Project Abstract
Colorado Department of Transportation (CDOT) initiated the program based on a commitment made in the 106 Programmatic Agreement. This commitment charged CDOT to initiate a CSS project focused on the decision process and guidelines for all future planning, design and construction projects.
-- Excerpt from I-70 Mountain Corridor Submission Form --
Overview
The I-70 Mountain Corridor is unique in the world. The I-70 Mountain Corridor is the gateway to the Colorado Rockies, includes 144 miles of mountains and valleys, towns and scenic views, places to stop and linger, destinations and activities, places to live, history to experience, and a world of snow, wildlife and people.
If you ski, hike, camp, fish, hunt, gamble, mountain bike, love history, or just like clean air then the I-70 Mountain Corridor is a place you will want to visit.
Sounds like travel advertising, but these are introductions used for the I-70 Mountain Corridor Context Sensitive Solutions (CSS) project. During the development of the CSS guidance for the corridor, the team will work with 7 counties, 27 towns, 2 National Forests, 1 ski corporation, 6 ski resorts, and thousands of residents, business owners, truckers, and commuters to develop the ground rules for building the planned improvements.
The CSS Guidance will be delivered in an interactive web site format and will include the context statement and core values, the decision process, and the History Context Report. The web site will include guidelines for engineering designs, aesthetic treatments, impact mitigation, and construction procedures. This will be the how-to-get-it-done-right guidance on I-70 and will be used for all future National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) documents, all design projects, and all future construction.
Using CSS approaches, the project has already supported a design project for improving the chain stations along the corridor (where trucks put on and take off chains during blizzards).
The Colorado Department of Transportation's goal is to have the I-70 Mountain Corridor become the nation’s standard for collaboration, partnerships, transportation innovation, and environmental sustainability.
CSS Qualities: Process
The CSS Guidance will instruct the development of all future projects along the I-70 corridor.
CDOT initiated the I-70 Mountain Corridor CSS project to provide effective guidance for future projects and to integrate and coordinate interrelated CDOT studies such as the I-70 Mountain Corridor Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement, the Collaborative Effort, and the I-70 Coalition Transit Planning Study.
CH2M HILL was selected by CDOT to prepare the CSS Guidance to include a decision process, design guidelines, an Aesthetic Plan and a Historic Context Report. To prepare these deliverables, an open, multi-disciplined process was followed.
The Process
Step 1 - Define the desired outcomes and actions A CSS Corridor Team was established representing 200 stakeholder organizations. The Corridor Team met and agreed upon their charge and the steps needed to develop the CSS deliverables.
Step 2 - Endorse the process
Each member of the Corridor Team was asked to present to their organization the proposed process and gain endorsement of that process.
Step 3 - Establish Criteria
The Corridor Team met in a 6-hour workshop to discuss the context of the mountain corridor and the values they would work to promote and protect. This meeting resulted in the Context Statement and the Core Values. The Context Statement and Core Values will be used to guide the future selection of transportations solutions.
Step 4 - Develop Options
The Corridor Team met and provided ideas and strategies that should be employed to protect and preserve the Corridor Core Values.
Step 5 - Evaluate, Select, and Refine Options
Members of the Corridor Team formed several working groups to evaluate, select, and refine the ideas and strategies that should be employed to protect and preserve the Corridor Core Values. These ideas and strategies are the foundation of the design guidelines, the decision process, the Aesthetic Plan, and the Historic Context Report.
Step 6 - Finalize the documentation
The interactive web site is under development and will be the delivery method of instructions on the decision process to be used and guidance to be followed for all future planners, designers and contractors in the I-70 Mountain Corridor for the next 30 to 50 years.
Deliverables
The CSS Guidance provides a decision process as well as a comprehensive set of engineering, aesthetic, mitigation, and construction guidelines to be used for $10 billion to $30 billion of identified improvements throughout the 144-mile corridor.
I-70 Decision Process. The process provides a step-by-step outline for developing multidisciplinary teams, describes the steps to be taken, the inputs that need to be considered for the project, and the best practices of collaborative decision making. Using this process, design and construction of transportation solutions reflect and respect the natural surroundings and enhance the futures of the corridor communities. In addition, by building strong partnerships between stakeholders, including users, technical experts and private entrepreneurs, the decision process will support context sensitive and sustainable planning.
I-70 CSS Guidance. This guidance provides a sustainable set of instructions that can be applied to all individual projects along the 144-mile corridor, and ensures consistency of process and creativity in design while allowing individual community and segment requirements to be met. At the heart of CSS is the context statement and core values of the corridor. Understanding this context and core values, which will direct designers as they engineer I-70 for the future.
The Guidance includes a definitive process to be followed for NEPA document and design plan development, as well as during construction. This process will define the stakeholders, the types of teams to consider, the public interaction needed, the decision steps to be taken, the order of these steps, and an approximate time line for the process.
Design Guidelines
This is a set of specific guidelines that set the framework for I-70 improvement projects. The design guidelines will include recommended methods to meet overall design objectives. These guide decisions toward solutions that will enhance the community, leave lasting value, and exceed the expectations of those involved. The design guidelines address standards, compliant with CDOT requirements, for engineering (shoulder width, roadway geometry); aesthetics (the design and treatment of the corridor); recommended mitigation (rock fall, wildlife crossings, storm water treatments and wetlands); and construction (environmentally friendly best practices and minimizing of impacts).
The Historic Context Report. This is a document used in all future NEPA documents as part of the Section 106 process and ensures a complete understanding of historical resources along the corridor. It also ensures that the I-70 communities’ concerns regarding their historical resources are heard and influence the solutions.
CSS Qualities: Outcomes
The major benefits to stakeholders include:
- A clear decision process that is understandable, repeatable, flexible, and uses multidisciplinary teams. With this process all stakeholders understand how and when they can interact and affect the outcome of projects.
- The decision process and the guidance provide a plan for how and when data will be used toward decisions, how and when societal values (core values) will be used toward decisions, and what best practices should be considered and/or employed on the corridor.
Further Reading:
Life Cycle Phase Circle
I-70 Mountain Corridor Submission Form
Decision Process
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