1. BACKGROUND
Through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (IIJA), CDOT receives approximately $98 Million over 5 years from the PROTECT program. It is required that projects funded under the PROTECT program have infrastructure resilience as the catalyst for the investment decision. State DOTs must be able to demonstrate that we are being “good stewards” of PROTECT funding. Additionally, a memo from William Johnson on behalf of the Chief Engineer from December 2022 directed Region Transportation Directors and Region Program Engineers to conduct “Resilience Assessments” of all 10-Year Plan Projects.
In 2020, CDOT developed Risk and Resilience Analysis Procedure: A Manual for Calculating Risk to CDOT Assets from Flooding Rockfall, and Fire Debris Flow (Exhibit 3.4; “Manual”), as well as a “Suite of Tools” to support the resilience assessments:
1) Risk and Resilience Assessment Tool (Exhibit 3.1),
2) CDOT Detour Identification Tool (Exhibit 3.2),
3) CDOT Asset Resiliency Mapping Application (Exhibit 3.3).
Many of the tools are built in MS Excel or with a GIS product that is being deprecated. Currently, the tools are not accessible, and the tools are needed to complete the assessment. Additionally, CDOT wants to continue to make the tools available publicly to be used by the MPOs, and our city and county planning partners for their assessment needs. PROTECT also has a discretionary grant program that MPOs and planning partners can apply to - and the grant application requires a resilience assessment of potential project(s).
Building resilience is like an insurance policy – by identifying a threat and implementing a mitigation measure, we can reduce the risk to the transportation system in the future. Pro-active management of threats before they occur minimizes the resources needed to rebuild and restore service, minimizes the disruptions to people’s lives and to business activity, and lowers the cost to CDOT and the traveling public in the long run. Utilizing the risk and resilience assessment as part of life-cycle planning and life-cycle cost analysis makes good financial sense.
