Winter 2005, Volume 12, No. 1
Brill Named Director
of Center for Transportation and the Environment
 Dr.
E. Downey Brill, Jr., North Carolina State University professor
and former head of the department of civil, construction and environmental
engineering, has been named director of the Center for Transportation
and the Environment. Brill’s appointment was made official
by Dr. John Gilligan, NCSU vice chancellor for research and graduate
studies.
“I feel privileged to be leading CTE at this important time
in its history,” Brill said. “Many opportunities exist
to emphasize new research and education initiatives, and to build
upon the center’s strong academic ties and technology transfer
program. Looking beyond surface transportation to the environmental
aspects of other modes, such as air and water transportation, is
another logical and important future direction for the center,”
Brill added.
Brill brings to CTE more than three decades of research expertise
in developing optimization models for civil and environmental engineering
systems with special interests in solid waste, water quality and
air quality management; floodplain land use planning and management;
and water supply networks. Brill’s research has been funded
by the National Science Foundation, U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency, U.S. Department of Interior and U.S. Geological Survey.
Brill has also served as consultant to the U.S. Army Science Board
and the World Health Organization.
Prior to coming to NCSU, Brill served as professor of civil engineering
at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, a visiting scholar
at the University of Texas at Austin and a distinguished professor
in the Fulbright Program with Yugoslavia at the University of Nis
and Institut za Vodeprirredu "Jaroslav Cerni." Brill holds
a Ph.D. in environmental engineering from The Johns Hopkins University
and a B.S. with distinction in civil engineering from Cornell University.
Brill replaces Dr. John S. Fisher, P.E., who retired from the university
in October 2005. CTE was recently reauthorized in the federal transportation
bill known as SAFETEA-LU, or the Safe, Accountable, Flexible and
Efficient Transportation Equity Act – A Legacy for Users.
For more information, contact Katie McDermott, CTE technology transfer
director, (919) 515-8034 or kpm@ncsu.edu.
CTE Serves as Lead Organizer
for AASHTO Conference
The American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials
(AASHTO) has invited CTE to serve as lead organizer for its upcoming
national conference on Context Sensitive Solutions (CSS).
The CSS conference, to be conducted at the Radisson Lord Baltimore
in Maryland on September 6-8, 2006, is targeted primarily to AASHTO-member
state transportation departments and will explore the successes,
challenges, benefits, perceived risks and lessons learned from CSS
implementation to date.
The conference will adopt a peer-exchange format and include facilitated
group discussions aimed at examining how CSS has evolved since the
1998 Thinking Beyond the Pavement conference, which helped establish
the first set of guiding principles for CSS in transportation.
The group sessions will address the following broad areas: project
delivery from long range planning through construction, internal
and external multi-disciplinary teams, stakeholder involvement,
mainstreaming CSS, and validation of
CSS principles.
AASHTO hopes the peer-exchange format will provide the framework
and opportunity for state delegations to identify individual state
DOT action steps to advance their CSS implementation. In addition,
the AASHTO CSS Task Force will use information from the conference
to identify CSS-related research needs, priorities for the AASHTO
CSS task force, and an AASHTO CSS action agenda.
For more information, contact Janet D’Ignazio, CTE senior
research associate, (919) 515-8587 or jdignaz@ncsu.edu.
CTE to Present Izaak Walton
League Webcasts
 The
Izaak Walton League of America (IWLA), a national conservation organization,
will offer two series of Web broadcasts in 2006, produced in partnership
with CTE.
The IWLA series begins in March and April with two broadcasts targeted
to homeowners and small business owners about gardening and other
backyard techniques that conserve wetlands and improve water quality.
The programs will be Web simulcast and featured on Open/NET, a live
call-in program in North Carolina designed to link citizens with
policy makers for an exchange of ideas and information.
