ITE's Context Sensitive Solutions in Designing Major Urban Thoroughfares for Walkable Communities provides guidance and demonstrates for practitioners how major urban streets can be designed to support walkable and bikeable communities, compact development, and mixed land uses. The report includes chapters on incorporating context sensitive solutions (CSS) into transportation planning and project development, specific design criteria, and case studies where these approaches have been successfully applied.

This report advances the successful use of context sensitive solutions (CSS) in the planning and design of major urban thoroughfares for walkable communities. It provides guidance and demonstrates for practitioners how CSS concepts and principles may be applied in roadway improvement projects that are consistent with their physical settings.

CSS is the result of developing transportation projects that serve all users and are compatible with the surroundings through which they pass - the community and environment. Successful CSS results from a collaborative, multidisciplinary and holistic approach to transportation planning and project development. CSS in the transportation planning or project development process identifi es objectives, issues and concerns based on stakeholder and community input at each level of planning and design (for example, network, corridor and project). This report provides guidance in how CSS principles may be considered and applied in the processes involved with planning and developing roadway improvements along urban thoroughfares.

This report provides guidance for the development of improvement projects on major urban thoroughfares, facilities that are typically classifi ed as arterial and collector roadways in urbanized areas. While CSS is applicable to all types of transportation facilities, the guidelines in this report exclude high-speed limited access facilities (including freeways, expressways and parkways) and local streets. The report's chapters are focused on applying the principles of CSS in transportation planning and in the design of roadway improvement projects in places where community objectives support walkable communities - compact development, mixed land uses and support for pedestrians and bicyclists, whether it already exists or is a goal for the future. Many of the principles, concepts and design guidelines are directly applicable to urban thoroughfares in other contexts.

External Links:

More Information: www.ite.org/css/

Further Reading:

Context Sensitive Solutions in Designing Major Urban Thoroughfares for Walkable Communities

Fact Sheet: CSS in Designing Major Urban Thoroughfares for Walkable Communities