Federal Highway Administration Research and Technology Evaluation Final Report: Eco-Logical

1. Introduction

The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) has initiated an effort to evaluate its Research and Technology (R&T) Program to help FHWA assess how effectively it is meeting its goals and objectives and to provide useful data to inform future project selections. Leaders of governmental transportation R&T programs need to be able to effectively communicate the impacts of their programs.

1.1 Evaluation Purpose

The evaluation team conducted a retrospective evaluation of FHWA’s Office of Planning, Environment, and Realty (HEP) Eco-Logical Program to understand the effect of FHWA R&T activities on the implementation of the Eco-Logical approach (i.e., ecosystem-based^[1] infrastructure planning and mitigation) to transportation project delivery by State transportation department and metropolitan planning organization (MPO) recipients of FHWA Eco-Logical funding.

The Eco-Logical Program supports transportation professionals by assessing and providing tools, technical assistance, and data to help State and local agencies perform effective transportation, environmental, and realty decisionmaking. The objectives of the Eco-Logical Program’s research efforts described in FHWA’s R&T agenda are as follows:⁽²⁾

• Promote more informed transportation decisionmaking to improve transportation planning, programming, operations, and coordination.
• Promote integrated planning that improves transportation safety and addresses environmental, social, and economic needs.
• Accelerate the project delivery process.
• Minimize environmental impacts of transportation investments.
• Improve the way transportation contributes to economic development and communities’ quality of life.
• Promote transportation policy that supports multimodal transportation.

FHWA’s Eco-Logical Program has developed a general toolkit of techniques to address each of these HEP objectives by conducting research and providing technical assistance for integrated ecosystem-based planning that avoids, minimizes, and mitigates impacts on habitats and ecosystems.

1.2 Report Structure

This report is organized as follows:

• Chapter 1. Introduction: Provides an overview of the Eco-Logical Program and its timeline.
• Chapter 2. Evaluation Design: Describes the evaluation methodology and key hypotheses and provides a logic model for the Eco-Logical Program.
• Chapter 3. Evaluation Findings: Provides the findings and results of this evaluation.
• Chapter 4. Recommendations: Offers recommendations for FHWA based on the results of this evaluation.
• Chapter 5. Conclusions: Summarizes the findings and recommendations.
• Appendix A. Eco-Logical Recipients: Provides a list of recipients and their project descriptions.
• Appendix B. Data Sources by Recipient: Provides interviewee data available from 2008 to 2016.
• Appendix C. Annual Report Interview Guides: Provides lists of interview questions from each annual report from 2008 to 2015.
• Appendix D. 2014 Program Questionnaire: Provides questions from a program-sponsored (FHWA and American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO)) questionnaire conducted in 2014 of 2007 grantee recipients.
• Appendix E. 2015 IAP Peer Exchange: Lists both the questions asked on October 14–15, 2015, by the evaluation team to peer exchange participants and the summary responses.
• Appendix F. 2016 Evaluation Interview Guide: Lists the questions asked in 2016 by the evaluation team to 2007–2013 Eco-Logical Funding recipients.
• Appendix G. Evaluation Interviewee Agencies and Categories Provides information on stakeholders interviewed by the evaluation team and how they are categorized.
• Appendix H. Analysis of Eco-Logical Steps: Provides an analysis of the Eco-Logical Program steps completed by 2007 MPO grand recipients.
• Appendix I. Qualitative Coding Database: Identifies the number of comments on benefits, challenges, and recommendations by evaluation theme and category.

1.3 Eco-Logical Program Background

The 2006 Eco-Logical guidebook (i.e., Eco-Logical: An Ecosystem Approach to Developing Infrastructure Projects) articulates a vision for an infrastructure development process that endorses ecosystem-based mitigation through integrating plans and data across agency and disciplinary boundaries.⁽³⁾ Ecosystem-based mitigation includes evaluating alternatives for offsite mitigation and/or out-of-kind (i.e., different resource or ecological function as the impact) mitigation in the most ecologically important areas as defined by interagency partners and the public. Eco-Logical and related Second Strategic Highway Research Program (SHRP2) products offer multi-step procedures to conduct integrated planning as well as to avoid, minimize, and mitigate environmental impacts with the goal of improving conservation and connectivity of ecosystems as well as predictability and transparency in project development.

The Eco-Logical Program includes several tools and techniques to support State transportation departments, MPOs, and other planning agencies in implementing Eco-Logical practices. FHWA has funded two major rounds of pilot projects through the Eco-Logical Grant Program in 2007 and the SHRP2 Implementation Assistance Program (IAP) in 2013, which are the focus of this evaluation.^(4,5)

FHWA’s mission for the Eco-Logical Program is for State transportation departments and MPOs to adopt the principles and methods of the Eco-Logical approach as standard business practice with the participation of resource and regulatory agencies. Table 1 provides a timeline of the Eco-Logical Program’s activities and publications.

^[1] The terms “ecosystem-based” and “landscape-scale approach” are used interchangeably throughout this report to mean a method for sustaining or restoring ecological systems that is based on a collaboratively developed vision that integrates ecological, economic, and social factors.⁽³⁾