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The National Park Service (NPS) has a longstanding goal to improve access and the visitor experience at Gettysburg National Military Park (GETT) and Eisenhower National Historic Site (EISE). At GETT, which has over 1 million visitors per year, access is primarily by automobile, causing significant congestion and a lack of parking at highly visited areas. Visitors arriving by other means (including horses) further exacerbate congestion and safety issues across the park. These transportation issues impact GETT’s landscape and interfere with its mission: to honor and commemorate the Civil War Battle of Gettysburg. At neighboring EISE, visitation has been declining over the last 20 years, possibly due to limited public access and a shuttle system that may be seen as inconvenient. Alternative transportation options to access EISE, including connections to public transit and bicycle/pedestrian trails, are limited.
Although there have been several previous studies examining transportation-related challenges and potential solutions for both GETT and EISE, NPS has not undertaken a comprehensive analysis of the complex set of issues across both parks. To build on past research and holistically examine this high-priority planning need, NPS requested Volpe’s technical assistance to adapt to a transportation context a planning approach the NPS has used for unit management planning projects. As such, Volpe supported NPS to develop a new preliminary transportation planning (PTP) process, and applied it to GETT-EISE as a pilot. The GETT-EISE PTP not only completed a useful plan for GETT-EISE, but also developed a PTP process that will be used throughout NPS to help park units prioritize their transportation issues, incorporate input from critical stakeholders, and develop action-oriented plans with specific milestones.
 Figure 1. Congestion at Gettysburg National Military Park. Source: Volpe Center
For the GETT-EISE PTP, Volpe facilitated a stakeholder engagement process that informed understanding of key issues and helped NPS integrate its needs and priorities into the statewide and metropolitan transportation planning and programming processes. For example, during the PTP, Volpe facilitated discussions among NPS, the Federal Highway Administration, the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation, Adams County Transportation Planning Organization, Central Pennsylvania Transportation Authority, and others to identify partnership funding opportunities. Through this stakeholder engagement, Volpe identified specific partnership opportunities to improve transportation issues at GETT-EISE, such as those related to safety, congestion, transit and trails connectivity, and equitable transportation access. These partnership strategies were incorporated into the PTP implementation plan as well as into partner plans and programs.
The final product of the GETT-EISE PTP is a five-year implementation plan. Volpe facilitated development of the implementation plan among NPS unit-, regional-, and Washington Office-level staff. To advance the 5-year implementation plan, Volpe worked with NPS to identify funding and initiate immediate next steps. NPS project partners and leadership have regularly commended the project team and PTP process, stating that the PTP will help GETT-EISE address its complex transportation issues while also establishing a process for others to do the same.
Project Contacts: Katie Lamoureux and Kevin McCoy
In the spring of 2020, members of the White River National Forest’s Hanging Lake project team were set to travel to Denver to receive the Regional Forester’s Innovation Award. However, in light of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Forest Service ultimately canceled the ceremony and mailed a letter, a certificate, and a snack tray (made from locally sourced wood) to Ben Rasmussen, who led the Volpe project team. Volpe continues to support the Forest and its stakeholders as Hanging Lake has been impacted over the past two years by the Grizzly Creek fire in 2020 and related debris flows and closures of roadways to the site and the trail itself in 2021.
 Figure 2. Letter announcing Regional Forester's Innovation Award. Source: Volpe Center
Project Contact: Ben Rasmussen
Since 2011, NPS has been working internally across directorates, and externally with partners like FHWA and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, to launch the Transportation Safety Program (TSP), with assistance from the Volpe Center. The TSP, which is required by federal law and regulation, is a multidisciplinary, decentralized, and coordinated effort to reduce the number and severity of traffic crashes by ensuring that opportunities to improve roadway safety are identified, considered, implemented, and evaluated as appropriate during all phases of highway planning, design, construction, operation, and maintenance.
 Figure 3. Relationship between the NPS Transportation Safety Program and the transportation safety management system.
The TSP’s mission is to reduce, and eventually eliminate, fatal and serious-injury crashes on transportation infrastructure within national park units, by guiding and coordinating transportation safety efforts, in concert with the NPS resource protection mission. This will contribute to an enjoyable visitor experience, absent transportation related fatalities and serious injuries, and will assist NPS in carrying out its mission to preserve unimpaired the natural and cultural resources under its care.