In May through October, IWLA will present four new Web broadcasts
targeted to transportation agencies that will explore how to treat
highway runoff and improve water quality with affordable and manageable
techniques that replicate pre-construction hydrology. The techniques
show how to comply with water quality and water supply regulations
and how to incorporate context-sensitive stormwater management practices,
including low impact development techniques. The series will also
discuss overcoming barriers to innovation and will provide valuable
information to design engineers, planners, regulators, construction
engineers, maintenance supervisors, consultants and students.
The schedule of the complete series of programs is provided below:
- Wetland-Friendly Lawns and Gardens (March 28)
- Wet Spots into Wonderlands (April 25)
- Introduction to Alternative Practices to Manage Highway Runoff
(May 18)
- Planning Highway Projects Using Alternative Practices for Stormwater
Management (June 15)
- Alternative Practices for Highway Stormwater Management: Design,
Construction and Maintenance – Part One (September –
date TBD)
- Alternative Practices for Highway Stormwater Management: Design,
Construction and Maintenance – Part Two (October –
date TBD)
The IWLA Web broadcast series has been made possible with support
from the Federal Highway Administration, the U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency, the Bureau of Land Management, the USDA Forest
Service, and the US Fish and
Wildlife Service. Bookmark http://www.iwla.org/sos/sosweb.htm
to register and to receive the latest information about these webcasts.
For more information, contact Katie McDermott, CTE technology transfer
director, (919) 515-8034 or kpm@ncsu.edu.
ICOET draws nearly 400 attendees
from 15 countries in San Diego
 The
2005 International Conference on Ecology and Transportation attracted
a record attendance of nearly 400 transportation and environmental
professionals. ICOET attendees also included 40 students interested
in exploring potential careers in ecology and transportation. The
2005 theme was “On the Road to Stewardship.”
Conducted in San Diego, CA, August 29 - September 2, ICOET 2005
was co-hosted by the California Department of Transportation and
University of California at Davis Road Ecology Center. The Center
for Transportation and the Environment at North Carolina State University
served as lead organizer and co-sponsor.
 The
biennial, inter-agency conference, funded primarily by the Federal
Highway Administration, involved the participation of 15 countries
to share new and innovative solutions to reduce the impacts of surface
transportation systems on wildlife, habitats and ecosystems.
New to the conference this year were two acoustics ecology sessions,
featuring U.S. and international speakers who discussed how to assess
and mitigate for the effects of transportation noise on animal life
in aquatic and terrestrial environments. In addition, special sessions
on the ecological considerations associated with high-speed rail
in California were presented by Defenders of Wildlife, a conference
co-sponsor.
ICOET also featured local presenters such as Janet Fairbanks, senior
regional planner of the San Diego Association of Governments. Fairbanks
spoke about San Diego’s $850 million TransNet Environmental
Mitigation Program, which will mitigate transportation projects
within the region’s habitat conservation planning areas.
 As
well as technical sessions and poster presentations, ICOET included
coastal and inland field trips of the San Diego County region to
examine transportation and ecology issues addressed by Caltrans
and its partner agencies on project sites in Southern California.
The final proceedings, which will include the 137 papers and posters
presented at the conference, will be available in March 2006. The
document will be posted on the conference Web site in a keyword-searchable
format and also published in print and CD-ROM formats.
The steering committee extends special thanks to the conference
co-hosts, Caltrans and the UC-Davis Road Ecology Center,
for their hospitality and assistance with the conference.
For more information, contact Katie McDermott, CTE technology transfer
director, (919) 515-8034 or kpm@ncsu.edu,
or visit www.icoet.net.
Runey Honored as CTE Student
of the Year
 Liza
Runey, a graduate student in civil engineering at North Carolina
State University, was recently recognized as the University Transportation
Center Student of the Year by the Center for Transportation and
the Environment.
This award is given annually to a student at each of the University
Transportation Centers (UTCs) sponsored by the U.S. Department of
Transportation. The award recognizes students for their outstanding
academic achievements and potential future contributions to the
transportation field.
