Context Sensitive Solutions

Context sensitive solutions is an approach to advancing transportation programs and projects in a collaborative manner and in a way that fits into the community and environment. The approach has evolved since 1998, when the seminal Thinking Beyond the Pavement conference set out the basic concepts for what had been known as context sensitive design (CSD). During the early CSD implementation efforts, transportation agencies quickly realized that decisions made during long range planning affected design choices made during project development. In addition, the links between design decisions and construction, operations and maintenance activities became critical for ensuring customer service from “cradle to grave.” These early learning experiences revealed the cross-cutting and multi-dimensional aspects of CSD and eventually led to the term “context sensitive solutions.” This evolution from CSD to CSS reflected the intent to expand the concepts of CSS well beyond the design process to include all phases of program delivery, including long-range planning, programming, environmental studies, design, right-of-way, construction, operations, and maintenance.

In recognition of the evolution of CSD to CSS, AASHTO and FHWA refined the 1998 CSD definition, principles, qualities, and characteristics. This refinement is continuing as part of an ongoing effort. FHWA and AASHTO have collaboratively defined CSS as:

A collaborative, interdisciplinary approach that involves all stakeholders in providing a transportation facility that fits its setting. It is an approach that leads to preserving and enhancing scenic, aesthetic, historic, community, and environmental resources, while improving or maintaining safety, mobility, and infrastructure conditions.

Further definition of what CSS is for transportation processes, outcomes, and decision making is provided by the following core principles, qualities, and outcomes. These core CSS principles, qualities, and outcomes apply differently depending on the circumstances, scale, and type of project. The statements below can also be used as a basis for assessing whether an activity meets CSS goals.

Core CSS Principles

• Strive towards a shared stakeholder vision to provide a basis for decisions.
• Demonstrate a comprehensive understanding of contexts.
• Foster continuing communication and collaboration to achieve consensus.
• Exercise flexibility and creativity to shape effective transportation solutions, while preserving and enhancing community and natural environments.

CSS Qualities

Context sensitive solutions is guided by a process which:

• Establishes an interdisciplinary team early, including a full range of stakeholders, with skills based on the needs of the transportation activity.
• Seeks to understand the landscape, the community, valued resources, and the role of all appropriate modes of transportation in each unique context before developing engineering solutions.
• Communicates early and continuously with all stakeholders in an open, honest, and respectful manner, and tailors public involvement to the context and phase.
• Utilizes a clearly defined decision-making process.
• Tracks and honors commitments through the life cycle of projects.
• Involves a full range of stakeholders (including transportation officials) in all phases of a transportation program.
• Clearly defines the purpose and seeks consensus on the shared stakeholder vision and scope of projects and activities, while incorporating transportation, community, and environmental elements.
• Secures commitments to the process from local leaders.
• Tailors the transportation development process to the circumstances and uses a process that examines multiple alternatives, including all appropriate modes of transportation, and results in consensus.
• Encourages agency and stakeholder participants to jointly monitor how well the agreed-upon process is working, to improve it as needed, and when completed, to identify any lessons learned.
• Encourages mutually supportive and coordinated multimodal transportation and land-use decisions.
• Draws upon a full range of communication and visualization tools to better inform stakeholders, encourage dialogue, and increase credibility of the process.

CSS Outcomes

Context sensitive solutions leads to outcomes that:

• Are in harmony with the community and preserve the environmental, scenic, aesthetic, historic, and natural resource values of the area.
• Are safe for all users.
• Solve problems that are agreed upon by a full range of stakeholders
• Meet or exceed the expectations of both designers and stakeholders, thereby adding lasting value to the community, the environment, and the transportation system.
• Demonstrate effective and efficient use of resources (people, time, budget,) among all parties.

The following list provides examples of approaches utilized by transportation agencies to institutionalize CSS:

• Washington DOT: a winner of the 2006 AASHTO CSS competition in the area of institutionalizing CSS. For more information on Washington State DOT efforts to institutionalize CSS see their 2006 TRB paper: Mainstreaming CSS into the Workforce.
• New York DOT: winner of the 2005 AASHTO CSS competition in the area of institutionalizing CSS.
• Utah DOT was recognized for their efforts to institutionalize CSS as part of the 2005 AASHTO CSS competition
• Illinois DOT was recognized for their efforts to institutionalize CSS as part of the 2006 AASHTO CSS competition. The Illinois CSS Strategic Plan also is documented as part of a 2006 TRB paper.
• California DOT provides a good example of a CSS implementation plan that identifies 18 objectives to institutionalize CSS in all their activities.

