What is Context Sensitive Solutions?
Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) defines Context Sensitive Solutions (CSS) as:
- 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
- An approach that considers the total context within which a transportation improvement project will exist
CSS principles address both the transportation decision-making process and project outcomes. A CSS process relies on "open, honest, early and continuous" communication, and draws from the knowledge that communities and other stakeholders bring to a transportation question. With a focus on collaboration and consensus, CSS meaningfully involves stakeholders in transportation planning, design, and implementation. CSS means taking a flexible approach to designing a transportation project, so that the infrastructure fits into the natural and human environment, its context.
US Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood has a set forth a transportation policy agenda that includes "a strong focus on people and the communities where they live and work" with "a commitment to the principles that some refer to as livability; that is, investing in a way that recognizes the unique character of each community. The era of one-size-fits-all transportation projects must give way to one where preserving and enhancing unique community characteristics, be they rural or urban, is a primary mission of our work rather than an afterthought." A transcript of Secretary LaHood’s full testimony before the US Senate is available.
Quick Facts on CSS
FHWA has prepared a series of brief documents on a range of CSS topics.
- How CSS Developed (PDF:48KB)
- Principles, Qualities and Outcomes of CSS (PDF:39KB)
- Benefits of CSS (PDF:45KB)
- Challenges and Barriers to CSS Integration? (PDF:46KB)
- Design Exceptions (PDF:41KB)
- Area-wide Transportation Planning (PDF:40KB)
- CSS Performance Measures (PDF:45KB)
- Corridor and Sub-area Planning (PDF:39KB)
- Nominal and Substantive Safety (PDF:33KB)
Learn More
For a broad overview of Context Sensitive Solutions and hundreds of examples of CSS in action, visit ContextSensitiveSolutions.org.
Current FHWA-sponsored CSS activities includes research reports, best practices examples, and policy statements.
AASHTO’s Center for Environmental Excellence provides extensive background resources, including laws and policy guidance related to CSS.
The US Department of Transportation and the Transportation Research Board offer a searchable database of materials, with many reports and papers on CSS topics.
Learn about CSS training programs for transportation professionals and university engineering students in North Carolina at the Center for Transportation and the Environment.