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Illinois Department of Transportation
Design and Environment
2300 S Dirksen Parkway
Springfield, IL 62764
Context Sensitive Solutions
At the conception of the Interstate system over 50 years ago, connecting America was the agreed-upon goal of the nation's transportation officials. The Illinois transportation program, in partnership with the U.S. Department of Transportation and the myriad local transportation agencies, has since accomplished the goal of safely and effectively connecting the citizens of Illinois with each other, and connecting Illinois to the rest of the country. But this success has itself changed Illinoisans' views of what they want from IDOT today. Issues such as traffic congestion from home to work, suburban sprawl, preservation of scenic landscapes and historic neighborhoods, and the ability to use our transportation system to walk, bike, and access public transit are now much higher priorities in terms of what people expect from transportation policy.
Context Sensitive Solutions (CSS) aims at addressing these new concerns, and making sure that our transportation projects are designed to improve the quality of life for all who have a stake in the system. Travelers, communities, businesses, elected officials and many others are all "stakeholders" in our transportation system. Since these issues can be complex, the CSS process works as a partnership between IDOT and stakeholders to come up with working solutions to our transportation needs. Stakeholders help IDOT understand their needs for, and concerns about, our transportation system. IDOT can then take this input, along with all of its other work and analysis, and use it to make planning and design decisions.
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Resources
The federal government, through the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), is encouraging states to adopt the CSS approach to transportation planning and design.
The FHWA implemented, in 1997, a pilot project for CSS, using CSS techniques on transportation projects in five states across the country: Kentucky, Utah, Minnesota, Maryland, and Connecticut. (Please visit the FHWA's CSS website for further details.) All of these states have since adopted the CSS approach in their transportation decision-making.
Currently, 43 out of the 50 states have some sort of CSS policy or program.
The FHWA has published a guidebook for using the CSS approach and techniques. View the FHWA's explanation and definition of CSS, Flexibility in Highway Design.
A well-organized public involvement program outlines the techniques and practices that can focus public dialogue and local involvement in a project in a productive and useful way. Public involvement helps guide project development to meet the overall public interest by building consensus around a single plan of action, and is a key element of project implementation strategy.
- AASHTO Center for Environmental Excellence "Above and Beyond: The Environmental and Social Contributions of America's Highway Programs"
- NCHRP (National Cooperative Highway Research Program) Synthesis 373 "Multi-Disciplinary Teams in Context-Sensitive Solutions: A Synthesis of Highway Practice"
- US Department of Transportation Federal Highway Administration “What is CSS? – Current Activities Report”
- US Department of Transportation Federal Highway Administration “What is CSS? – Publications”
- “Thinking Beyond the Pavement” Conference Report
- Integration of Context Sensitive Solutions in the Transportation Planning Process (Final Report)
- Performance Measures for Context Sensitive Solutions – A Guidebook for State DOTs
- NCHRP (National Cooperative Highway Research Program) Report 480 “A Guide to Best Practices for Achieving Context Sensitive Solutions”
- Peaks, Hayes, “Building Roads in Sync with Community Values,” PUBLIC ROADS, vol. 62, no. 5, March/April 1999
- Federal Highway Administration, “Flexibility in Highway Design,”
- The Mineta Transportation Institute, "The Nature of Context Sensitive Solutions, Stakeholders Involvement and Critical Issues in the Urban Context"
- US Department of Transportation Federal Highway Administration, “Public Involvement Techniques for Transportation Decision-making”
- Florida Department of Transportation. “Public Involvement Handbook”
- New York Department of Transportation – The I-87 Project. Documents the public involvement efforts for an international connection between the largest metropolitan area in the United States (New York City) and the second largest metropolitan area in Canada (Montreal)
- New York Department of Transportation – The Route 9A Project. A good example of a CSS public involvement effort by NYSDOT.
- Virginia DOT “Public Involvement: Your Guide to Participating in the Transportation Planning and Programming Process”
Natural and human environmental issues have become key components of most infrastructure projects. Obtaining public input and understanding community needs benefit the environmental review process. In addition, a forum is provided to address community concerns, questions about design standards, project delivery and management issues. This forum facilitates consensus for the eventual decision and saves costs by incorporating social, economic, and environmental considerations early in the process when it is easier to accommodate change.
Applying appropriate design criteria, policies, and procedures for design decision-making for a project is applied on a project specific basis. Best practices for risk management are employed to minimize chances of a tort lawsuit being successful. Minimizing tort claims and support good decisions should be a concern of all stakeholders.
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