National Scenic Byways Program 

Lessons from the Road 

LOGO: National Scenic Byways Program



Case #2: Design & Maintenance for Byways 
 
Scenic byways are much more than the 
shortest route between two points. Beyond 
moving people and goods, byways must provide 
safe transportation; showcase natural, 
cultural, and historic qualities; and 
generate revenue through tourism and 
economic vitality. Accordingly, byway 
design, maintenance, and redevelopment 
plans must accommodate even more needs 
than ordinary roads. Byways must respect 
the landscape; satisfy travelers, local 
residents, and businesses; and uphold 
the integrity of their intrinsic qualities. 

Roadway design and maintenance are rapidly 
changing fields, and scenic byways can 
pose special challenges for transportation 
agencies traditionally governed by standard-
ized design manuals and maintenance practices. 
Byway advocates can encourage roadway designers 
to satisfy safety, efficiency, and resource 
protection priorities by understanding what 
design standards do-—and do not-—dictate, and 
by working with highway engineers. This is the 
central message of a recent Federal Highway 
Administration book, Flexibility in Highway Design.
It offers examples of innovative designs that 
meet engineering standards and describes 
several road types that can serve as scenic 
byways. 


PHOTO: A good byway is sculpted to fit the landscape.



About Lessons from the Road

This case study features lessons learned by scenic byway 
advocates across the country that are applicable to many 
scenic byway initiatives. 

Scenic byways are public roads with special scenic, historic, 
recreational, cultural, archeological, and/or natural qualities 
that have been recognized as such through legislation or some 
other official declaration. 

Nomination guidelines for National Scenic Byway designation 
require a series of planning and management elements. 
Some byway efforts lead to nomination, and possibly national 
designation; the rest choose other paths for implementation. 
These case studies show how various byway managers 
address planning and management issues in distinctive ways. 

Each case study in this series concludes with a resource list 
of helpful publications and details on how to contact the 
National Scenic Byways Clearinghouse. 

Good luck with your byway. 



BOX: The Series
 1. Mapping 
*2. Design and Maintenance 
 3. Assess Intrinsic Qualities 
 4. Telling the Story 
 5. Conserving Intrinsic Qualities 
 6. Visitor Experience & Services 
 7. Manage Development 
 8. Signage 
 9. Marketing 
10. Public Involvement 
11. Action Plans 
12. State Program Management  



A Highway Designer’s Lexicon 

To work with professionals, you must 
speak and understand their language. Here 
is an introduction to a few of the most com-
mon expressions, drawn from Flexibility in 
Highway Design. 

Roads are sorted into “functional classifi-
cations” according to the character of the 
traffic and the amount of access allowed: 
Arterial, Collector, and Local. This impor-
tant distinction dictates certain ranges of 
design features, such as lane and median 
widths, shoulder types, and design speeds 
(maximum speed limits). 

Highway improvement projects are classi-
fied, too, as follows: 

-- New Construction: a new highway facil-
   ity where nothing of its type currently 
   exists. Examples: a bypass or an access 
   road to a new park. 

-- Reconstruction: major change to an 
   existing highway within the same gener-
   al right-of-way corridor. 

-- “3R” Projects (shorthand for 
   Resurfacing, Restoration, and/or 
   Rehabilitation): improvements to exist-
   ing roadways: resurfacing pavement, 
   structural and joint repair, minor lane 
   and shoulder widening, minor alteration 
   to vertical grades (slopes) and horizontal 
   curves, bridge repair, and removal or 
   protection of roadside obstacles. 
 
-- Maintenance: actions necessary to keep 
   an existing highway in good condition: 
   repainting lane and edge lines, removing 
   accumulated debris from drainage 
   inlets, repairing surface drainage features, 
   mowing, and removing snow. 

Highway Development Stages 

It is also important to understand the 
process through which a roadway project 
passes; the earlier you get involved the better. 
Here are the steps, in order: 

1. Planning: State, regional, and local. 
2. Project Development: purpose; need; 
   alternatives (including “no-build” and traffic 
   management); and mitigation. 
3. Final Design: design concept, scale, 
   and design details. 
4. Right-of-Way: acquisition. 
5. Construction (and Maintenance). 
 

PHOTO: Oregon DOT rehabilitated these stone 
walls on the Historic Columbia River 
Highway rather than replace them. 


BOX: Tips for Success 

“. . . . a successful highway design 
process includes the following: 

-- Early and continuous public 
   involvement throughout the 
   project. 

-- The use of visualization techniques 
   to aid the public. 

-- Early and continuous use of a 
   multidisciplinary design team. 

-- The application of flexible and 
   creative design criteria.” 

