The Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) has been a leader in changing its business model to better serve its communities since the 1990s, beginning with the creation of its Livable Communities Initiative in 1996. FDOT then became a major partner, along with the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) and other State and local transportation organizations, in creating Community Impact Assessment (CIA): A Quick Reference for Transportation. In 1997, FDOT created a strategic plan to implement CIA, followed by a continuing sequence of toolkits, handbooks, and training sessions on sociocultural effects and public involvement. FDOT also became a leader in the national Context Sensitive Solutions (CSS) movement. In 2002, Florida became one of the first States to issue multimodal level of service guidance.
In 2011, Smart Growth America released a report called Dangerous by Design, which ranked States by how hazardous walking was in each State. Florida ranked among the most hazardous States and became determined to change how it approached its road design. This led FDOT to redefine its entire bicycle and pedestrian program, and in the process FDOT added a bicycle and pedestrian specialist in each of its seven Districts. FDOT also developed a statewide strategic safety plan for walking and bicycling, and began training its planners and engineers on walk- and bike-friendly road design.
To support these efforts, FDOT created several cutting-edge design policies and guidance. In 2011, FDOT revised the Florida Greenbook—which contained road design guidelines for cities and counties—to include an additional chapter specifically for context sensitive design of Traditional Neighborhood Development (TND) communities. This chapter represented a fundamentally different approach than conventional transportation design and was expanded upon in a supplemental publication, the Traditional Neighborhood Development Handbook.
Additionally, FDOT’s Roadway Design Bulletin 14-17, issued in late 2014, established eleven-foot travel lanes as the default for roadways with a divided section in or within a mile of an urban area. The bulletin also set seven feet buffered bicycle lanes as the standard for marked bike lanes. FDOT is also one of the few State DOTs that actively advises local communities on how to apply and implement road diets.
In September 2014, FDOT released its Complete Streets Policy. FDOT incorporates CSS principles throughout its Complete Streets effort and strives to provide more context-sensitive roads by putting “the right street in the right place.” In support of the policy, FDOT released its Complete Streets Implementation Plan in December 2015 and the external draft of both the Complete Streets Handbook and FDOT Context Classification guide, which was published in August 2017. The full Handbook however is a draft and not approved. The facilitated discussions held during the Technical Assistance were related to the draft Handbook, and it is referenced extensively throughout this report.