To fully institutionalize CSS, it is critical for current processes to align with CSS principles and concepts. The key topics for CSS integration for projects are listed below:

• Effective and efficient decisionmaking: Understanding how the pieces of decisionmaking from purpose and need to implementation fit together seamlessly is a key success factor for CSS. NCHRP Report 480: A Guide to Best Practices for Achieving Context Sensitive Solutions provides a good explanation of effective decision-making (see chapter 3). The presentation on CSS and Project Delivery at the national Peer Exchange in 2006 provides a high level process chart for integration at the project level.
• Comprehensive understanding of context: Understanding quality of life considerations early in the process – including links to land use and multi-modal options – is critical for efficient and effective decision-making. Properly defining the context is a major consideration in developing a problem definition that is owned by stakeholders. One example of a state DOT that has developed a context screening tool is Pennsylvania DOT. The tool is called a Community Context Audit and it is intended to be a guide to identify various community characteristics that make each transportation project location unique to its residents, its businesses and the public in general. Project for Public Spaces (PPS) created a Placemaking Audit for New Hampshire DOT as part of their CSS training program. This tool helps transportation practitioners work along side with the public to define the problem using context information. Another resource for defining context is titled, Community Culture and the Environment: a Guide to Understanding a Sense of Place. This is an EPA resource that offers a process and set of tools for defining and understanding social and cultural aspects of a community, especially as related to environmental issues.
• Flexibility in Design: Understanding the design choices available to transportation professionals is key to developing solutions that fit the context. AASHTO’s publication, A Guide to Achieving Flexibility in Highway Design, provides useful information about the flexibility inherent with AASHTO’s Geometric Design Guide (a.k.a., The Green Book).
• Stakeholder involvement: Engaging stakeholders in the decisionmaking process is fundamental to CSS. CSS is marked by a collaborative process that brings together individuals representing the project’s context in order to develop a solution. Several state DOTs have impressive public involvement manuals.
• Interdisciplinary teams: Bringing multiple disciplines together to utilize their knowledge and skills is the cornerstone of developing solutions that reflect the context. NCHRP 25-05 Synthesis Project 37-01, Multi-Disciplinary Teams in Context Sensitive Solutions, discusses these concepts.
• Lessons Learned: Continuing to share lessons learned among state DOTs is critical to advancing CSS, including case studies on this website. Additional lessons learned are documented on ContextSensitiveSolutions.org and through FHWA's CSS National Dialogue 1 and CSS National Dialog 2 workshops and case studies.

Some transportation agencies are in the process of developing CSS related performance measures but little guidance or resources are available. The most noteworthy reference for CSS performance measures is NCHRP Document 69: Performance Measurement for CSS: A Guide for state DOTs. This document stresses that performance measures should reflect process, outcome, organizational and project goals. The guide clarifies that no one size will fit all transportation agencies. Furthermore the guide, states that measures for CSS should be consistent with any strategic planning efforts within an agency. The following is an excerpt from the guide:

“Developing performance measure requires strong leadership and day-to-day management to place a program on the right footing. Allocation of the proper resources and commitment is critical for making sure that performance measures get put into practice. Equally important, measurement programs need a day-to-day champion capable of orchestrating and managing daily activities, both during the program establishment phase and during program implementation. In the measure development phase, a working group should be created to develop measures and an implementation framework. The working group will likely include both internal participants and external stakeholders. Who to involve will depend on agency-specific political and operating environments.”

As a follow up to the Peer Exchange held in September 2006, key staff from FHWA and members of the AASHTO CSS Task Force developed strategic goals for mainstreaming CSS into all transportation agencies. Four strategic goals along with 14 accomplishments were identified by this working group.

Below is a list of the four strategic goals:

• Making the case for CSS: The intent of AASHTO/FHWA is to improve the understanding of CSS, including its benefits, and to correct widely held misperceptions.
• Building CSS knowledge and skills: The intent of AASHTO/FHWA is to help support CSS education through research, training, and the sharing of best practices.
• Promote flexibility in standards application to facilitate CSS through revision of standards and/or better understanding and utilization of inherent flexibility: The intent of AASHTO/FHWA is to encourage the integration of CSS principles in all phases of project development, especially in the design of transportation projects.
• Support leadership and coalition building: The intent of AASHTO/FHWA is to leverage the financial, technological, and organizational resources necessary to help CSS champions and the stakeholder community to implement CSS and to evaluate measures of success.

Long range planning, if done in a way that is responsive to CSS principles and concepts, can streamline project development by establishing a strong basis for purpose and need of a project. FHWA provides a good resource for explaining how CSS and transportation planning can work together in its Q and A’s document. In 2007, FHWA's Office of Planning released Integration of Context Sensitive Solutions in the Transportation Planning Process, which documents efforts to integrate context sensitive solutions into the transportation planning process. The report includes a literature review, an assessment of how CSS is being used in planning and related principles, development of a tool kit for the public and planners, and findings and recommendations. Other good resources for CSS in planning can be found in FHWA materials related to linking NEPA and planning activities.

Project development is where most of the emphasis on CSS originally began with environmental planning and design taking center stage in most discussions on CSS. As the original term context sensitive design implies, there was an early focus on location decisions that rely on environmental and design controls. Fortunately, NEPA provides an excellent framework for decision making that is highly reflective of CSS principles and concepts. However, many projects are funded without federal funds and most states do not have state-NEPA type laws. CSS bridges this gap by focusing on all projects developed regardless of funding sources.

Transportation professionals working within construction, operations and maintenance can reflect daily on activities that represent CSS principles and concepts. The very nature of the work demands constant interaction with stakeholders, particularly the general public. Construction, operations, and maintenance staffs work daily in the communities they serve and they often have the best insight in how to meet the needs of these communities. CSS is expanding into construction, operations, and maintenance activities, illustrating that CSS is critical to all transportation activities. NCHRP Project 25-25 (04), Environmental Stewardship Practices, Procedures, and Policies for Highway Construction and Maintenance, is an excellent resource for transportation agencies looking for strategies for incorporating CSS related concepts into construction and maintenance activities.