Considering Climate Change in the Portland-Milwaukie Light Rail Environmental Study

Details

• Corporate Creators:
  United States. Federal Highway Administration. Office of Planning, Environment, and Realty
• Subject/TRT Terms:
  • Climate change
  • Environmental design
  • Light rail transit
  • Coast and river protective works
  • Forecasting
• Publication/ Report Number:
  FHWA-HEP-14-017
• Resource Type:
  Brief
• Geographical Coverage:
  United States;Oregon
• Corporate Publisher:
  United States. Federal Highway Administration. Office of Planning, Environment, and Realty
• Abstract:
  The regional government for the Portland metro area (Metro), and the Tri-county Metropolitan Transportation District of Oregon (TriMet) proposed to construct an extension of the regional light rail system to serve southern Portland, including a bridge across the Willamette River (see Figure 1). The Supplemental Draft EIS (SDEIS) was published in May 2010, and the Final EIS (FEIS) was published in October 2010. The Record of Decision (ROD) was published by the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) in November 2010. There was stakeholder concern that the cumulative impact of the new bridge over the Willamette River and projected river level rise associated with global climate change on navigation were not addressed in the DEIS. TriMet, FTA, the United States Coast Guard (USCG) and their consultant, Parametrix, worked collaboratively to determine how this issue could be addressed in the FEIS. The best available science was used to develop a range of projected river level rise values for the Willamette River. River level rise projections were used to determine whether the planned height of the bridge over the Willamette River would provide the vertical clearance needed to meet navigational needs.
• Format:
  PDF
• Download URL:
  https://rosap.ntl.bts.gov/view/dot/59236/dot_59236_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 534.15 KB]
• Collection(s):
  Transportation Resilience and Vulnerability Collection ; Federal Highway Administration
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:29e203116cb4beacc7c3f980ae712acf6a29fd5f4344dd9ca8dc56cfd62f6905317af75c92177b111130b3bf88fbb36c76a43d7e87f1d66fbcc390dd675099f2