Improving environmental sustainability in road projects

Sustainable economic growth in low- and middle-income countries is a key to poverty reduction and shared prosperity, which in part is dependent on reliable and safe transportation systems. Road and highway systems provide a critical function in creating and maintaining a desirable quality of life. Local businesses depend on reliable road systems for the efficient movement and distribution of manufactured goods and services, employee transportation to and from work, and movement and availability of energy and raw materials. Local communities are dependent on transportation for accessibility to health care, education, food and clothing, farm animal movement, and personal mobility. The planning, design, construction, and operation and maintenance of highway and road systems are vital to the functioning of communities, regions, and countries.
Many transportation planners, engineers, and environmental scientists worldwide recognize that roadway systems need to be more sustainable in light of finite natural resources, sensitive environmental conditions, and limited economic resources. Sustainability is not just about the environmental considerations associated with energy conservation and alternative energy generation; it is the inseparable integration of the environmental, community and society, and economic attributes that need to be managed at the project level to be effective and successful (box 1.1). For example, this
can include transit accessibility, transit affordability, benefits by income group, average vehicle occupancy, transit productivity and safety. Thus, transportation systems need to be planned, designed, constructed, and maintained in a fashion that properly manages the potentially negative environmental and social impacts and risks while attempting to promote directly and indirectly related positive impacts or benefits. Important benefits can be associated with a sustainable road project, including improved cost effectiveness, reduced material consumption, improved community quality of life, increased protection of finite environmental resources, improved consideration of a life-cycle approach, and enhanced innovation and increased knowledge transfer and capacity building (table 1.1).

source:

https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/entities/publication/9b7bd52e-4d98-50b7-9173-123b1215618f