   —- Flexibility in Highway Design 




“The Green Book” 

A Policy on the Geometric Design of 
Highways and Streets, known more simply as 
“The Green Book,” is published by the 
American Association of State Highway and 
Transportation Officials. The Green Book 
provides guidance on dimensions of road-
ways, including widths of travel lanes, width 
and shape of medians, and size of turning 
radii, among others. At times, it can seem as 
though The Green Book sets standards for 
everything. 

However, many design issues are not 
directly addressed in The Green Book, such as: 
-- Defining the problem and the project 
-- Setting project boundaries 
-- Aesthetic treatment of surfaces 
-- Incorporating local context features 
-- Selecting guardrail and bridge rail types, 
   and materials 
-- Landscape design 
-- Selecting light fixtures 


BOX: The Designer’s Challenge 

“Design involves the difficult process of merging 
these previously determined design decisions with 
the appropriate design criteria used in The Green 
Book, working within the existing environmental 
and other important constraints, and using a 
designer’s best judgment and experience to make 
decisions.” 
                 —- Flexibility in Highway Design 



Design Challenges 

Whatever the size and character of the 
road, its designers face certain challenges to 
preserve its best qualities when it is redevel-
oped. They must determine which landscape 
features critical to local character need to
be preserved. Byway designers must adapt to 
the challenging landscape of the route, 
even if it stretches through several towns, 
and must consider the state’s 
long-range transportation plans, 
all while involving local input. 
They also must meet safety and 
engineering challenges, and 
must consider how these will 
affect the scenic character of the 
roadway. 

Most successful scenic high-
way projects involve a broad 
range of citizens, special interest 
groups and representatives from 
government agencies that have 
jurisdiction over the byway and 
surrounding lands. (To learn 
more about public involvement 
strategies, see Case #10.) A 
win public approval and perhaps funding. It 
also can contribute information important to 
designing the byway. 

For example, the group may know that 
farmers need to move slow farm equipment 
on the road, or members of the local histori-
cal society may have information about a 
little-known historic site on or near the 
planned right-of-way. Local hunters may 
know the migration patterns of deer and elk 
which would present hazards if the road 
crossed their path. Representatives from 
town planning departments know which 
zoning patterns will change the look of the 
landscape and require new traffic patterns in 
coming decades. 



SIDEBAR: Creative Necessity 

“If highway designers are 
not aware of opportunities to 
use their creative abilities, 
the standard or conservative 
use of the Green Book criteria 
and related State standards, 
along with a lack of full 
consideration of community 
values, can cause a road to be 
out of context with its 
surroundings. It may also 
preclude designers from
avoiding impacts on important
natural and human resources.”
   -- Flexibility in Highway Design



Design Challenges You Can Solve Together 

Bringing State transportation profession-
als into scenic highway planning at the 
beginning is critical to building a realistic 
plan and sometimes results in the communi-
ty’s preservation goals becoming the shared 
goals of the State transportation depart-
ment. Highway planners can describe safety 
requirements of the roadway and the road’s 
required structural and budgetary frame-
work. Here are a few issues they must con-
sider as highway designers and managers. 

Trees and Vegetation 

Trees are often among the best scenic fea-
tures of a corridor except when they throw 
shadows on the highway, causing icy spots in 
winter on an otherwise dry road. 
Certain kinds of roadside vegetation 
attract deer and other wild animals, which 
can be lethal to animals and drivers. 

Clear Zone 

All roads require cleared setbacks of vary-
ing widths where no trees larger than 4 inch-
es in diameter can remain. This provides 
vehicles that veer off the road with a chance 
Local Character & Highway Design Mix 
to correct or stop before hitting an immovable 
object. However, larger trees may be 
allowed if the shoulder of the road slopes up, 
or there are guardrails. 

Maintenance 

Shrubs that enhance the roadside can 
retain windblown litter. Shrubs planted 
thickly to screen development may pose difficulties 
for maintenance crews. 

By understanding such requirements and 
constraints, community groups can work 
with highway planners for realistic and creative 
solutions. The scenic highway designs 
discussed on pages 5 and 6 show solutions 
generated by people working together. 



Local Character & Highway Design Mix

Large physical features often embody the 
qualities that people want to preserve along a 
scenic route. However, small features—-such 
as a historic architectural style, building 
materials, local stone in walls, an old bridge, 
trees that give character and shade, and lamp 
posts that define an era—-also contribute to 
local character. 

Alignment 

Alignment is the path of a road across the 
landscape. Travelers notice alignment when 
it leads up to dramatic views and vistas, or 
turns gracefully around a bend to reveal a 
historic town or plunging river. The land-
scape’s beauty can be marred when the align-
ment cuts through land forms rather than 
following natural contours, or when highway 
structures obscure dramatic views. 

Scale 

The size and mass of the highway as it 
passes through the landscape has a powerful 
When two-lane roads are improved to 
accommodate faster speeds and more vehicles, 
national safety standards require wider 
clear zones, lanes, and medians. Applied 
strictly by the book, such improvements can 
create a road that overwhelms the landscape. 

