Texas (!) becomes first state to adopt new smart street rules

NRDC Switchboard
Kaid Benfield // December 10, 2009

Texans are going to get more walkable, transit- and bike-friendly streets in their cities, towns and neighborhoods, thanks to an important new decision by the state’s Department of Transportation.

In particular, Texas has become the first state officially to adopt a new, comprehensive set of progressive street design guidelines written by the Congress for the New Urbanism and the Institute of Transportation Engineers. The new manual,Context Sensitive Solutions in Designing Major Urban Thoroughfares for Walkable Communities, which has been years in the making, advances the successful use of appropriate and thoughtful solutions in the planning and design of urban roadways for walkable communities.

In a story published in New Urban News and reported by David Crossley on theHouston Tomorrow website, Fort Worth planner Scott Polikov writes that the state DOT has revised its project development process to require that context sensitive design be considered in all project evaluations. This is a pretty big deal: traditional street planning and design has focused almost exclusively on the function of the roadway in transporting vehicles efficiently from one place to another, even in the midst of neighborhoods whose character and hospitality to walkers, cyclists and transit users can be profoundly compromised in the process.

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