Geologic Publications for Mount Rainier

Pacific West Region long range transportation plan: June 2015

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Author(s): Justin De Santis

Category: BOOK
Document Type: Unpublished Document
Publisher: National Park Service
Published Year: 2015
Volume:
Number:
Pages: 90
DOI Identifier:
ISBN Identifier:
Keywords:

Abstract:
This plan identifies existing and future transportation needs for national parks in the Pacific West Region (PWR) through the year 2035. Significant gaps are expected between projected funding and estimated needs, in particular for preventive maintenance and operations, rehabilitation of roadways and parking areas, and recapitalization of transit vehicles. Insufficient past funding has left transportation infrastructure in need of extensive repairs and major investments just to maintain existing facilities and levels of service. Very few major capital investments or new construction projects have been built in recent years to either add new roadway capacity or provide for new transit service connections, despite increasing congestion problems at a number of park sites. Ninetynine percent of the cost for work identified in PWR’s current transportation project priority lists is for maintenance, repair or recapitalization of existing roadway, parking and transit assets, as opposed to new construction or new service.

By 2035 the total gap between projected annual funding ($132 million) and estimated annual needs ($194 million) for the Pacific West Region will be $62 million. Implementation of the Capital Investment Strategy (CIS) will help to lengthen the service life for transportation assets that are identified as high priority, and keep annual maintenance requirements in balance by matching the core asset portfolio to the amount of operational funds available. Roadway rehabilitation is the largest element of the transportation program that is projected to be underfunded. However, there are other important future needs that won’t be fully met, which include:

• efforts to proactively address climate change impacts to facilities;
• implementing environmentally beneficial facility improvements such as providing for better fish passage and reducing wildlife-vehicle collisions;
• providing maintenance for future, as yet un-built capital projects;
• providing for transit recapitalization;
• adopting evolving communication technologies to relieve transportation congestion problems;
• providing for accessibility to comply with the Architectural Barriers Act standards;
• rehabilitating aging and dilapidated roadway features on historic roads and bridges; and
• removal of facilities that are decommissioned either due to lack of funding for operation and regular maintenance, or susceptibility to frequent, recurring damage from floods, landslides or rising seawaters.

This document offers a fiscally constrained plan aimed at maintaining safe and enjoyable visitor access to essential experiences in PWR parks. The investment strategy focuses on high priority assets for rehabilitation and preservation, and is aligned with the CIS for reinvesting in assets that superintendents have committed adequate operational and annual maintenance dollars. The current gap between funding and identified need will grow mainly as a result of steady increases in deferred maintenance, as calculated if there is no increase in PWR’s purchasing capacity for rehabilitation and regular maintenance. Even with full investment in bridge and pavement preservation programs, roadway conditions will continue to decline as inevitable aging and deterioration outpaces the financial capacity to rehabilitate all the facilities for which there is a need. Costs for transit operations and recapitalization of vehicles may also pose a challenge for managers at some parks.

Maintaining access and providing for visitor enjoyment under these conditions will depend on several key strategies:

• Priority will remain on functional class one and two roadways.
• Recapitalization will be focused on assets in CIS optimizer bands one and two.
• Prioritization for funding will go to projects that serve visitor areas and activities that are closely linked to the park’s purpose and can’t be substituted at another location within the park.
• Capital investments/new construction will be very limited in order to conserve funds for repairs to existing facilities.
• Roads, parking areas and transit systems may need to be removed or downsized in order to bring inventory in line with budgets.
• With regard to global climate change, careful consideration, including life-cycle cost analysis, must be made before major reinvestment in transportation facilities. This is especially applicable to those facilities that are vulnerable to increasingly severe or frequent storm damage or sea-level rise.

View Report:
View Report [External Link]

Suggested Citations:
In Text Citation:
De Santis (2015) or (De Santis, 2015)

References Citation:
De Santis, J., 2015, Pacific West Region long range transportation plan: June 2015: Unpublished Document, National Park Service, 90 p..