The Interstate Reliability Project is one of four projects that were identified during the New England East-West Solution planning process. That planning process looked at more than 7000 combinations of electrical solutions to identify 39 overall system solutions. The 39 solutions led to 500 miles of possible routes that were screened against these criteria:

• Network characteristics
  
• Customer and community interests
  
• Natural environment interests
  
• Completion in time to serve need
  
• Lifetime costs and solution longevity

The final route for the Interstate Reliability Project is the outcome of this screening process. During the last 12 months that work has included environmental field studies, constructability studies and archaeological and visual impact assessments.