Green Highways: A Growing National Movement

A fast-growing sector of the construction industry is the green building market. Thanks to the U.S. Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) and similar programs, this environmentally friendly way of constructing buildings is sweeping the industry. While LEED focuses solely on buildings and the surrounding site, there is a growing movement across the country toward developing similar programs for highway construction and renovation. Green highways are the future of the highway industry.
The EPA and the FHWA’s Green Highway Partnership (GHP) is a regional program based out of the Mid-Atlantic states that could go national in the future. The GHP is a voluntary, public/private initiative that seeks to incorporate environmental streamlining and stewardship into all aspects of the highway lifecycle through concepts such as integrated planning, regulatory flexibility, and market-based rewards. With an extensive network of environmental, industrial and governmental collaborators, GHP believes active cooperation and regulatory progressiveness are critical in moving beyond the current paradigm.  The combined resources of its partner base allow Green Highways to ensure that sustainability becomes the driving force behind infrastructure development.
In addition to the GHP, states across the country are moving forward with their own approaches to greening highway design and construction. Currently, New York  has a green highway design certification system (http://www.nys-dot.gov/programs/greenlites), and other state highway departments, such as Virginia, are following suit.  Academic institutions such as the University of Washington’s GreenRoads certification system are also gaining momentum (http://www.greenroads.us/).  The time is ripe to share these innovative approaches with the highway industry. 
The concept is to have a full-day conference on all aspects of green highways. Personnel from the GHP would make the welcoming remarks, and time would be allowed to provide an overview of national green highway efforts, along with technical information and approaches for promoting green highway concepts, such as watershed-driven storm management, reuse and recycling, and conservation and ecosystem protection.
The sessions will be held in a prominent position of the CONEXPO-CON/AGG footprint, in the Las Vegas Convention Center on Thursday, March 24. The show runs Tuesday through Saturday.
Those on the planning committee for the  workshop include: John Bukowski, FHWA Office of Pavement Technoogy; Marlys Osterhues, FHWA Office of Planning and Environment; Robb Jolly, Revision and the Green Highways Partnership; Niclole Villamizar, Rita Chow, and Truett Degeare, U.S. EPA; Melinda Tomaino, AGC; Mary Bukovic and Megan Tanel, AEM; and, William Turley, CMRA.

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