Context Sensitive Design (CSD) is a part of the DDOT design efforts and the Context Sensitive Design Guidelines are included as a chapter in the DDOT Design Manual. These guidelines provide an additional resource in the design and planning process to achieve better and improved designs. 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 [Federal Highway Administration 2001].

The key elements of Context Sensitive Design for any project are:

• Purpose and Transportation Need
• Environment
• Public Participation
• Transportation Design Elements
• Safety and Mobility.

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.

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