Congress, the Federal Highway Administration, governors, state legislatures, professional organizations, and state and local transportation agencies have all played an important part in the development of CSS, including addressing tort liability issues. Meanwhile, public interest groups have made developing better methods of road design a major part of their agendas.
Compromising safety, failure to use professional judgment, and similar issues that carry professional liability and that could encourage lawsuits have been constant concerns and companions to all discussions of Context Sensitive Solutions. Yet liability appears to be a manageable issue. Most legal experts agree that context-sensitive solutions will not cause the engineer problems as long as they are well reasoned and comprehensively documented.
Hawaii Road and Highway Design Legislation
In 2005 State of Hawaii passed S.B. No. 1876, legislation that directs the Department of Transportation to establish new guidelines that take into account the need for flexibility in highway design, and limits liability of State and counties in the application of flexible highway design standards.
-- Hawaii State Senate
Article / Paper / Report
Strategic Highway Safety Plans: Interim Guidance to Supplement SAFETEA-LU Requirements
A State Department of Transportation (DOT) developed Strategic Highway Safety Plan (SHSP) is a new Federal requirement of SAFETEA-LU, 23 USC 148, and is a major part of the core Highway Safety Improvement Program (HSIP). This preview document is designed to promote best practices and serve as interim guidance to State DOTs and their safety partners for the development and implementation of the State SHSP, and to assist State DOTs in creating an SHSP that meets the requirements of SAFETEA-LU with the ultimate goal of reducing the number of highway fatalities and serious injuries on all public roads.
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Federal Highway Administration
National Highway Traffic Safety Administration
Federal Transit Administration
Excerpt
The Most Important Law of the 20th Century "The 91st Congress enacted the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 (NEPA), considered by many to be the most important law of the 20th century. ...In tandem with NEPA, the 91st Congress also added a new subsection ...focusing on design criteria relating to social, economic, and environmental effects." During the debate, Senator Randolph explained that provisions were expanded to implement the "belief that highways should enhance communities rather than degrade them."
more...
from
Context-Sensitive Design: Will the Vision Overcome Liability Concerns?
from
NCHRP Report 480: A Guide to Best Practices for Achieving Context Sensitive Solutions
Excerpt
Decision Points The CSD/CSS Project Development Process includes a recommended set of decision points. These points are related to federal requirements under NEPA as well as state and local regulations. more...
from
NCHRP Report 480: A Guide to Best Practices for Achieving Context Sensitive Solutions
Lessons Learned: Other State DOTs List of seven state DOTs that the FHWA has identified as "pilot states implementing CSSD; includes brief synopses of the CSSD work each state is doing. more...
from
Context Sensitive Street Design Lessons Learned 5.2, p. 29
Article / Paper / Report
Restoring the Rule of Law and Respect for Communities in Transportation
"This Article seeks to explain how ostensibly protected public resources have ended up standing, if not quite naked, then at least scantily clad in the cold wind of American transportation policy. The reason, in brief, is that transportation agencies have succeeded in elevating the limited logic of conventional traffic engineering to the status of public policy or even natural law. They have made it their mission to ensure that motor vehicle traffic flows at relatively high speeds with minimal interference. In carrying out that mission, they have not only enjoyed the deference that federal courts show administrative agencies, but have secured widespread--if often reluctant--cooperation from environmental regulators, local boards and commissions, and elected officials. Instead of providing means to attain goals set by the public and its elected officials, agency engineers have assumed responsibility for defining public goals."
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Conservation Law Foundation
Article / Paper / Report
SAFETEA-LU Planning Provisions Workshop
This report summarizes a workshop that was designed to provide an
opportunity for federal and state department of transportation
representatives to exchange information and engage in a detailed review of
nine planning provisions included in SAFETEA-LU.
"Engineers need the ability to explain their choices... and CSD and Flexibility provide them the tools to say: 'We're not blindly following generally accepted Green Book design criteria. We have considered those criteria and all these other factors.' If you're thinking about the qualitative, the quantitative and thinking about the context, then you've considered much more than you would by blindly sticking to Green Book guidelines."
