This document has been prepared to explain District Department of Transportation's (DDOT) approach to Context Sensitive Design. This purpose of this document is to provide guidelines for achieving excellence in planning and design of transportation projects.

This document has been prepared to explain District Department of Transportation's (DDOT) approach to Context Sensitive Design. This purpose of this document is to provide guidelines for achieving excellence in planning and design of transportation projects.

Context Sensitive Design (CSD) is a collaborative, interdisciplinary approach that involves all stakeholders to develop a transportation facility that fits its physical setting and preserves scenic, aesthetic, historic, and environmental resources, while maintaining safety and mobility. CSD is an approach that considers the total context within which a transportation improvement project will exist (FHWA 2001).

Another way of describing Context Sensitive Design is "merging the function of a transportation project with its setting". This new approach is an effort to design transportation projects in harmony with the project's context, such that these projects respect the community values, physical needs, natural environment, social needs, cultural characteristics, aesthetics, and transportation needs. The "context" of the project can include a variety of elements such as community, scenic byways, rivers, historic districts, residential character, parks, farmland, wetlands, highways, and commercial neighborhoods.

Context Sensitive Design is an approach to develop better and improved ways of designing roads, highways, and other transportation facilities that are integrated with their environment and are more consistent with the needs of the communities they serve. It is a way of achieving planning and design excellence.

Further Reading:

DDOT CSD Guidelines