How Can We Build Greener Roads
it had been raining for two days
when hurricane bob came into town
and it’s there was so much water that it
started to come in through
and seep into the basement and started
flooding
and i found my dad down there trying to
soak up the water with rags
and like squeezing them one by one into
the bucket
so i started to help him out and after a
while i got bored
and so i ran upstairs and i came back
down with a drinking straw
and stuck it in one of the biggest
cracks and it started to flood
right into the bucket i was 10 years old
and my dad is a rocket scientist
so i’ve been a problem solver since i
was young and now i’m a construction
engineer
solving bigger problems in our built
environment and my mission in life
is to help people understand and see
what green transportation might look
like in practice
and i believe that we can fundamentally
change the way
that roads are built and that we must in
order to fight a changing climate
so most of you when you think about
transportation you probably think about
the inconveniences you face on your
daily grind
things like noise sitting in traffic
the exhaust how bad all the other
drivers are
maybe you take a different mode of
transportation every day maybe you’re
walking or taking the bike
or a bus or a train and
that’s the bread and butter of
transportation how we get around and
move from
a to b and it’s really about what’s on
the surface
there’s much more transportation also
drives our economies
in the us we spent about 138 billion
dollars
last year on transportation construction
you might think that that money is going
to having you
or helping you spend less time sitting
in traffic
and it turns out almost 70 percent of
that
is going to pavement and construction
materials
so as it turns out your tax dollars are
going right into the ground
roads also have a substantial
environmental impact
research from the university of
washington shows that one lane mile
of road uses about as much energy as 100
times your family’s annual energy bill
that has a carbon footprint of 250
metric tons
per lane per mile
so how many households do you drive to
work
even if you have a zero emissions
vehicle
in the most tech savvy mobile city your
roads still have a footprint
it worries me that research from
the james cook university in australia
shows that 90 percent of new roads are
being built outside of the united states
and developed countries right now
why in the world would we replicate that
business as usual framework
well who’s ever heard of a road that’s
being built
to improve the environment what about a
road that’s designed to reduce its
carbon footprint
wouldn’t it be game changing if we
thought about our public investments in
that way
roads can do so much more and i’m
looking forward to showing you
exactly what i mean roads can reconnect
ecosystems in orange county
only the bravest mountain lions dared to
cross
the busy 241 expressway and since 1998
unfortunately 10 of them didn’t make it
so the toll agency spent time
and money building a wildlife fence with
a special top
so they can’t climb over and so that the
cougars and other critters
can safely go under four brand new
underpasses designed especially for them
so now they can cross safely and you can
travel there more safely too
back here in bothell washington horse
creek
was suffocating underneath the
developing suburb
salmon and other fish had not seen
daylight
in over 50 years so when the city had
the opportunity to rebuild that
road downtown they actually literally
picked up the creek
moved it over to the west and opened it
up and now it’s a community centerpiece
roads can create habitat and restore
habitat
in unusual and unique ways
in portland oregon bats have
penthouse view and waterfront property
underneath the selwood bridge it even
has energy efficient mood lighting for
those dark and stormy nights
the best part is that the bat boxes
were designed and built by kids at the
local elementary school
who insisted that the bats would have
free rent
so talk about affordable housing
meanwhile in new zealand imagine that
you are a little lizard
like this guy a copper skink and one day
humans come to your house
knocking on your door and saying that
they need your house to build a highway
and instead of certain doom you your
family
and all your friends are taken to a
fancy lizard resort
on an all expense paid trip where you
stay in style
and as they build the road and then even
better they hand you the keys
to a new safer house safe from predators
that is just up the street from where
you used to live
in north carolina in summertime
it’s either humid or hurricane and a
first of its kind road in raleigh
was battered by back to back to back
hurricanes matthew florence and michael
and live to tell the tale and its story
was that it had installed brand new
bioswales
also called rain gardens that are
engineered swales
designed to you capture the water
and treat it using the superpowers of
natural soil and native vegetation
that help remove the pollutants before
it gets downstream into the river
when hurricane harvey battered houston
bagby street bounced back it was one of
the only streets in midtown houston that
did not drown
it had a secret underneath the road in
addition to rain gardens
there were a system of huge pipes that
helped like a pressure valve
release relieve the pressure from all
the water in neighboring
areas and it drained into the bayou back
where it belonged
what if roads could actually treat and
capture water themselves
in auburn washington they installed
something called
porous pavement and you can think of
