Air Quality Contacts
For more information, please contact Victoria Martinez.
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The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) Office of Planning, Environment and Realty, recently completed the third round of designations for the Alternative Fuels Corridor program, as required by the FAST Act. The first three rounds have resulted in designations covering segments of 100 Interstates and 76 State highways, spanning 46 States, plus the District of Columbia. The new designations and updated corridor maps have been posted on the FHWA Alternative Fuels Corridor webpage.
Collaborators in the Center for Advancing Research in Transportation Emissions, Energy, and Health (CARTEEH), a US Department of Transportation (USDOT) University Transportation Center (UTC), have released a public, centralized datahub for transportation, emissions, energy and health. This web-based data hub is designed to organize, share, and link data that is relevant to transportation emissions and human health. As part of this project, CARTEEH is conducting research into specific characteristics of transportation and health data, and developing a platform to house datasets and link to relevant information related to transportation emissions and public health data. The data hub's long-term goal is to be continually used by researchers to upload and organize data, thereby increasing its availability and value to transportation and human health research.
The goal of the final Guidebook, entitled Connecting Transportation and Health: A Guide to Communication and Collaboration and produced under NCHRP 25-25 Task 105, is to provide an accessible, practitioner-ready communications guidebook and set of tools and resources that help USDOT, State DOTs, metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs), and local transportation professionals achieve successful policy, planning, and project outcomes through effective collaboration with health stakeholders. Although the guidebook is geared towards transportation practitioners, it may also serve as a helpful reference for public health practitioners who wish to learn more about the transportation process and opportunities for contributing to transportation efforts. The final guidebook is available for download.
TRB's E-Circular 239: Arterial Roadways Research Needs and Concerns: Informing the Planning, Design, and Operation of Arterial Roadways Considering Public Health explores the planning, design, and operation of arterials considering public health. The report by the TRB Task Force on Arterials and Public Health report presents a series of descriptive case examples where arterials and health concerns appear in practice and identifies how and where health could be included in TRB's arterial-related research. It also highlights crosscutting issues relevant to the case examples, such as equity and metrics, and offers recommendations for future research.
The Southern Transportation and Air Quality Summit (STAQS) 2019 will be held on August 20th and 21st in Louisville, KY. The meeting is being sponsored this year by FHWA, EPA and the Kentuckiana Regional Planning & Development Agency (KIPDA). More information will be shared as planning for the conference is finalized. Contact Mike Roberts at Mike.Roberts@dot.gov for additional details.
FHWA, AASHTO and the Transportation Research Board (TRB) are sponsoring the 2nd International Conference on Transportation System Resilience to Natural Hazards and Extreme Weather from November 13-15, 2019, at the National Academies Building in Washington, DC. The conference is designed to provide transportation agencies with information, research results, and example practices to assist in their ability to anticipate and adapt to the potential impacts of extreme weather events. The conference also includes international dialogue on research, implementation, and lessons learned. There is an opportunity to attend through a webcast. Registration is now available. See the conference website or contact Heather Holsinger at Heather.Holsinger@dot.gov for more information.
TRB is sponsoring the Conference on Health and Active Transportation on December 11-12, 2019 in Washington, DC. This conference will explore opportunities in quantifying the health effects of transportation policies, infrastructure, and travel behavior. It also intends to raise awareness of opportunities to integrate health and health equity into transportation planning across all levels (including planning for active transportation). Contact Bernardo Kleiner at BKleiner@nas.edu or Gary Jenkins at GJenkins@nas.edu for more information.
The National Transit Institute (NTI) is offering in-person training opportunities covering its "Introduction to Transportation Conformity" course. This 2.5 day course will present basic information about conformity requirements and the relationship of the transportation and air quality planning processes in order to prepare agency staff (federal, state and local) to participate in interagency consultation and work effectively in resolving conformity issues. Upcoming deliveries include June 2019 in Lansing, MI. For more information and to register, please visit the NTI registration website.
As a reminder, several web-based transportation conformity training opportunities are available on-demand from FHWA's conformity training website(under "Web-based Training"). These training opportunities range in level of detail from a short 27-minute video providing a high-level basic overview of transportation conformity to a detailed set of 32 self-directed training modules. Recordings of two webinars were added recently: basic transportation conformity overview (June 12, 2018, 70 minutes) and basic MOVES emissions model training (June 18, 2018, 42 minutes).
The target audience for these training materials are FHWA staff and State and local transportation partners (MPOs and State DOTs) who are either new to or would like a refresher training on the conformity process. For questions, please contact David Kall, at david.kall@dot.gov, or (202-366-6276).
The FHWA posted a 27-minute YouTube video on the CMAQ program. The video provides a basic introduction to the program, how CMAQ funds are distributed to states, and the types of projects eligible for the CMAQ program. The training is available via the FHWA's YouTube channel. For more information about the CMAQ program, please contact Mark Glaze at mark.glaze@dot.gov or (202) 366-4053.
The FHWA Resource Center Planning and Air Quality team will be conducting a series of training sessions on NEPA Air Quality Analysis for Highway Projects. The training includes sessions on project-level applications appropriate for managers and practitioners, as well as hands-on sessions intended for modelers. Please note this is not a general MOVES training course, but is focused on project-level applications. It is not intended to address regional applications, such as SIP emissions inventories or regional (plan and TIP) conformity analyses. If you are interested in this training, please contact Michael Claggett at michael.claggett@dot.gov.
Two training opportunities are available for MOVES model users. A three-hour webinar provides an introduction to MySQL Query Browser and MOVES interface. A six-hour training over two days will enable users to do MySQL programming and to write their own MySQL scripts and to manipulate MySQL databases including MOVES input and outputs. For more information or to schedule training, please contact Michael Claggett at michael.claggett@dot.gov.
The National Highway Institute (NHI) Air Quality Planning web-based training series is designed for transportation practitioners. It includes four modules: Clean Air Act Overview (FHWA-NHI-142068), State Implementation Plan (SIP) and Transportation Control Measure (TCM) Requirements and Policies (FHWA-NHI-142069), SIP Development Process (FHWA-NHI-142070), and Transportation Conformity (FHWA-NHI-142071). All courses are free. For more information, visit the NHI website and search "Air Quality Planning," or look for the specific course number. Please contact Karen Perritt at (202) 366-9066, or Karen.Perritt@dot.gov with any questions or comments.
FHWA's Resource Center Air Quality Technical Services Team is available to offer MOVES and other trainings. More information is available at the Resource Center website.
Past issues of the Air Quality and Sustainability Highlights are available on FHWA's website: http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/environment/air_quality/conformity/highlights/ or https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/environment/sustainability/newsletter/.
Please e-mail Victoria.Martinez@dot.gov with any suggestions for future issues.