Runey joined NCSU’s Institute for Transportation Research
and Education (ITRE) in 2004 as an intern for the Triangle Regional
Model Service Bureau, which provides a variety of travel demand
forecasting services to stakeholder agencies in the NC Triangle
region. Runey assisted with the development of the NC travel demand
model and became ITRE’s resident expert on coding and managing
transit networks.
The Triangle regional model is a predictive model that can be used
to forecast automobile, transit, commercial vehicle, and non-motorized
travel given a set of population and economic forecasts. The model
can analyze peak characteristics or daily trends and is used for
systemwide transportation analysis and air quality emissions testing
related to regional transportation plans.
Runey’s work on the model, which focuses primarily on the
travel market associated with Raleigh-Durham International Airport,
is serving as the basis for her master’s thesis in transportation
planning, which will be completed in the spring of 2006. A Charleston
native, Runey earned her B.S. degree in civil engineering from NCSU
in May 2004. As an undergraduate, she made the dean’s list
every semester.
Runey’s previous awards include the American Society of Highway
Engineers Scholarship, NCSU Civil Engineering Departmental Scholarship,
Institute of Traffic Engineers scholarships, and the ITRE Transportation
Founders Fund Research Fellowship.
Runey, along with other UTC student award winners, will be honored
at a dinner reception in January hosted by USDOT during the Transportation
Research Board 85th Annual Meeting in Washington, D.C.
For more information, contact Neil Koomen, CTE information specialist,
(919) 515-8623 or nckoomen@ncsu.edu.
CTE Leads National Community
Impact Assessment Courses
 CTE’s
Teresa Townsend, research associate, and Leigh Lane, senior research
associate, will lead the Federal Highway Administration’s
new Community Impact Assessment (CIA) courses for the Alaska, Illinois,
Maryland, Nebraska and North Carolina departments of transportation
in 2006.
The purpose of the two-and-a-half-day course, developed and piloted
by CTE for FHWA in cooperation with Data Transfer Solutions and
Powell, Fragala and Associates, is to prepare transportation professionals
to incorporate and use the FHWA CIA process in both transportation
planning and project development.
CIA is the process used to analyze proposed transportation actions
and determine their effects on the human
and social environment. CIA is crucial to making balanced transportation
decisions that preserve, protect and enhance
quality of life.
This course provides a framework for the CIA process and builds
on Community Impact Assessment: A Quick Reference for Transportation,
better known in the transportation industry as the “small
purple book.” The course also provides numerous case studies
and references.
While the CIA process varies by state, the national FHWA CIA course
was developed and piloted in response to numerous training and research
requests within the transportation industry. States are welcome
to request CIA courses from CTE.
For more information, contact Teresa Townsend, CTE research associate,
(919) 515-9351 or tltownse@ncsu.edu.
CTE Presents Environmental
Provisions of SAFETEA-LU Broadcast
 On
November 17, CTE presented the Environmental Provisions of SAFETEA-LU
national satellite and Web broadcast, produced in cooperation with
the Federal Highway Administration and Federal Transit Administration.
The live broadcast reviewed the environmental provisions of the
new Safe, Accountable, Flexible, and Efficient Transportation Equity
Act: A Legacy for Users (SAFETEA-LU) surface transportation reauthorization
bill, signed into law by President Bush on August 10.
Moderated by FHWA Program and Policy Development Team Leader Shari
Schaftlein, the program included FHWA headquarters staff who provided
overviews of the environmental provisions and outlined opportunities
for input into rulemaking and guidance under the law, as well as
future training and outreach.
A panel of stakeholder representatives participated in the interactive
question and answer sessions at the end of each hour to explore
proactive efforts to implement the provisions and to help states
and communities achieve their transportation and environmental goals.
DVD copies and written transcripts of the broadcast can be ordered
on CTE’s Web site at www.cte.ncsu.edu. The program is also
available for replay in the CTE webcast archive.
For more information, contact Katie McDermott, CTE technology transfer
director, (919) 515-8034 or kpm@ncsu.edu.
