Welcome to the Context Sensitive Solutions website.
This FHWA Toolbox contains some of the primary CSS publications, as well as contact information for CSS experts at the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA).
Contacts:
Keith Moore Community Planner, Office of Project Development and Environmental Review, HEPE, FHWA
Harold Peaks Project Development Team Leader, HEPE, FHWA
Fred Skaer Director, Office of Project Development and Environmental Review (HEPE), FHWA
Dwight Horne Director, Office of Program Administration, Office of Infrastructure, FHWA
FHWA Memorandum - Context-Sensitive Design
In this memorandum, FHWA Administrator Mary E. Peters states that "State departments of transportation (State DOT) and we in the FHWA should view CSD as an opportunity to connect with the communities and the constituents that we serve."
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Federal Highway Administration
Policy Document
FHWA Memorandum - Context Sensitive Solutions
This memorandum from King W. Gee, Associate Administrator for Infrastructure at FHWA, contains descriptions of some CSS training programs and lists of major CSS publications and contacts at FHWA.
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Federal Highway Administration
Policy Document
FHWA Memo - NCHRP Report 480
This memorandum from King W. Gee, FHWA Associate Administrator for Infrastructure, introduces A Guide to Best Practices for Achieving Context Sensitive Solutions (NCHRP Report 480) as "the most definitive and comprehensive guide on CSD/CSS."
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Federal Highway Administration
Book
Flexibility in Highway Design
A guide about designing highways that incorporate community values and are safe, efficient, and effective. It is written for highway engineers and project managers who want to learn more about flexibility available to them when designing roads and illustrates successful approaches used in other highway projects. The guide aims also at provoking innovative thinking for fully considering the scenic, historic, aesthetic, and other cultural values of communities, along with safety and mobility needs.
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Federal Highway Administration
Book
NCHRP Report 480: A Guide to Best Practices for Achieving Context Sensitive Solutions
This guide demonstrates how state departments of transportation (DOTs) and other transportation agencies can incorporate context sensitivity into their transportation project development. This guide is applicable to a wide variety of projects that transportation agencies routinely encounter. While the guide is primarily written for transportation agency personnel who develop transportation projects, other stakeholders may find it useful in better understanding the project development process.
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Transportation Research Board (TRB)
Article / Paper / Report
Public Involvement Techniques for Transportation Decision-Making
"For the transportation community, involving the public in planning and project development poses a major challenge. Many people are skeptical about whether they can truly influence the outcome of a transportation project, whether highway or transit. Others feel that transportation plans, whether at the statewide or metropolitan level, are too abstract and long-term to warrant attention. Often the public finds both metropolitan and statewide transportation improvement programs incomprehensible. How, then, does a transportation agency grab and hold people's interest in a project or plan, convince them that active involvement is worthwhile, and provide the means for them to have direct and meaningful impact on its decisions? This report gives agencies access to a wide variety of tools to involve the public in developing specific plans, programs, or projects through their public involvement processes."
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Federal Transit Administration
Federal Highway Administration
Website
FHWA CSS National Website (opens in a new window)
This web site provides information on Context Sensitive Design/Thinking Beyond the Pavement efforts throughout the United States. The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) and the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) are working in cooperation with a group of partners to maintain and update the site.
"As we strive to improve the quality of transportation decision making by promoting strategies that establish a better link between transportation planning and environmental review processes at the systems planning level as well as the project level, one of the key strategies is the CSS approach to project development. One of the Vital Few strategies is for FHWA to provide guidance, information, and training to States on 'integrating the planning and environmental processes' and encouraging context-sensitive solutions/context-sensitive design (CSS/CSD)."
