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Best Practices in Corridor Planning
Prepared for
Brian Smith, Director, WSDOT Strategic Planning and Programming
Prepared by
Kathy Lindquist, WSDOT Research Office
June 11, 2007
Transportation Synthesis Reports (TSR’s) are brief summaries of currently available information on topics of interest to WSDOT
staff. Online and print sources may include newspaper and periodical articles, NCHRP and other TRB programs, AASHTO, the
research and practices of other state DOT’s and related academic and industry research. Internet hyperlinks in the TSR’s are active
at the time of publication, but host server changes can make them obsolete.
Request for Report
Brian Smith, Director, Strategic Planning and Programming at WSDOT, requested a search of TRB and
other reports on corridor planning or corridor studies (state of practice, how to, what is in good ones).
The guidance in many of the plans described as best practices draw upon the philosophies and practices
of smart growth, new urbanism, and context sensitive design. The focus is on major thoroughfares in
urban environments where development intensity, mix of land uses and design features combine to
create the opportunity for walking, transit and biking to be feasible transportation choices. Some of the
approaches address both context and developing context-sensitive designs.
Most of the best practices address: (1) the relationships and tradeoffs involved in balancing mobility
needs, adjoining land uses, and environment and community interests; (2) approaches to resolving the
challenges encountered on a individual thoroughfare by addressing the larger scale of the network or
corridor; (3) guidance to identify and select thoroughfare types and designs to best meet the needs of a
particular context; and (4) design criteria for roadway elements.
Successful corridor planning efforts tend to follow these best practices and produce corridor management
plans that are:
• Comprehensive, based on a full understanding of the dynamics of tra