Infrastructure Resiliency: Setting Expectations for Shocks and Stressors

Central Indiana is as vulnerable as any other region to the challenges of changing environmental conditions, population growth, societal issues, and several other factors. The Indianapolis Metropolitan Planning Organization's (IMPO's) Regional Resiliency Snapshot identifies and evaluates these vulnerabilities and the region's preparedness to face them. The snapshot also identifies specific stressors, including extreme heat, floods, tornados, and severe winter weather, and their potential impact on the region's roads and bridges.

In contrast to other resiliency plans, the IMPO examined a majority of the region's roads and bridges, rather than a select number of previously proposed projects. The evaluations consider risk factors (extreme weather) and criticality factors (including equity/people, connectivity/access, and current use) and result in assigning an overall rating to each road or bridge.

Public and stakeholder feedback — as well as the applied weight of the three criticality factors — heavily influenced the selection of the region's most critical natural threats. Once established, the methodology was also applied to assist in the effort of prioritizing proposed projects for the region's Metropolitan Transportation Plan update.