Introduction of Transportation

The project is related to the state highway 193, Dauphin Island Causeway that is often known as Dauphin Island Parkway (DIP). It provides ground connections between the mainland of mobile county and Dauphin Island. The effect of erosive forces such as storm surge, tidal actions, ship wakes and coastal losses is having a severe impact on the ecosystem (Qld. gov. au, 2018). The main objective of the present section is to develop a transportation part such as developing a shoulder having 12 ft that enables to use the parking lane and to ensure the emergency evacuation in the selected area in case of any storm event or hurricane. The emergency evacuation must be designed in such a way that reduces the losses and saves the lives of people living in these areas (Qld. gov. au).

Team organization and function of Transportation

The proposed solution will be helpful to reduce the life losses in the selected areas. The main goal of the project is to improve the resiliency as well as durability of the Dauphin Island Causeway. The solution will enable to safeguard and enhance the long-term sustainability of the coastal area habitat surrounding in the Dauphin Island Causeway.

Personal contribution of Transportation

My contribution to the project is to design a new transportation system that will be more efficient as compared to the previously existing system.

1.      The new transportation system design will require less evacuation time and reduces the recovery time from an event of a storm.

2.      The new transportation will be designed in such a way that it will protect the roadway from any kind of damage and erosion during the event of a storm.

3.      The safeguard of the roadway will be from the Sea level rise.

Figure 1: New Road design

Solution of Transportation

The new design of roads is proposed as the shoulder to seawater and divided into the walkway and parking lane. The width of the road will be sufficiently higher as it constitutes of two lanes including walkway lane and parking lane. In the sea the breakwater will be introduced at optimized distance to reduce the speed of water, after that region of sand will absorb a higher quantity of water in case of any erosion, right after sand land there will be a region of vegetation, the road will be of two parts and then the there will be marsh. The local habitat will be restricted to live at sea to reduce the consequences of the erosion process.

Conclusion on Transportation

The new design will be further modified to introduce a parkway in the west and it will not encroach on the existing marsh. The design will include a road between marsh and sea wall. The water level sensors are also proposed to be used to measure the water level. In case of any hurricane or erosion, the sensors will alarm the situation. The process of evacuation will be added by the implementation of alarms.

References of Transportation

Qld. gov. au. Preventing and managing erosion. 2018. <https://www.qld.gov.au/environment/land/management/soil/erosion/management>