A hallmark of context-sensitive design

Public Roads, May-June, 2002 by Steve Moler

The reconstruction of US 93 through Montana's Flathead Indian Reservation showcases one State's groundbreaking effort to build a safe, efficient highway while protecting wildlife and respecting Native American culture.

Take a drive north along U.s. 93 just outside Missoula, MT, and you'll see some of the most breathtaking scenery in this country. But you'll also see an odd. looking billboard for this rural two-lane road. Before you go much farther, you'll pass some ominous markers scattered here and there along this 56-mile (90-kilometer) corridor, which leads from Evaro to Poison through the Flathead Indian Reservation. Each marker signifies a site where someone perished in a fatal automobile crash. The billboard? It reads: "Pray for me, I drive Hwy 93."

This stretch of U.S. 93 is a vital link between I-90, western Montana's major east-west thoroughfare, and premier recreational sites at Flathead Lake and Glacier National Park. But increased traffic volume, combined with an absence of passing and turning lanes and adequate shoulders, produced one of Montana's most dangerous roadways. From 1995 through 1999, for example, 42 people were killed and 727 injured along this stretch of roadway, an unusually high rate of mortality and injury for this type of highway.

But the highway's reputation is about to change. After more than 15 years of painstaking planning and negotiations, the Evaro-to-Polson section is about to get a $120 million upgrade that's expected to improve the highway's safety and performance significantly while minimizing environmental impacts and respecting Native American culture.

Historic Agreement Reached

On December 20, 2000, the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), Montana Department of Transportation (MDT), and the Confederated Salish & Kootenai Tribes (CSK'D signed a historic memorandum of agreement that has ended lengthy project delays and moved the project closer to construction. The agreement outlines areas where the three groups could agree on lane configurations, design criteria, and environmental impacts and enhancements.

"We wanted to create a highway corridor that everyone would be proud of," says FHWA Montana Division Administrator Jan Brown. "We used a process that considered not only transportation needs but respected cultural, community, and environmental values. I think this process will become the way we do business in many of our future projects."

The Evaro-to-Polson section is part of MDT's broader strategy to rehabilitate the entire 187-mile (301-kilometer) section of U.S. 93 from Idaho to British Columbia. The south section, 33.4 miles (53.7 kilometers) from Hamilton to Lob just south of Missoula, will be upgraded to four lanes starting in about 3 to 4 years. The north section, 20.6 miles (33.1 kilometers) from Somers at the north end of Flathead Lake to Kali-spell, is being upgraded already to a four- and five-lane divided highway.

MDT initially proposed improving the Evaro-to-Polson leg, called the central section, to a four-lane undivided highway But the CSKT, the reservation's tribal government, strongly opposed the plan because of concerns that a four-lane highway would accelerate non-tribal development, adversely affect wildlife and wetlands, and damage tribal cultural and spiritual sites.

If the highway was ever going to be improved, MDT and the CSKT had to overcome one fundamental challenge: how to balance the route's safety and capacity needs with the tribe's environmental and cultural concerns. The answer ultimately was found in a relatively new and emerging transportation approach called "context-sensitive design."

What Is Context-Sensitive Design?

This new kind of planning has been defined 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." This kind of approach considers the total context of a transportation project.

Highway planners and engineers traditionally focus design objectives on obtaining the highest levels of safety and capacity for a road at the lowest cost, as outlined in the Green Book, the Policy on Geometric Design of Highways and Streets. Planners and engineers accomplish these goals by building wider lanes and shoulders, along with straighter and flatter alignments. Engineering economics, a historical mainstay of engineering schools, focuses on solving problems at the lowest cost with little emphasis on cultural or other impacts.

But over the past two decades, engineers have used more flexibility in highway design guidelines to comply with current environmental laws and satisfy historical, cultural, and aesthetic interests. Context-sensitive design is the evolutionary change from a tradition of focusing almost exclusively on engineering.

In response to these changes, FHWA published in July 1997 Flexibility in Highway Design, a guide that provides ideas, options, and examples of ways to design more environmentally friendly highways without compromising safety and mobility. The guide stresses the importance of early public participation, identifying community interests, and fostering creative thinking as an essential component of achieving good highway design.