CD+A is part of a multidisciplinary team led by Kimley-Horn and Associates that has contracted with the Institute of Transportation Engineers (ITE) and the Congress for the New Urbanism (CNU) to prepare Guidance for Context Sensitive Design of Major Urban Thoroughfares. CD+A is the lead urban design and land use consultant on the team and our efforts will focus on the linkages of thoroughfare design and urban design context, the pedestrian design elements of the guidance, and guidance in terms of streetscape and context.

The initial focus of the project has been to develop a new major thoroughfare classification system that is more fine-grained than the conventional system of principal and minor arterials and collector streets. While a comprehensive system from freeway to alley or rear lane has been defined, the focus of the study is on the core four major thoroughfare types – the boulevard, the multi-way boulevard, the avenue, and the connector. The relationship of these thoroughfare types has then been cross-referenced to a set of Context Zones. The Context Zones build from the Transect as it has been developed by Duany Plater-Zyberk & Company, and will include an additional layer of information in regards to the predominant land use within a Context Zone. This effort has also been working from the efforts of the CNU Transportation Task Force which established an earlier version of the thoroughfare – context zone table.

The work of CD+A and other members of the consultant team has focused on providing a higher level of definition for the thoroughfare types and Context Zones, as well as defining the design process of Context Sensitive Design and a set of design criteria that will be at the heart of the design guidance.

CD+A’s efforts are focused on the preparation of diagrams and other graphics to clearly communicate the initial design framework. As the project moves into developing design guidance in relation to the design criteria, CD+A will focus on the design of the pedestrian realm – the areas outside the curbs of the thoroughfare and the intersections were all modes of transportation mix. This draws of CD+A’s experience in streetscape and urban design, and particularly our experience in developing technical and design guidelines for pedestrian accessibility. The circulation draft of the guidance is scheduled to be available in the Spring of 2005.