CTE/NCDOT Research-in-Progress Profile:
Shoreline Monitoring at Oregon Inlet Terminal Groin
 Project
Period:
July 2004 – December 2005
Project Team:
Dr. Margery F. Overton, overton@eos.ncsu.edu, Professor,
Department of Civil, Construction, and Environmental Engineering,
NC State University
Dr. John Fisher, Professor (Retired), NCSU Department of Civil,
Construction, and Environmental Engineering
The Oregon Inlet was created on North Carolina’s northern
coastline by a hurricane in 1846 and has been moving south ever
since.
As a result of subsequent storms, erosion of the land that forms
the opening to the inlet threatens to destroy the state bridge that
provides the only roadway connection to communities such as Rodanthe
on the inlet’s southern side.
“We were concerned that this end [of the bridge] would go,”
said project principal investigator Margery Overton. “You
could almost watch it washing away.”
The Herbert C. Bonner Bridge, which opened in 1963 along the Outer
Banks and is part of NC Highway 12, crosses Oregon Inlet to connect
Bodie Island at the bridge’s northern end to Hatteras Island
at the bridge’s southern end. At Hatteras, the bridge comes
ashore at the Pea Island National Wildlife Refuge (PINWR), managed
by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
This research project, which has been ongoing since 1988, currently
monitors an impermeable, man-made groin at PINWR, located on the
northern end of Hatteras Island. Because the state’s policy
is not to build hard structures, a special permit was required to
create the groin, which juts eastward from the northern tip of Hatteras.
According to Overton, the groin “has stabilized this piece
of the island.” As a result, PINWR has not only provided a
stable area for the Bonner Bridge, but also has become important
habitat for the piping plover, a threatened sea bird on the Atlantic
Coast.
The project began in 1988, when the North Carolina Department of
Transportation (NCDOT) required the creation of the groin at Hatteras
to stabilize the bridge. Overton and co-principal investigator John
Fisher have analyzed the shoreline data to determine the historical
rate of erosion.
The erosion and storms that batter Pea Island and the state’s
Outer Banks continually threaten to undermine the bridge at Hatteras;
therefore, this research project also includes monitoring the six
northernmost miles of Hatteras for erosion and storm damage.
Data are gathered using the Orthogonal Grid Mapping System (OGMS),
developed by Robert Dolan of the University of Virginia. The OGMS
data are combined with existing data to find the erosion rate. Said
Overton, “This is certainly one of the first projects to have
this kind of monitoring.”
She added, “We monitor the shoreline-change position to see
if erosion rates on Pea Island are worse or greater than they were
before.” When structures such as groins are added, she said,
these “structures can trap the drift,” possibly causing
increased erosion. Had that happened, NCDOT would be responsible
for mitigating any damage.
The Pea Island groin project has met NCDOT’s objectives, said
Overton, “but erosion rates are quite high due to the natural
forces attacking the area, which has eroded by 150 feet since 1989.”
As the northern Pea Island area has eroded, the Oregon Inlet has
moved two miles south since 1886. “If this project had not
existed, this inlet would have migrated farther south,” stated
Overton.
“This project has been successful,” said Overton, “because
it’s a good example of NCDOT and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service working together. It’s an incredible database for
lots of information on Highway 12 and for understanding shoreline
erosion.”
For more information, contact Neil Koomen, CTE information specialist,
(919) 515-8623 or nckoomen@ncsu.edu.
Mark Your Calendar
January 22-26, 2006
Transportation Research Board 85th Annual Meeting
www.trb.org/meeting/
(Washington, D.C.)
February 14-16, 2006
Trailbuilders Conference
(Reno, N.V.)
www.trailbuilders.org
March-October 2006
Izaak Walton League of America Stormwater Management Web
Broadcast Series
www.itre.ncsu.edu/cte/techtransfer/teleconferences
For more information, please visit CTE's Events
Calendar.
For more information about CTE News and
Notes, contact Katie McDermott,
Editor
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