Mitigation refers to reducing the amount of greenhouse gases emitted into the atmosphere. The majority of transport related emissions are generated from vehicles. However, for the transport agency it is important to understand the impacts from project related greenhouse gas emissions (ie construction and maintenance) in order to identify suitable mitigation measures.
OneSome of the Agency's desired outcomes is ‘to reduce the harms from transport’. This includes supporting efforts to mitigate the effects of climate change in a number of ways. These primarily relate to investment in infrastructure supporting the use of ‘low emission’ transport choices, facilitating the uptake of new technologies as well as incentivising consideration of emission reduction when planning, delivering and managing infrastructure. Examples follow.our highway related mitigation actions are referenced below.
Other Transport Agency wide initiatives
The Transport Agency will invest $2b in public and alternative transport during 2015-2018 , of which $251m will be used to improve walking, cycling and public transport infrastructure .
Resource efficiency
The Transport Agency is promoting resource efficiency initiatives to become more resource efficient, reducing the consumption of virgin raw materials on our projects and extending the useful life of our roads. We believe that this initiative will not only reduce materials production and freight and shipping related emissions, but will also reduce construction and operational costs.
CyclingLED street lighting
Promoting cycling and active transport , investing in new urban cycleways and information on cycling resources and research . The Transport Agency’s Specification and guidelines for road lighting design (M30) promotes the use of LED lighting , reducing energy requirements by up to 60% compared to conventional lighting.
Public transportGreenroads
During 2015-2018Requiring our key infrastructure projects to complete Greenroads certification helps us to better understand the Transport Agency will invest $2b in public and alternative transport , including investing in the electrificationimpact from road construction projects. One of rail and the provision of new or upgraded bus infrastructureproject requirements for each Greenroad certified project is to undertake a carbon and services. energy footprint, which can be benchmarked internationally.
For further information contact environment@nzta.govt.nz .