Context Sensitive Solutions
PennDOT has embraced FHWA’s Context Sensitive Solutions (CSS) initiative committed to changing the way transportation projects are developed, constructed and maintained. In fact, CSS has been a part of the Department’s vernacular for many years and is a central component of the Smart Transportation effort.
All Smart Transportation solutions emphasize the tenets of CSS and one of the 10 themes of Smart Transportation is to “Understand the Context; Plan and Design within the Context.” CSS is an antidote to the “one size fits all” approach. It requires that all transportation projects be planned and designed with careful consideration of the local land use, economic, environmental, and social contexts. As such, CSS emphasizes a collaborative and multi-disciplinary approach, early and continuous engagement of stakeholders, flexibility in design, and minimizing the impacts of projects to the community.
Smart Transportation Guidebook and Flexibility in Design
The Smart Transportation Guidebook provides overall guidance for
Context Sensitive Solution for the Commonwealth. The guidebook emphasizes Flexibility in Design, a major tenet of CSS.
Flexible Design supports Community. The application of flexible design will allow for improvements that better respond to the needs of the various communities within Pennsylvania. The Smart Transportation Guidebook calls for the designer to understand and carefully consider the community context when designing a facility. Smart Transportation recognizes the differences among rural, urban, and suburban areas and outlines seven different “land use contexts” as a framework for flexible design. Each context has a varying mobility and access needs and a different expectation for the motorist. By tailoring design values to both land use context and transportation context, and relating these to the desired operating speed, the Guidebook promotes transportation facilities that support the goals of a community. Facilities designed with consideration of the context not only encourages driving behavior consistent with roadway design, but also supports existing land uses and sets the stage for appropriate future development.
Flexible Design maximizes Limited Funding. When we tailor our design approach to each problem, addressing clearly defined project needs, we avoid unnecessary and costly “over design” based solely on design values. Smart Transportation calls us to ensure that our design solutions have high value to cost ratio while still focusing on safety as our most important design consideration.
FHWA calls for Design Flexibility. Like most states, the design manuals for Pennsylvania were heavily drawn from the AASHTO Green Book (officially, American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials, A Policy on Geometric Design of Highways and Streets, Fourth Edition, 2001). In 1997, FHWA published Flexibility in Highway Design which recommended flexibility in application of the Green Book design values, particularly when considering impacts on the community. In 2004, AASHTO’s publication of “A Guide for Achieving Flexibility in Highway Design” further reinforced this call for flexibility in applying the Green Book standards. In 2006, the Institute of Transportation Engineers (ITE), partnering with the Congress of New Urbanism (CNU), and in conjunction with the FHWA and EPA, issued “Recommended Practice”: Context Sensitive Solutions in Designing Major Urban Thoroughfares for Walkable Communities. The Smart Transportation Guidebook builds on the recommendations of these three publications and tailored these to the needs of the Commonwealth.