Improving Evacuation Times Through $107M Infrastructure Investment

Proposed Infrastructure Project

Nestled in California's Sierra Nevada foothills, Nevada County faces significant wildfire risk, with communities relying heavily on State Route 49 as a critical evacuation corridor. In recent years, the Nevada County Transportation Commission (NCTC) has sought to make improvements to SR 49 to increase both safety and mobility for residents of the County. To demonstrate the efficacy of the proposed multi-million dollar project, the NCTC needed a way to model and quantify evacuation benefits to secure funding before the work began.

Visualizing Benefits in Advance with Ladris

NCTC partnered with Ladris to conduct comprehensive evacuation modeling and analysis. Working in close coordination with the Nevada County Office of Emergency Services, Nevada County Sheriff, and CAL FIRE, Ladris supplied detailed evacuation simulations for Nevada City, Grass Valley, and surrounding communities. The simulations focused on two key scenarios: evacuation performance under current roadway conditions with existing SR 49 infrastructure, and evacuation performance incorporating the planned SR 49 improvements. 

A comparative analysis of the simulations revealed improvements in evacuation performance with the planned SR 49 projects. The simulations demonstrated that the changes to SR 49 would reduce both total evacuation clearance times and worst-case individual trip times compared to current, pre-improvement conditions. These findings provided NCTC and its emergency management partners with quantitative evidence that improvements to SR 49 will strengthen Nevada County’s evacuation capabilities. By demonstrating the efficacy of the proposed improvements through Ladris' models, NCTC successfully secured $35 million in state grant funding for the SR 49 improvements and were able to leverage an additional $72.4 million of state partnership funding.

Ladris' modeling software enabled NCTC and emergency planning partners to clearly visualize and compare evacuation outcomes, providing a concise analysis of infrastructure investments. By integrating evacuation modeling into transportation improvement plans, NCTC is taking a proactive, evidence-based approach to enhancing community safety and mobility.