Photo Credit: Alex Basaraba
As part of the Fort Berthold Regional Comprehensive Transportation Plan, we are in the final stages of developing a road inventory update for the Three Affiliated Tribes. Over the last year, we have been driving, recording and mapping roads on Fort Berthold in order to account for roads constructed over the last decade which will improve our eligibility as a Tribe for federal funding for road maintenance and construction. This new data (road location, surface type, and width) is now being analyzed and mapped. From there, it will be reviewed by the Tribe and then submitted to the BIA (RIFDS) to be considered for additional road funding for MHA Nation.
Our previous blog post about the Road Inventory Update introduced the Road Inventory Field Database System (RIFDS), detailed its importance and the funding implications the road inventory process can have for Tribes. This week, we would like to give some more insight into how the road inventory update process is completed from start to finish.
Step 1
The first step in the road inventory update process is to determine what roads have already been officially submitted to the BIA through RIFDS. Once a user has access to RIFDS for a specific Tribe they can pull up the official accepted road records. RIFDS can produce summary statistics for a given Tribe that will have the total number of miles by road ownership. Each road segment should have a latitude and longitude point for the beginning and end of the segment as well as a strip map showing the road. Using these two data sources, the roads that are currently within RIFDS can be reproduced using ARCGIS or another GIS platform. Mapping the routes that are within RIFDS allows for the Tribe to determine if there are roads within the reservation boundary that are not yet submitted to RIFDS.
Step 2
The second step is to identify the roads that exist on the Reservation, but still need to be accounted for in RIFDS. This involves identifying which roads are not yet added to the database, and driving them with a GPS unit (such as a Trimble) to map them. It is important to plan the data collection process well to ensure you are thorough, don’t miss any roads and stay within your budget. When collecting the road routes using GPS, it is important to include relevant road data (road width, surface type, surface condition, ownership and terrain).
Step 3
The third step of the process is to process the data you just collected. Once the roads within RIFDs have been mapped they are imported into ArcGIS and compared to the Tribes’ most up-to-date shapefiles containing road data. This process will identify roads that can be submitted to RIFDS for a more comprehensive inventory. Once the required field data has been collected, the process for submitting them to the BIA for approval can begin.
Step 4
In order to submit a road to RIFDS it must have all relevant field data collected, be properly segmented, have a strip map for each segment and an updated Long Range Transportation Plan that accounts for them as roads within the reservation boundary. The fields data is entered into the RIFDS application by hand and then the strip map and LRTP are attached as PDFs. Once this is completed, it is submitted to the BIA regional office and upon approval, it is submitted to the BIA Department of Transportation for final approval. Once it is approved by the BIA DOT, it will be considered an official record and the inventory is officially updated.
This process can be tedious and can take time. It is all dependent on how many road miles have not actually been accounted for. The oil boom over the last decade is the primary cause for such exponential road construction on Fort Berthold, and most of the roads to the drilling sites were not yet recorded. With good planning, and efficient data collection, the time spent in the field can be minimal.