Analysis of Interregional Commuters Traffic Delay Induced by Shoreline Protection of Different Areas of the San Francisco Bay Area
Publication: Journal of Infrastructure Systems
Volume 29, Issue 4
Abstract
The effects of global climate change are already observed in coastal communities, and one of the key impacts of climate change is sea level rise (SLR). Such increases in sea level are expected to have large impacts on transportation infrastructure and result in region-wide commute disruption. Studies and adaptation strategies in coastal areas will allow decision-makers to take better actions against SLR. The present paper uses the San Francisco Bay Area as a case study. The study quantifies the interregional traffic delay of commuters due to the inundation of shoreline protection segments of the Bay Area. The approach is based on the marginal effect of protection within San Francisco Bay where individual stretches of coastline known as operational landscape units (OLUs) are protected one at a time. In the study, we integrate detailed shoreline scenarios, coastal inundation modeling, and traffic disruption modeling. Important insights from the analysis are obtained: the protection of an OLU (and specifically San Rafael OLU) will produce an average commute time reduction of up to 17% in the neighboring areas or the neighborhoods located across the bay. Five OLUs along with four bridges were identified as critical for minimizing disruptions to commute times. This methodology may be used by decision-makers when proposing adaptation and protection strategies that account for both local and regional areas.
Get full access to this article
View all available purchase options and get full access to this article.
Data Availability Statement
Some data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request. The following data are available: shape file of the GIS inundation map of the transportation network for all the case scenarios, VHT result for the case scenarios, calibration data for hydrodynamic base case scenario, and hydrodynamic inundation map for all the case scenarios.
Acknowledgments
This research was partially funded by the National Science Foundation under the Collaborative Research: Multi-scale Infrastructure Interactions with Intermittent Disruptions: Coastal Flood Protection, Transportation and Governance Networks (CRISP) program (Grant No. 1541181) and by an New York University Abu Dhabi (NYUAD) research grant to the third author. The authors benefited from discussions with other members of the Transportation Infrastructure Management Lab at NYUAD. The simulations were carried out using the Core Technology Platforms resources at New York University Abu Dhabi.
References
Barnard, P. L., et al. 2019. “Dynamic flood modeling essential to assess the coastal impacts of climate change.” Sci. Rep. 9 (1): 4309. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-019-40742-z.
Beagle, J., J. Lowe, K. McKnight, S. Safran, L. Tam, and S. J. Szambelan. 2019. San Francisco Bay shoreline adaptation atlas: Working with nature to plan for sea level rise using operational landscape units. Richmond, CA: San Francisco Estuary Institute and San Francisco Bay Area Planning and Urban Research Association.
Bills, T. S., and J. L. Walker. 2017. “Looking beyond the mean for equity analysis: Examining distributional impacts of transportation improvements.” Transp. Policy 54 (Feb): 61–69. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tranpol.2016.08.003.
Bohn, S., and C. Danielson. 2016. Income inequality and the safety net in California. San Francisco: Public Policy Institute of California.
Burby, R. J. 1998. Cooperating with nature: Confronting natural hazards with land-use planning for sustainable communities. Washington, DC: Joseph Henry Press. https://doi.org/10.17226/5785.
Chang, H., M. Lafrenz, I. W. Jung, M. Figliozzi, D. Platman, and C. Pederson. 2010. “Potential impacts of climate change on flood-induced travel disruptions: A case study of Portland, Oregon, USA.” Ann. Assoc. Am. Geogr. 100 (4): 938–952. https://doi.org/10.1080/00045608.2010.497110.
Deltares. 2019. Delft3D flexible mesh suite. Technical reference manual. Delft, Netherlands: WL Delft Hydraulics.
Egbert, G. D., and S. Y. Erofeeva. 2002. “Efficient inverse modeling of barotropic ocean tides.” J. Atmos. Ocean. Technol. 19 (2): 183–204.
Ellen, S. D., and G. F. Wieczorek. 1988. Vol. 1434 of Landslides, floods, and marine effects of the storm of January 3-5, 1982, in the San Francisco Bay region, California. Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office.
Frazier, T. G., N. Wood, and B. Yarnal. 2010. “Stakeholder perspectives on land-use strategies for adapting to climate-change-enhanced coastal hazards: Sarasota, Florida.” Appl. Geogr. 30 (4): 506–517. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apgeog.2010.05.007.
Gornitz, V., S. Couch, and E. K. Hartig. 2001. “Impacts of sea level rise in the New York City metropolitan area.” Global Planet. Change 32 (1): 61–88. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0921-8181(01)00150-3.
Guo, Y., Z. Chen, A. Stuart, X. Li, and Y. Zhang. 2018. Measuring impact of emerging transportation technologies on community equity in economy, environment and public health. Washington, DC: USDOT.
Haigh, I. D., et al. 2020. “The tides they are a-Changin’: A comprehensive review of past and future nonastronomical changes in tides, their driving mechanisms, and future implications.” Rev. Geophys. 57 (1): e2018RG000636. https://doi.org/10.1029/2018RG000636.