Volpe has provided technical assistance by drafting a program development report, outlining implementation recommendations, and compiling relevant background information. Volpe currently supports the TSP in four key program areas that support the goal of reducing crashes on park roads:
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Program Development: Assists in developing structure and resources for TSP, such as a stakeholder registry, fact sheets, and safety strategy case studies in the NPS context. Includes creation of a knowledge management platform where NPS staff can access information, best practices, and technical assistance. Facilitates collaboration of Transportation Safety Team, comprising NPS liaisons and subject matter experts.
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Program Capacity Building: Develops tools and resources for NPS regions and parks, including the Transportation Safety Management Toolkit and annual regional safety briefings. Initial products include a menu of safety study options, a decision support tool, and report templates.
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Communications: Promotes ongoing TSP initiatives and products.
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Safety Data Management and Analysis: Performs statistical analysis and quality control on transportation safety datasets to inform data-driven decision-making and to improve crash data completeness and reliability.
For more information about the NPS Transportation Safety Program, please contact TSP Manager Wayne Emington.
Project Contact: Rachel Chiquoine
The planning committees for the upcoming TRB National Tools of the Trade Conference recently released a call for abstracts. The conference seeks easy-to-implement, cost-effective, and innovative tools, data, models, processes, and techniques that address current federal planning factors in small and medium-sized communities, including public lands. In addition to traditional transportation planning issues, the committee seeks answers to the following questions:
- How do you efficiently execute performance-based planning?
- How do you improve public involvement in the planning process?
- How do you promote safe, active transportation options?
- How do you build effective partnerships among agencies, communities, and public lands?
- How do you support transit, shared, and micro-mobility solutions to urban areas and public lands?
- How do you plan, prioritize, and implement emerging and innovative technologies?
- How do you deal with freight demand, traffic, and parking?
- How do public lands and gateway communities work collaboratively to plan for or react to catastrophic weather events, issues of transportation equity, or visitation spikes?
Interested parties can click here to submit abstracts. The deadline for submissions is February 18, 2022.
Holly Bostrom joined Volpe’s Public Lands Team about a year ago and has quickly become one of its key leaders. Prior to Volpe, Holly worked at the Trust for Public Land, leading efforts to make vulnerable communities more equitable, livable, and resilient to the effects of climate change. This edition of the newsletter spotlights Holly’s involvement with public lands.
What public lands projects are you working on now?
I currently manage our portfolio with the NPS National Capital area, including trail feasibility, asset management, and bicycle/pedestrian safety and facility design. At a national scale, I also support the NPS Washington Support Office on a range of research and public policy topics, including the reauthorization of the surface transportation bill and the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. I also support NPS units in a range of public access, equity, and climate resilience planning projects. Beyond NPS, I work with the Bureau of Land Management on performance measures for their Long-Range Transportation Plan.
What types of projects outside of public lands do you work on?
Currently, I am working with Western Federal Lands Highway and the Office of Tribal Transportation on a research project to improve the tools and resources available to Tribes to support their transportation planning processes.
 Figure 4. Holly pictured skiing in the White Mountain National Forest.
What are your fondest memories of public lands?
I really enjoy sharing my love of the outdoors with my 2-year-old daughter. We frequent a state park near our home in Boston and it has been so fun to see her enjoy the pond and trails. We always end up with handfuls of pinecones and rocks! At her age, we don’t make it very far, but soon we will be traversing the skyline trail!
What new public land have you discovered since working at Volpe?
I’ve been working with the NPS Chesapeake Bay Office to advance equitable public water access throughout the watershed. I’ve really enjoyed learning about the sites that are tailored to access by canoes, kayaks, and paddleboards. Hopefully I will get the opportunity to visit and explore some of them!
What’s the most unique, interesting, or strangest job you had before working at Volpe?
I absolutely love to be outside, so I spent two summers in college working on an island in Maine. Families would come for a week or two and I was part of the team that organized activities, prepared meals, and ferried campers to and from the island. It was a great opportunity to meet people from all different backgrounds and be immersed in the outdoors.
If you were to have a job that wasn’t transportation or public lands related, what would it be?
Channeling my love for whales as a child, I spent a semester in college as crew to an oceanographic research vessel. We sailed from the Caribbean to Nova Scotia to Woods Hole, Massachusetts, collecting data and conducting research. In another life, I’d like to think I could have been an oceanographer!
Contact: Holly Bostrom
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