Designing for Disruption: How Resilience Could Impact Highway Project Costs
VDOT is conducting a study to quantify the cost of integrating resilience measures into its construction program, focusing on highly vulnerable projects, with results to guide design, construction, and maintenance decisions.
An October 13 presentation to the Commonwealth Transportation Board (CTB) illustrated the estimated cost of integrating resilience. Starting with 71 projects screened from around the state, 36 were determined to be vulnerable and relevant for evaluation. Specific hazards for the sample dataset included inland/riverine flooding, landslides, and coastal flooding. Total incremental costs of adding resilience per hazard were estimated at an additional 46% for coastal flooding, 3% for inland/riverine flooding, and 8% for landslides. Extrapolating results from this exercise to all 1,675 projects in the Six-Year Improvement Program (SYIP), vulnerability and relevance could impact 336 projects and cost between a $1B and $1.5B.
Several supporting tools and design documents remain under development. Maintenance applications are scheduled for discussion at the December CTB, followed by presentation on resilience policy elements in January.
Why it matters: Consultants should anticipate further discussion of vulnerability screening, benefit-cost analysis, and design assumptions. Contractors should watch potential implications for drainage, slopes, elevations, materials, permitting, and utilities. This is a policy-development signal, rather than a new blanket contract requirement.