Harley, C. D., A. Randall Hughes, K. M. Hultgren, B. G. Miner, C. J. Sorte, C. S. Thornber, L. F. Rodriguez, L. Tomanek, and S. L. Williams. 2006. “The impacts of climate change in coastal marine systems.” Ecol. Lett. 9 (2): 228–241. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1461-0248.2005.00871.x.
Heberger, M., H. Cooley, P. Herrera, P. H. Gleick, and E. Moore. 2009. The impacts of sea-level rise on the California coast. Berkeley, CA: Univ. of California, Berkeley.
Horni, A., K. Nagel, and K. W. Axhausen. 2016. The multi-agent transport simulation MATSim. London: Ubiquity Press.
Hummel, M. A., R. Griffin, K. Arkema, and A. D. Guerry. 2021. “Economic evaluation of sea-level rise adaptation strongly influenced by hydrodynamic feedbacks.” Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 118 (29): e2025961118. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2025961118.
Hummel, M. A., and M. T. Stacey. 2020. “Assessing the influence of shoreline adaptation on tidal hydrodynamics: The role of shoreline typologies.” J. Geophys. Res.: Oceans 126 (2): e2020JC016705. https://doi.org/10.1029/2020jc016705.
Hummel, M. A., S. A. Tcheukam, A. Chow, M. T. Stacey, and S. M. Madanat. 2020. “Interacting infrastructure disruptions due to environmental events and long-term climate change.” Earth’s Future 8 (10): e2020EF001652. https://doi.org/10.1029/2020EF001652.
IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change). 2019. “Summary for policymakers.” In IPCC special report on the ocean and cryosphere in a changing climate, edited by H.-O. Pörtner, et al. Geneva: IPCC.
IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change). 2021. “Summary for policymakers.” In Climate change 2021: The physical science basis. Contribution of working group I to the sixth assessment report of the intergovernmental panel on climate change, edited by V. Masson-Delmotte, et al. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009157896.
Khojasteh, D., S. Chen, S. Felder, V. Heimhuber, and W. Glamore. 2021. “Estuarine tidal range dynamics under rising sea levels.” PLoS One 16 (9): e0257538. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0257538.
Knowles, N. 2010. “Potential inundation due to rising sea levels in the San Francisco Bay region.” San Francico Estuary Watershed Sci. 8 (1): https://doi.org/10.15447/sfews.2010v8iss1art1.
Koetse, M. J., and P. Rietveld. 2009. “The impact of climate change and weather on transport: An overview of empirical findings.” Transp. Res. Part D Transp. Environ. 14 (3): 205–221. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.trd.2008.12.004.
Lu, Q. C., and Z. R. Peng. 2011. “Vulnerability analysis of transportation network under scenarios of sea level rise.” Transp. Res. Rec. 2263 (1): 174–181. https://doi.org/10.3141/2263-19.
Lubell, M., M. Stacey, and M. A. Hummel. 2021. “Collective action problems and governance barriers to sea-level rise adaptation in San Francisco Bay.” Clim. Change 167 (3–4): 46. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-021-03162-5.
Madanat, S. M., I. Papakonstantinou, and J. Lee. 2019. “The benefits of cooperative policies for transportation network protection from sea level rise: A case study of the San Francisco Bay area.” Transp. Policy 76 (Apr): A1–A9. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tranpol.2018.12.011.
Matthiessen, C. W. 2008. “The Öresund bridge: Planning for a cross-border metropolis of Copenhagen (Denmark) and Malmö-Lund (Sweden).” Quaestiones Geographicae 28 (1): 49–57.
MTC and ABAG (Metropolitan Transportation Commission and Association of Bay Area Governments). 2019. “Plan bay area 2050: Regional growth forecast methodology.” Accessed June 5, 2021. https://abag.ca.gov/sites/default/files/pba_2050-regional_growth_forecast_methodology.pdf.
MTC and ABAG (Metropolitan Transportation Commission and Association of Bay Area Governments). 2020. “Bay area census: Transportation.” MTC-ABAG Library. Accessed June 5, 2021. http://www.bayareacensus.ca.gov/transportation.htm.
MTC (Metropolitan Transportation Commission). 2020. “Vital signs: Transit ridership.” Accessed June 14, 2021. https://www.vitalsigns.mtc.ca.gov/transit-ridership.
Nahmias-Biran, B. H., T. Bills, and Y. Shiftan. 2017. “Incorporating equity consideration in transport project evaluation: The San-Francisco Bay area case study.” Transp. Res. Rec. 21: 22.
Nicholls, R. J., and A. Cazenave. 2010. “Sea-level rise and its impact on coastal zones.” Science 328 (5985): 1517–1520. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1185782.
Papakonstantinou, I., J. Lee, and S. M. Madanat. 2019a. “Game theoretic approaches for highway infrastructure protection against sea level rise: Co-opetition among multiple players.” Transp. Res. Part B Methodol. 123 (May): 21–37. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.trb.2019.03.012.
Papakonstantinou, I., J. Lee, and S. M. Madanat. 2019b. “Optimal levee installation planning for highway infrastructure protection against sea level rise.” Transp. Res. Part D Transp. Environ. 77 (Dec): 378–389. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.trd.2019.02.002.
