A Census of the US Climate-High Risk Area Population: Transportation and Environmental Justice Considerations
The COVID-19 pandemic has been a paradigm shift in residential preferences. Despite numerous studies on environmental, economic, transportation and public health benefits of compact development, real estate shows a preference and relocation of households from more expensive but low-climate risk areas such as Manhattan New York to relatively less expensive but high-climate-risk areas such as Phoenix, Arizona and similar major cities in Florida. These trends are so alarming, particularly for sustainable transportation planning as the climate-high-risk areas are typically more sprawling and auto dependent and as a result of these trends of migration, this study hypothesizes that households are moving from transit-served areas to relatively more car-dependent places. This study seeks to investigate this gap and hypothesis in a multi-phase research design as following: (1) to identify the high-resolution location of climate-high risk areas covering three climate risk indicators (flood, fire, heat); (2) profile climate-high-risk areas socio-economic, housing, employment, transportation and the overall built environment; (3) evaluate sustainable transportation infrastructure in climate-high-risk places; (4) quantify the trends of migration to climate-high-risk areas since 2010; and (5) investigate transportation, equity and environmental consequences of such migration trends. This transformative national study has several immediate policy implications. It will provide local governments and general public with high resolution information about climate-high-risk areas and will facilitate more informed decisions on investments and residential relocation. In addition, this study will offer transportation agencies with data-driven evidence on places of risk and would be incorporated in their adaptation plans to improve transportation infrastructure resiliency. Finally, this study will offer data driven insights one of the key causes of decline in public transit ridership due to migration of jobs and population away from transit-served areas.
Language
- English
Project
- Status: Active
- Funding: $172719
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Contract Numbers:
DOT 69A3552348325
Task Order CCST-2023-12
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Sponsor Organizations:
Office of the Assistant Secretary for Research and Technology
University Transportation Centers Program
Department of Transportation
Washington, DC United States 20590Center for Climate-Smart Transportation
615 N Wolfe St
Baltimore, Maryland United States 21205 -
Managing Organizations:
Center for Climate-Smart Transportation
615 N Wolfe St
Baltimore, Maryland United States 21205 Baltimore, MD United States -
Project Managers:
Kline, Robin
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Performing Organizations:
Center for Climate-Smart Transportation
615 N Wolfe St
Baltimore, Maryland United States 21205 Baltimore, MD United States -
Principal Investigators:
Hamidi, Shima
Azimi, Ebrahim
- Start Date: 20231001
- Expected Completion Date: 20240930
- Actual Completion Date: 0
- USDOT Program: University Transportation Centers
Subject/Index Terms
- TRT Terms: Climate change; Environmental impacts; Equity; High risk locations; Migration; Residential location; Sustainable transportation
- Subject Areas: Environment; Planning and Forecasting; Policy; Safety and Human Factors; Society; Transportation (General);
Filing Info
- Accession Number: 01911594
- Record Type: Research project
- Source Agency: Center for Climate-Smart Transportation
- Contract Numbers: DOT 69A3552348325, Task Order CCST-2023-12
- Files: UTC, RIP
- Created Date: Mar 11 2024 9:23PM