read on why this credit system is needed:
http://www.astm.org/SNEWS/SO_2008/bryce_so08.html
[i] Muench, S.T., Anderson, J.L., Hatfield, J.P., Koester, J.R., & Söderlund, M. et al. (2010). Greenroads Rating System v1.0. (J.L. Anderson and S.T. Muench, Eds.). Seattle, WA: University of Washington.
