Context Sensitive Solutions

Context Sensitive Street Design (CSSD) is an approach to roadway planning, design and street operation, to meet regional transportation goals while enhancing neighborhoods and considering the adjacent uses of land. CSSD respects traditional street design objectives for safety, efficiency, capacity, and maintenance, while integrating community objectives and values relating to compatibility, livability, sense of place, urban design, cost and environmental impacts.

This booklet emphasizes the California Department of Transportation's (Caltrans) commitment to make state highways that also happen to be local main streets more livable. It is a manifestation of a process that is sweeping rapidly across America — and across California: Context Sensitive Solutions (CSS).

As part of the City of Charlotte's Smart Growth strategy, staff and consultants are developing comprehensive new urban street design guidelines to be applied to all new and modified streets. The design guidelines provide for all travel modes, while explicitly considering land use context, street function, and allocation among competing uses for often-limited right-of-way. The design guidelines offer direction on planning and designing for five street types and their intersections. As important as the "ideal" cross-sections developed, however, is the information provided to guide the tradeoff decisions inherent in street design, particularly in retrofit or modification situations. To that end, the guidelines include a step-by-step approach to their application.

This policy and technical document lays out a plan for context-sensitive complete streets in the City of Charlotte to improve the safety and neighborhood livability, promote transportation choices, and meet land use objectives consistent with the City's Urban Street Design Guidelines.

This document has been prepared to explain District Department of Transportation's (DDOT) approach to Context Sensitive Design. This purpose of this document is to provide guidelines for achieving excellence in planning and design of transportation projects.

This design guide provides information on constructing or modifying rural roads to cope with excessive speed and unsafe conditions.

This design guide provides information on creating narrow, streets in cities, villages, and hamlet centers with buildings close to sidewalks and other pedestrian-friendly features.

Key Statistics And Facts:

1. For the first time in decades, surveys are showing a preference for expanding existing public transportation and building new bikeways and sidewalks over expanding existing highways and building new highways.
2. There are an estimated 35.3 billion walking trips nationwide every year in the U.S.
3. Walking is not just for recreation. Over 50% of all walking trips serve a functional purpose other than exercise and recreation.
4. Nearly a third of Americans do not drive, and the non-driving senior population will grow even larger in the near future with the aging Boomer generation.
5. 55% of Americans say they would rather drive less and walk more.
6. The top pedestrian complaint is simply that there are too few sidewalks.
7. The top bicyclist complaint is simply that there are too few bikeways.
8. While pedestrian and bicycle trips account for roughly 9% of all trips, 13% of all traffic related fatalities involve pedestrians and bicyclists.

Context Zones—Every thoroughfare has an immediate physical context created by buildings and activities on adjacent properties and is also part of a broader context created by the surrounding neighborhood or district. While the elements of context can combine in almost infinite varieties, this report uses four context zones to define and categorize urban areas: suburban (C-3), general urban (C-4), urban center (C-5) and urban core (C-6).

Definition of Boulevard—In highly urban areas, boulevards can be "grand boulevards"— streets that help form a city's identity, a formal street designed to beautify and be a primary public space, a promenade. Boulevards can also serve as the urban core's spine, a major commercial corridor served by rail or bus transit having a primary mobility rolecollectors). The report was a joint effort between the Institute of Transportation Engineers and the Congress for the New Urbanism, sponsored by the Federal Highway Administration and the Environmental Protection Agency.

Definition of Avenue—In all contexts, but particularly in urban centers and cores, avenues make up the majority of thoroughfares comprising the network. Avenues are moderate-speed (30 to 35 mph) urban arterial or collector thoroughfares, generally shorter in length than boulevards. They are primary pedestrian and bicycle routes and may serve local transit. Avenues do not exceed four lanes. Generally, avenues are undivided but some feature a raised landscaped median.the Congress for the New Urbanism, sponsored by the Federal Highway Administration and the Environmental Protection Agency.

Creating Quality Main Streets—Main streets may be located in any context zone, but are most commonly found in suburban (C-3), general urban (C-4) and urban center (C-5) contexts. They are usually short segments of arterial or collector streets, often only a few blocks in length. They are within a grid or interconnected system of local streets serving the commercial center of town.

The publication provides a resource for practitioners working in the challenging practice of urban thoroughfare design. The principles are based on the evolving practice of context sensitive solutions (CSS), which integrates CSS principles into existing processes to facilitate informed decision-making that considers the needs, interests and constraints within a project. The publication describes:

• The importance of integrating the principles of CSS in urban roadway improvement projects,
• How CSS principles can be used in the transportation planning and project development processes, and
• Specific guidance on thoroughfare cross-section and intersection design.

Information contained in the report uses urban context to describe adjacent surroundings, then uses context to help select compatible thoroughfare types and design criteria. Context zones are used to categorize urban development density and intensity.

There are several design controls in the application of CSS principles that may be used differently than in the conventional design process. These controls include speed, location, design vehicle and functional classification.

The thoroughfare designer is challenged by the need to balance automobile mobility with the needs of pedestrians, bicyclists, transit, public space and urban design elements. While this report emphasizes CSS primarily in walkable, mixed-use residential and commercial urban areas, there are many urban areas with corridors or large districts that, by their nature, are low intensity and low density and do not provide the mix of uses, development patterns, or roadway networks conducive to walking.

Provide guidance for the design of urban thoroughfares that is consistent with CSS principles

A framework for thoroughfare design:

1. Define context
2. Specify a complete palette of thoroughfare types
3. Define correspondence between context and thoroughfare type
4. Bring network into the process

This Citizen’s Guide is intended to show people who are passionate about creating better streets and walkable communities how they can influence highway professionals to address transportation in ways that place the most value on people and on places.

This is a series of eight case studies that outline a variety of tools and strategies that are contributing to great corridors around the country— creating not only successful streets, but creating places in those communities.