The Federal Highway Administration is doling out millions of dollars for municipalities to make infrastructure like roads and bridges more prepared for the future.
On Friday, April 19, The Atlanta Regional Commission received $1.5 million through the FHA’s PROTECT Grant to develop a regional Resilience Improvement Plan.
Danny Johnson, managing director of the Natural Resources Department at the Commission, said land use has changed river flows and heights, and storms continue to become more intense and bring more rain. This all adds up to challenges for transportation infrastructure crucial to everything from getting around town to local economies.
“Most of the time, the design standards for these bridges and these crossings are using data from storm intensities from the past,” Johnson said.
The Metro Atlanta area hasn’t done an update or analysis like this in a long time, and Johnson said the grant will fund that kind of research to ensure that new built infrastructure is ready for climate impacts and older infrastructure can be prepared for updates.
