Environmental Impact & Sustainability in Transportation Flashcards
7 cards from real NETTCP practice questions. Tap to flip, then mark Knew It or Still Learning — missed cards come back until you master them.
Read the first 7 Environmental Impact & Sustainability in Transportation flashcards as text
What is a 'complete streets' policy designed to achieve from a sustainability perspective?
Answer: Creating transportation networks that safely accommodate all users including pedestrians, cyclists, and transit riders
Complete streets policies design roadways for all users to encourage walking, cycling, and transit use, reducing vehicle miles traveled and associated emissions.
Which type of wetland mitigation requires creating new wetland habitat to compensate for unavoidable impacts from a transportation project?
Answer: Wetland compensatory mitigation
Compensatory mitigation creates, restores, or enhances wetlands to offset unavoidable losses, following the mitigation hierarchy of avoid, minimize, then compensate.
How does converting a congested highway interchange to a diverging diamond interchange (DDI) benefit the environment?
Answer: It reduces vehicle idling and fuel consumption by improving traffic flow
DDIs reduce conflict points and improve signal timing, decreasing stop-and-go traffic that causes higher fuel consumption and emissions compared to free-flowing conditions.
What is the purpose of an Environmental Justice (EJ) analysis in transportation project planning?
Answer: To identify and address disproportionate impacts on minority and low-income communities
EJ analysis, required under Executive Order 12898, ensures transportation projects do not disproportionately burden disadvantaged populations with negative environmental or health impacts.
Which sustainable practice reduces the urban heat island effect along transportation corridors?
Answer: Using high-albedo (light-colored) pavement surfaces and increasing roadside vegetation
Light-colored pavements reflect more solar radiation and trees provide shade and evapotranspiration cooling, both reducing heat absorption in urban transportation corridors.
What environmental document is typically required for a small transportation improvement that is unlikely to have significant environmental impacts?
Answer: Categorical Exclusion (CE)
Categorical Exclusions apply to projects that based on past experience do not individually or cumulatively cause significant environmental impacts, streamlining the NEPA review process.
Which New England-specific environmental feature most commonly triggers special permitting requirements for highway construction projects?
Answer: Vernal pools and seasonal wetlands
Vernal pools are protected breeding habitats for spotted salamanders and wood frogs; their presence near project areas often triggers state and local permit requirements in New England states.