Summary: A number of guidelines for planning transportation infrastructure
through or near sensitive areasGuiding Principles for Planning Transportation Infrastructure
Below are a number of guidelines for planning transportation infrastructure through or near sensitive areas [See, "Second Nature Improving Transportation Without Putting Nature Second" Defenders of Wildlife, 2002; "The Conservation Minded Citizen's Guide to Transportation Planning" Defenders of Wildlife, 2003; and "The Wekiva Basin Area Task Force Final Report: Recommendations for Planning and Locating the Wekiva Parkway while Preserving the Wekiva River Basin Ecosystem."]?
In considering any facility, it should be placed and designed such that it:
• Is planned and initiated to sensitively integrate natural habitat conservation, rural land protection and military base/corridor encroachment and protection needs into the transportation planning.
• Serves an identified long-term regional transportation need;
• Is weighed relative to need for additional roads against the increased impact on natural, rural and military resources.
• Does not unintentionally encourage or promote additional development;
• Relieves or removes traffic demands and provides a connection between identified end point with limited access design preferred and interchange development carefully planed to manage access and extent of adjacent land uses;
• Avoids and minimizes any impacts to native habitat and species;
• Avoids and minimizes impacts on watershed and ground water recharge areas;
• Avoids and minimizes direct and indirect impacts to wetlands;
• Avoids, or mitigates if required, impacts on conservation lands, and their proper management (prescribe burning for example);
• Preserves working rural landscapes and seek to minimize the impacts on existing rural lands, rural neighborhoods and their communities;
• Follows, where feasible, existing road alignments through environmentally sensitive areas; and
• Attempts to improve the connectivity of existing wildlife corridors. For example, build wildlife crossings where necessary to maintain or repair ecological damage and restore habitat connectivity.
• Uses conservation banking in concert with large-scale conservation acquisition (fee or less than fee) plans to mitigate unavoidable impacts of transportation.
• Has been well coordinated with the public, resource agencies, and the military early, substantively and continuously throughout transportation planning and project development. This should mean that transportation planners, at the state and MPO level, should locate and utilize existing landscape-level conservation plans in their own planning efforts and inform and involve the public through communication and outreach tools.
• Uses or develops conservation plans to identify mitigation sites or banks in advance of project impacts.
Placement, Design, Construction of Transportation Infrastructure Through or Near Greenway Areas
Transportation agency(ies) should use the following guidelines for design and construction of major transportation facilities through greenway lands.
• Provide that new highways be fully limited access;
• Promote a "parkway" look and design with appropriate natural buffers between the roadways and the adjacent areas (may mean larger right-of ways, coordinated/cooperative acquisition of lands or protective easements over land);
• Include the maximum provision for bridging through strategically important wetlands;
• Reduce hazards to wildlife and consider the full range of options, from at-grade, non-structural approaches to land bridges.
• Elevate (bridge) through identified functionally significant wildlife corridors, and provide appropriate wildlife bridges with barriers to direct wildlife to safe crossing points (When planning, designing and building wildlife crossings, ensure the future viability of habitat on either side through acquisition, easements and landscape management planning)
• Design stormwater treatment facilities to minimize habitat loss and promote restoration of impacted sites and assure capture and treatment of runoff from bridges over Outstanding Florida Waters to Outstanding Florida Waters standards;
• Offer opportunities to view, understand, and access the environmental, cultural and historical uniqueness of the affected landscape;
• Provide non-intrusive and minimal roadway and bridge lighting to support the conservation of dark skies in the affected basin(s);
• Incorporate safety and access design features to promote the continuation of prescribed burning in the basin(s).
• Maximize the natural attributes of the area, including maintaining the native forested landscape to minimize mowed landscapes and preclude the need to plant potentially invasive exotic species for groundcover; and,
• Practice context-sensitive solutions in roads and highways on public lands. Retrofit existing roads to reduce their intrusion on the landscape and increase habitat connectivity.
