Complete Integration of Environmental Concerns

For an effective, environmentally sound transportation system, the Federal-aid Highway Program and its projects must incorporate environmental considerations and neighborhood and community values and goals into every phase of transportation decisionmaking. But FHWA must practice environmental sensitivity on an even broader scale. Environmental objectives must be considered in every aspect of FHWA's organization and decisionmaking.

Internal Operations

The FHWA must be a leader among Federal, State, and local transportation agencies in carrying out an environmental ethic that encompasses the consequences of all of our activities, internal as well as external.

It is FHWA policy to:

• Promote and facilitate use of ride-sharing, mass transit, bicycling, walking, telecommuting, alternative work schedules, and other alternatives to single-occupancy-vehicle use for FHWA employees.
  
• Ensure that procurement policies and specifications incorporate environmental goals such as waste reduction, energy efficiency, and pollution prevention to the fullest extent practical.
  
• Purchase and recycle remanufactured products.
  
• Ensure that all of our facilities are operated in an environmentally responsible manner, through conservation of energy, water, and office products; pollution prevention; and disposal and recycling programs.

Systems Planning and Programming

Environmental goals and impacts must be considered early in the development of transportation plans and integrated into land-use planning and transportation decisionmaking at the State, regional, and local levels.

It is FHWA policy to:

• Encourage and help State transportation agencies, MPOs, and local governments to take a leadership role in identifying and considering social, economic, and environmental concerns as early as possible in the development of transportation and land use plans and programs.
  
• Advocate broad-based public involvement by these agencies to generate consensus on transportation and land use solutions and the purpose and need for transportation investments.
• Work with our partners early in transportation planning and programming to ensure that FHWA-funded projects and programs contribute to sustainable community developmentþdevelopment that addresses present needs without compromising those of future generations.
• Promote and support innovative solutions to transportation and air quality problems through multimodal, interagency, and joint public-private efforts, including road and parking pricing strategies and ITS applications. Promote and foster travel alternatives to single-occupancy-vehicle use, including mass transit, bicycling, walking, telecommuting, and ride-sharing.
  
• Ensure coordination of transportation planning with State air quality planning, resulting in transportation plans and programs that conform to air quality implementation plans.
• Promote and support watershed planning and the coordination of transportation planning with effective watershed planning to reduce erosion and non-point source pollution from highway construction, maintenance, and operations.
• Support corridor preservation as a way to ensure early consideration of environmentally sensitive areas and to avoid or minimize future social, economic, and environmental impacts while providing for needed transportation facilities.
• Ensure that major investment studies provide an early, intensive, and objective study of the impacts of alternative transportation solutions. Transportation alternatives considered should be based on public benefits and needs, environmental and cultural concerns, neighborhood and community values, economics, and other pertinent factors. In addition to new facilitis and improvements to the existing system, such alternatives include transportation-system management options, demand management strategies, ITS applications, and the option of taking no action.
• Support efforts of Federal, State, and local agencies to control noise emissions at their source, to encourage land use planning and control to prevent noise-sensitive uses from developing in high-noise impact areas, or to ensure that such development is planned to minimize adverse effects.

Project Development

Environmental goals and impacts must be considered continually throughout all phases of project development (location, environment, design, right-of-way, etc.). Social, economic, and environmental issues must be considered equally with engineering, safety, and mobility issues in reaching project decisions.

It is FHWA policy to:

• Provide continuity between the systems planning and project development processes so that the results of analysis performed during the planning stage, including project purpose and need, alternatives, public input, and environmental concerns, are brought forward into project development.
• Ensure the merger of NEPA with other environmental review and decisionmaking requirements, such as Section 404 of the Clean Water Act. Merger requires early and effective interagency coordination to ensure adequate description of the impacted resources, alternatives, and opportunities for mitigation. Determinations of compliance with other requirements should be integral to decisions taken during the NEPA process.
• Use an interdisciplinary approach to identify and analyze the potential impacts of proposed transportation projects on the human and natural environments.

  
  Portland, Oregon

• Ensure that NEPA documents capture and fully describe options to avoid, minimize, and mitigate adverse impacts and, where possible, enhance the natural and human environments.
• Ensure that environmental commitments made during planning and project development and identified in NEPA documents are implemented during construction, maintenance, and operations.