A Message from the Administrator

Dear Colleague:

One of the greatest challenges the highway community faces is providing safe, efficient transportation service that conserves, and even enhances the environmental, scenic, historic, and community resources that are so vital to our way of life. This guide will help you meet that challenge.

The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) has been pleased to work with the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials and other interested groups, including the Bicycle Federation of America, the National Trust for Historic Preservation, and Scenic America, to develop this publication. It identifies and explains the opportunities, flexibilities, and constraints facing designers and design teams responsible for the development of transportation facilities.

This guide does not attempt to create new standards. Rather, the guide builds on the flexibility in current laws and regulations to explore opportunities to use flexible design as a tool to help sustain important community interests without compromising safety. To do so, this guide stresses the need to identify and discuss those flexibilities and to continue breaking down barriers that sometimes make it difficult for highway designers to be aware of local concerns of interested organizations and citizens.

The partnership formed to develop this guidance grew out of the designrelated provisions of the Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act of 1991 and the National Highway System Designation Act of 1995. Congress provided dramatic new flexibilities in funding, stressed the importance of preserving historic and scenic values, and provided for enhancing communities through transportation improvements. Additionally, Congress provided that for Federalaid projects not on the National Highway System, the States have the flexibility to develop and apply criteria they deem appropriate.

It is important, therefore, that we work with our State and local transportation colleagues to share ideas for proactive, community oriented designs for transportation facilities. In this guide, we encourage designers to become partners with transportation specialists, landscape architects, environmental specialists, and others who can bring their unique expertise to the important task of improving transportation decisionmaking and preserving the character of this Nation's communities. As illustrated in the guidance, we can encourage creativity, while achieving safety and efficiency, through the early identification of critical project issues, and through consideration of community concerns before major decisions severely limit design options.

We believe that design can and must play a major role in enhancing the quality of our journeys and of the communities traveled. This guide will help you achieve those dual purposes.

Sincerely yours,

Jane F. Garvey

Acting Federal Highway Administrator