New Mexico DOT, Resilience Improvement Plan

High Street is leading the team that is developing the New Mexico DOT Resilience Improvement Plan (RIP) to meet the requirements of the Promoting Resilient Operations for Transformative, Efficient, and Cost-saving Transportation (PROTECT) federal program. The team assessed the vulnerability of roadways (including bike/ped and transit infrastructure), bridges, and culverts to hazards including wildfires, flooding, drought, extreme heat, dust storms, debris flow, and rockfall. The team assessed the criticality of assets using criteria that include economic (tourism); operational (traffic volume, redundancy, freight significance, and transit service); health and safety (evacuation routes); and social and equity (social vulnerability score). The team developed a GIS-based mapping tool that displays asset, hazard, and criticality data layers to identify vulnerable “hot spots” for multimodal resilience improvements. The team supported NMDOT districts in identifying potential projects that respond to these hot spots and describing what project funding could be provided through the PROTECT formula program.