Papakonstantinou, I., A. T. Siwe, and S. M. Madanat. 2020. “Effects of sea level rise induced land use changes on traffic congestion.” Transp. Res. Part D Transp. Environ. 87 (Oct): 102515. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.trd.2020.102515.
Pathak, R., C. K. Wyczalkowski, and X. Huang. 2017. “Public transit access and the changing spatial distribution of poverty.” Reg. Sci. Urban Econ. 66 (Sep): 198–212. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.regsciurbeco.2017.07.002.
Popovici, E., A. Bucci, R. P. Wiegand, and E. D. De Jong. 2012. “Coevolutionary principles.” In Handbook of natural computing, edited by G. Rozenberg, T. Bäck, and J. N. Kok. Berlin: Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-92910-9_31.
Pörtner, H. O., D. Roberts, V. Masson-Delmotte, P. Zhai, M. Tignor, E. Poloczanska, K. Mintenbeck, M. Nicolai, A. Okem, and J. Petzold. 2019. “IPCC special report on the ocean and cryosphere in a changing climate.” In Proc., IPCC Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, edited by H.-O. Pörtner, et al., 755. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009157964.
Pozdnoukhov, A., A. Campbell, S. Feygin, M. Yin, and S. Mohanty. 2016. “San Francisco Bay area: The SmartBay project-connected mobility.” In The multi-agent transport simulation MATSim, edited by A. Horni, 485–490. London: Ubiquity Press. https://doi.org/10.5334/baw.83.
SFEI and SPUR (San Francisco Estuary Institute and San Francisco Bay Area Planning and Urban Research Association). 2019. “San Francisco bay shoreline adaptation atlas: Working with nature to plan for sea level rise using operational landscape units.” Accessed April 15, 2019. https://www.sfei.org/sites/default/files/biblio_files/SFEI%20SF%20Bay%20Shoreline%20Adaptation%20Atlas%20April%202019_highres.pdf.
Suh, J., A. T. Siwe, and S. M. Madanat. 2019. “Transportation infrastructure protection planning against sea level rise: Analysis using operational landscape units.” J. Infrastruct. Syst. 25 (3): 04019024. https://doi.org/10.1061/(ASCE)IS.1943-555X.0000506.
Sun, J., A. Chow, and S. Madanat. 2022. “Tradeoffs between optimality and equity in transportation network protection against sea level rise.” Transp. Res. Part A Policy Pract. 163 (Sep): 195–208. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tra.2022.07.006.
Sun, J., A. C. Chow, and S. M. Madanat. 2020. “Multimodal transportation system protection against sea level rise.” Transp. Res. Part D Transp. Environ. 88 (5): 102568. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.trd.2020.102568.
Sun, J., A. C. Chow, and S. M. Madanat. 2021. “Equity concerns in transportation infrastructure protection against sea level rise.” Transp. Policy 100 (Jan): 81–88. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tranpol.2020.10.006.
Van der Voorn, T., J. Quist, C. Pahl-Wostl, and M. Haasnoot. 2017. “Envisioning robust climate change adaptation futures for coastal regions: A comparative evaluation of cases in three continents.” Mitigation Adapt. Strategies Global Change 22 (Mar): 519–546. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11027-015-9686-4.
Verhoeven, J. T. A., M. B. Soons, R. Janssen, and N. Omtzigt. 2008. “An operational landscape unit approach for identifying key landscape connections in wetland restoration.” J. Appl. Ecol. 45 (5): 1496–1503. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2664.2008.01534.x.
Wang, R.-Q., M. T. Stacey, L. M. M. Herdman, P. L. Barnard, and L. Erikson. 2018. “The influence of sea level rise on the regional interdependence of coastal infrastructure.” Earth’s Future 6 (5): 677–688. https://doi.org/10.1002/2017EF000742.
Xian, S., J. Yin, N. Lin, and M. Oppenheimer. 2018. “Influence of risk factors and past events on flood resilience in coastal megacities: Comparative analysis of NYC and Shanghai.” Sci. Total Environ. 610 (Jan): 1251–1261. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2017.07.229.
Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Journal of Infrastructure Systems
Volume 29 • Issue 4 • December 2023
Copyright
© 2023 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Nov 27, 2022
Accepted: Apr 16, 2023
Published online: Aug 30, 2023
Published in print: Dec 1, 2023
Discussion open until: Jan 30, 2024
ASCE Technical Topics:
- Bays
- Case studies
- Coastal engineering
- Coasts, oceans, ports, and waterways engineering
- Commute
- Engineering fundamentals
- Infrastructure
- Methodology (by type)
- Models (by type)
- Research methods (by type)
- Shoreline protection
- Shores
- Traffic analysis
- Traffic delay
- Traffic engineering
- Traffic management
- Traffic models
- Transportation engineering
- Water transportation
Authors
Metrics & Citations
Metrics
Citations
Download citation
If you have the appropriate software installed, you can download article citation data to the citation manager of your choice. Simply select your manager software from the list below and click Download.