porous pavement or permeable pavement
like a rice krispie treat of roads
yum right
so the asphalt and or cement
can which is like marshmallows can mix
together with small rocks
are you still with me rice krispies
rescue streets
to create a sturdy structure that you
can drive bike or walk on
and when it rains water filters through
the gaps and
underneath into the soil below and
recharges the groundwater table
roads are recyclable and can also cut
waste
what in the world would you do if you
had
400 toilets
one city engineer had a brilliant idea
of putting the potties
in the pavement a local nonprofit was
replacing 400 toilets and called the
public works department in bellingham
and the local engineer got together with
the concrete company and crushed up the
potties
as an aggregate material to replace
the concrete and rocks going into a
sidewalk
so about 20 percent recycled potties and
there’s
now a bike trail in bellingham made with
over 80 tons of recycled
toilets
down in san jose california el camino
real
at monterey highway was notorious in the
state of california
as the noisiest and worst road in the
state
and the politicians were hearing about
it enter the maintenance crews
to save the day they paved over
that all of those potholes with a
asphalt pavement made of recycled rubber
tires
ending up in a smoother quieter ride
they also reused
97 of the existing road saving
23 percent of the cost on a two mile
long project that’s enough money to pave
another half mile somewhere else in the
city
meanwhile next door in campbell
california
they put their 90-foot wide two-way
pavement swimming pool
on a diet and they transformed it into a
complete street
with wide sidewalks bike lanes transit
stops
and also used an interesting paving
method called full depth reclamation
which crushes up the existing road and
replaces it
as new they saved about two million
dollars and reduced the carbon footprint
by 33 percent
roads can reconnect communities and
economies
as traffic races through the
grass-covered tunnels that now
form the presidio parkway you and your
family can walk
and have a gentle stroll between chrissy
field and the presidio
the new tunnels also reduce noise in
sensitive areas
like the tennessee hollow watershed
and the national cemetery they also
opened up views
for the iconic golden gate bridge
back here in seattle one of my favorite
parts of the mercer street
project in downtown is that it was built
on contaminated land
from an old gas station and if you
go underneath the road there’s a system
of pipes and rocks
that help the soil breathe called the
soil vapor extraction system
additionally the surplus property on
this job
actually recently sold for 143 million
dollars in our high-tech
corridor downtown this almost
paid for the entire cost of the new
corridor
east 40th street in tacoma washington
was recently named the world’s greenest
road
it treated 37 acres of nearby
neighborhoods
for storm water that’s more than six
times the size of the street itself
they also added a new shared use path
and in partnership with the local
schools
for a public art project tried to tell a
story of what happens when it rains
they use the special coating to paint
poetry into the pavement
adding a little beauty and fun
we are building the transportation
infrastructure of tomorrow
today these are just a few examples
of what roads can do when it comes to
sustainability
so imagine if we replicated these
examples
instead of replicating business as usual
we need a global road revolution
that means rethinking the ways we design
build and buy our transportation
infrastructure from streets and highways
to bridges runways rails and trails
so if we want to connect our communities
we need roads
that revitalize them that create a sense
of belonging
and ownership so we stop taking them for
granted
if we want to protect our ecosystems we
need roads that are restorative
that preserve and protect animals and
plants
that clean the water and that enhance
our connection with nature
if we want to invest in the future and
maybe save a little money
we need to design roads that are long
lasting
resilient materials efficient and
designed with the end in mind
and if we’d like to protect our
economies from the financial
uncertainties of climate change
we need to be measuring and managing
that carbon and energy footprint on each
and every last mile when it gets put
into the ground
so how are we going to do that we need
the private sector and industry
to keep innovating and create green
technologies
products and services that will take us
into the next generation of roads
and come to market we need educators
to inspire students of all ages that
and then show them that sustainability
isn’t rocket science
and we need policy makers to challenge
the status quo
and put the environment first into
transportation policies and plans
and if we really want to get serious
about it put them into construction
specifications funding criteria
and capital budgets because those are
our tax dollars
building and putting people to work
building our infrastructure
of tomorrow
it’s time to raise our expectations of
what sustainability can look like
in roads the opportunities to take
action
are right in front of our eyes you’ve
seen it
and now that you believe that we can
fundamentally change the way we build
our roads
the first step starts with you expecting
the roads in your community
to be built green and beautiful and
beyond business as usual
and if you can do that i’m confident
that we can do right by the environment
and future generations
one mile at a time thank you
you