CSD/CSS "best practices" suggest seeking outside known channels for potential solutions.
Alternatives Development:
Ensure Education of All Parties on Innovative Solutions
Often stakeholders, including staff from the sponsoring agency, enter the project development process with a set of fixed ideas about the best solution. Such ideas often vary widely from one group to another. In some cases, potential solutions are not even considered because they fall outside the ideas initially brought to the table. CSD/CSS "best practices" suggest seeking outside known channels for potential solutions. This requires a willingness of all parties to become educated on a broad range of solution sets. Of course, just because a concept works in one place does not automatically make it appropriate for another. The project team should work collaboratively with stakeholders to ensure mutual understanding of potential solutions and their applicability to the identified problems. Examples of concepts that may work some places but not others include strategies such as high occupancy vehicle lanes, traffic calming, and unique interchange forms such as single point diamonds. In some cases, travel patterns or local preferences work against such solutions; in other cases, the topography or climate (snow and ice conditions) may preclude certain design solutions that work well in the sun belt.
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