BACKGROUND

The AASHTO Standing Committee on the Environment (SCOE) is called on continuously to provide information for establishing policies and positions of the state highway and transportation departments on issues associated with the nation's transportation system. The Committee needs information, on a reasonably prompt schedule, through a continuing research project geared to its responsibilities. Member departments require timely information on new environmental analysis, streamlining, stewardship, and planning methods and procedures to respond effectively to program-delivery and project-development issues.

A research mechanism is needed that can respond, as necessary, to the needs of the Standing Committee on the Environment on urgent issues, especially related to the states' response to environmental, transportation planning, and program-delivery issues. A quick-response research program is being established to develop improvements to the analytical methods, decision-support tools, procedures, and techniques employed by practitioners in environmental streamlining, environmental stewardship, statewide and metropolitan environmental transportation planning, program delivery, and project development.

Among other objectives, SCOE will need to be responsive to the AASHTO Board of Directors and others involved in legislative matters. When any new or revised federal transportation environmental and planning regulations are proposed or finalized, research will be required to develop new methods, processes, and procedures to ensure effective and timely implementation by the states and metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs).

OBJECTIVE

The objective of Project 25-25 is to provide flexible, ongoing, quick-response research on environmental issues in transportation. This research will be designed to develop improvements to analytical methods, decision support tools, procedures, and techniques employed by practitioners to support statewide and metropolitan transportation planning, programming, and development.

Most of the research in the 25-25 program will be conducted by task order contractors, currently Cambridge Systematics, ICF Consulting, The Louis Berger Group, and Parsons Brinckerhoff.

Click on the task title to link to the task writeup.

25-25/Task 01 Synthesis on Data Needs for EA and EIS Documentation