Urban Thoroughfares Manual

Designing a Context Sensitive Approach

Concerned about traffic and street design in your community? Want to learn about a new resource for creating livable streets? Leading engineers, elected officials, planners, and others are now using a new resource created by the Institute of Transportation Engineers (ITE) and the Congress for the New Urbanism (CNU) for local communities. The newly-released recommended practice, Designing Walkable Urban Thoroughfares: A Context Sensitive Approach, advances the successful use of context-sensitive solutions (CSS) in the planning and design of major urban thoroughfares for walkable communities. It provides guidance and demonstrates how context-sensitive design principles and techniques may be applied where community objectives support new urbanism and smart growth: walkable, connected neighborhoods, mixed land uses, and easy access for pedestrians and bicyclists. The manual is a partnership between the Institute of Transportation Engineers (ITE) and CNU. Under contract to the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), the two organizations have created a context sensitive design guide dedicated exclusively to major thoroughfares in cities and towns.

CNU has advanced and discussed the manual at our annual Transportation Summits.

Now, CNU and ITE are set to release the final version at the 2010 ITE Technical Conference with some specific changes and updates.

Some highlights of the newest version:

• Changes to ensure target and design speed of streets are identical and the collapsing of the two concepts in all descriptions and charts.
  
• The elimination of Chapter 11, a problematic proposed section on context-sensitive highways (which new urbanists argued have no place in urban neighborhoods) and the insertion of a few sections on transition zones throughout the document.
  
• The substitution of the phrase “Walkable” for “Major” in the title, reinforcing the intent of this report to provide guidance for walkable urban thoroughfares in environments that currently support walking, and those places where communities desire to create a more walkable context in the future. CNU members Ellen Greenberg and Phil Erickson also prepared a new introduction that better defines the purpose of the manual.
  
• A revised section on Emergency Response and street design prepared by CNU member Peter Swift and retired Milwaukee fire captain Neil Lipski.

The workshops focus on the new road design manual authored by leading urban planners and transportation engineers to help communities create streets that build character and long-term value. Workshop participants will learn about changing standards in street design, the impacts of street design on a community, how to use the new resource, and key urban design features that support a strong community. Past workshops: Chicago, Ill., September 12, 2006; Boulder, Colo., November 16, 2006; Elgin, Ill., March 16, 2007. CNU hopes to present an additional workshop in Texas later in 2007; if you are interested in sponsoring the event, please contact us.

Resources About context-sensitive design and the manual:

• Master PowerPoint presentation covering manual contents (joint ITE/CNU)
• Fact sheet 1 -- Overview
• Fact sheet 2 -- A Framework for CSS in Urban Thoroughfare Design
• Fact sheet 3 -- Design Controls in Context Sensitive Solutions
• Fact sheet 4 -- Using Context Zones and Thoroughfare Types in Design
• Fact sheet 5 -- Designing Boulevards and Avenues in Highly Urban Mixed-Use Areas
• Fact sheet 6 -- Designing Residential Avenues
• Fact sheet 7 -- Main Street Design
• ITE's web site about Context-Sensitive Solutions and the manual

Contact Please contact Heather Smith.