Building new maintenance facilities for transit agencies are rarities, but when agencies do build them, it’s critical to design and build to the highest performance possible — these facilities and their efficiencies will live on for decades. As part of preserving limited revenue, agencies are focusing on how efficiently design facilities can help the bottom line.
Transit agencies increasingly want third-party validation of their sustainability efforts. They understand that to make improvements, they need to measure what they’re doing. And, that takes special skills and a trained eye. But, finding just the right fit between an agency and an outside advisor/auditor can be challenge.
Big transit projects often cite reduced carbon pollution as a main selling point to the public. But to take environmental stewardship to the next level, we should look past tailpipes and smokestacks and focus our attention on what goes into these civil engineering marvels. Namely, a lot of concrete.
Everyone in the transit world knows resources are always stretched. But there are ways agencies can use sustainability to create and maintain financial, social and political capital. Efficiency plays well with the public, and can save big money in the long haul. Oftentimes, the environmental choices faced by transit agencies are governed by local laws, which vary greatly across the country. Let’s focus the sustainability lens on some of the biggest operational costs in public works projects:
Conventional wisdom figures transit agencies would naturally lean toward sustainability. But often, the sustainability message from transit agencies does not fully realize the strategies to put efficiency, energy-reduction and environmental protection into practice.