• Limit interchanges to assure that any proposed highway/transportation facility route does not result in added growth pressures. Consistent with this charge- in the context of protection of watersheds, groundwater recharge areas, natural habitat, working rural landscapes and the rural character, it is recognized that interchanges create both direct and secondary impacts. Land use and development planning at interchange locations should be addressed and completed prior to commencing construction. In addition, land use plans for these interchanges shall include land use strategies (including land acquisition), development standards, and best management practices to maintain rural character and protect environmental features.
through or near sensitive areas
Guiding Principles for Planning Transportation Infrastructure
Through or Near Sensitive Areas
Below are a number of guidelines for planning transportation infrastructure through or near sensitive areas [See, "Second Nature Improving Transportation Without Putting Nature Second" Defenders of Wildlife, 2002; "The Conservation Minded Citizen's Guide to Transportation Planning" Defenders of Wildlife, 2003; and "The Wekiva Basin Area Task Force Final Report: Recommendations for Planning and Locating the Wekiva Parkway while Preserving the Wekiva River Basin Ecosystem."]?
In considering any facility, it should be placed and designed such that it:
• Is planned and initiated to sensitively integrate natural habitat conservation, rural land protection and military base/corridor encroachment and protection needs into the transportation planning.
• Serves an identified long-term regional transportation need;
• Is weighed relative to need for additional roads against the increased impact on natural, rural and military resources.
• Does not unintentionally encourage or promote additional development;
• Relieves or removes traffic demands and provides a connection between identified end point with limited access design preferred and interchange development carefully planed to manage access and extent of adjacent land uses;
• Avoids and minimizes any impacts to native habitat and species;
• Avoids and minimizes impacts on watershed and ground water recharge areas;
• Avoids and minimizes direct and indirect impacts to wetlands;
• Avoids, or mitigates if required, impacts on conservation lands, and their proper management (prescribe burning for example);
• Preserves working rural landscapes and seek to minimize the impacts on existing rural lands, rural neighborhoods and their communities;
• Follows, where feasible, existing road alignments through environmentally sensitive areas; and
• Attempts to improve the connectivity of existing wildlife corridors. For example, build wildlife crossings where necessary to maintain or repair ecological damage and restore habitat connectivity.
• Uses conservation banking in concert with large-scale conservation acquisition (fee or less than fee) plans to mitigate unavoidable impacts of transportation.
• Has been well coordinated with the public, resource agencies, and the military early, substantively and continuously throughout transportation planning and project development. This should mean that transportation planners, at the state and MPO level, should locate and utilize existing landscape-level conservation plans in their own planning efforts and inform and involve the public through communication and outreach tools.
• Uses or develops conservation plans to identify mitigation sites or banks in advance of project impacts.
Placement, Design, Construction of Transportation Infrastructure Through or Near Greenway Areas
Transportation agency(ies) should use the following guidelines for design and construction of major transportation facilities through greenway lands.
• Provide that new highways be fully limited access;
• Promote a "parkway" look and design with appropriate natural buffers between the roadways and the adjacent areas (may mean larger right-of ways, coordinated/cooperative acquisition of lands or protective easements over land);
• Include the maximum provision for bridging through strategically important wetlands;
• Reduce hazards to wildlife and consider the full range of options, from at-grade, non-structural approaches to land bridges.
• Elevate (bridge) through identified functionally significant wildlife corridors, and provide appropriate wildlife bridges with barriers to direct wildlife to safe crossing points (When planning, designing and building wildlife crossings, ensure the future viability of habitat on either side through acquisition, easements and landscape management planning)
• Design stormwater treatment facilities to minimize habitat loss and promote restoration of impacted sites and assure capture and treatment of runoff from bridges over Outstanding Florida Waters to Outstanding Florida Waters standards;
• Offer opportunities to view, understand, and access the environmental, cultural and historical uniqueness of the affected landscape;
• Provide non-intrusive and minimal roadway and bridge lighting to support the conservation of dark skies in the affected basin(s);
• Incorporate safety and access design features to promote the continuation of prescribed burning in the basin(s).
• Maximize the natural attributes of the area, including maintaining the native forested landscape to minimize mowed landscapes and preclude the need to plant potentially invasive exotic species for groundcover; and,
• Practice context-sensitive solutions in roads and highways on public lands. Retrofit existing roads to reduce their intrusion on the landscape and increase habitat connectivity.
• Limit interchanges to assure that any proposed highway/transportation facility route does not result in added growth pressures. Consistent with this charge- in the context of protection of watersheds, groundwater recharge areas, natural habitat, working rural landscapes and the rural character, it is recognized that interchanges create both direct and secondary impacts. Land use and development planning at interchange locations should be addressed and completed prior to commencing construction. In addition, land use plans for these interchanges shall include land use strategies (including land acquisition), development standards, and best management practices to maintain rural character and protect environmental features.