 

Lessons Learned 

Creative Solutions 

The Paris-Lexington Road in Kentucky 
traversed farmlands and wooded savannas. 
When the State highway department began 
planning to expand the road 25 years ago, 
community groups successfully fought plans 
for a large straight roadway that ignored the 
character of the country landscape. 

After years of conflict, the State hired a 
consulting group of landscape architects that 
drew community groups into a successful 
design process with the DOT engineers. 

Creative solutions emerged 
for a design that deviated from 
the standard approach. They 
saved stately trees in the clear 
zone by adding guardrails, and 
diminished the massive expanse 
of the roadway by separating the 
opposing lanes of traffic. The 
size and location of drainage 
ditches varied to match actual 
drainage needs rather than stan-
dard specifications and this 
made the road appear narrower. 

Instead of fully paving the 
shoulder, designers introduced 
paving blocks that provide a 
firm surface but include open-
ings for grass to grow through 
the concrete. These and other 
adaptations to the road’s setting 
helped the Byway maintain its 
traditional country road charac-
ter while meeting contemporary 
engineering requirements. 

Byway Adoptions 

In the Quiet Corner of northeastern 
Connecticut, the Route 169 Scenic Byway 
has an “adopt-a-byway” program which 
grants a permit for access to the corridor for 
community groups. They perform additional 
maintenance to produce a “manicured” look 
that is important to the Byway image. 

Managing Scale 

One way to keep highway scale in pleasing 
proportion to its surroundings is to visually 
separate opposing lanes of traffic so that peo-
ple see only the lanes on which they are trav-
eling. The roads can be separated by a medi-
an wide enough for trees and vegetation (and 
any required clear zone) that will block visi-
bility of opposing lanes. 

Lanes can also be constructed at different 
heights along a slope so travelers see only a 
steep bank and perhaps some vegetation. 
When the road runs through terrain where 
wildlife is plentiful, separated and elevated 
highways not only support scenic goals, they 
also provide space under the elevated high-
way for streams and protected riparian zones 
upon which wildlife depend. 


PHOTO: This newly constructed road 
achieved wider shoulders, yet 
retained important roadside 
vegetation. 


SIDEBAR:
Lessons from Flexibility 
in Highway Design 

-- Use the flexibility within 
The Green Book, and State 
and local policies. 

-- Be prepared to reevalu-
ate decisions made during 
the planning phase. 

-- Lower design speed 
when appropriate. 

-- Undertake only resur-
facing, restoration, and 
rehabilitation (“3R”) 
improvements rather than 
major changes to the road-
way itself. 



Another Lesson: It Works If You Work Together 

The 100-mile Mountains to Sound 
Greenway on I-90 in Washington State 
illustrates the benefits of a cooperative rela-
tionship with the State Department of 
Transportation (DOT). The non-profit 
Mountains to Sound Greenway Trust 
appointed DOT officials to its Board of 
Directors at the beginning of the project. 
After participating in developing goals and 
projects, DOT secured a federal grant for 
planning that would guide the DOT’s role 
in enhancing and maintaining the scenic 
highway. The resulting official DOT 
Implementation Plan commits the State 
agency to uphold Greenway goals; calls for 
separated road alignments where possible in 
new construction; stipulates a consistent 
style in roadside furnishings; coordinates the 
planning of future rest areas with key 
tourism and recreation sites; and designates 
appointment of a Greenway Coordinator 
within the DOT office to maintain communication 
and compliance with the plans. 
Additional benefits accrue to the community 
group in the form of the plan’s detailed 
documentation and mapping of viewsheds, 
wildlife corridors, trails and historic features. 


SIDEBAR: Additional Resources 

Community groups can get a detailed look at the highway 
planning process in a book called The Transportation Project 
Planner, published by the Surface Transportation Policy Project, 
(202) 466-2636. 

Flexibility in Highway Design, U.S. Department of 
Transportation, Federal Highway Administration, Washington, 
D.C., July 1997, Publication No. FHWA-PD-97-062, HEP-
30/7-97(10M)E. 

A Policy on the Geometric Design of Highways and Streets 
(known as “The Green Book”), American Association of State 
Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO), 
Washington, D.C., 1995. 

Contact the National Scenic Byways Clearinghouse for these 
and other resources (see below). 



About this Series 

The National Scenic Byways Program of 
the Federal Highway Administration and the 
Rivers, Trails & Conservation Assistance 
Program of the National Park Service collab-
orated to research, write, and produce 
Lessons from the Road. The series was written 
in 1998. 

For information on resources mentioned in 
this series, contact the National Scenic 
Byways Clearinghouse: 1-800-4-BYWAYS 
(1-800-429-9297), press 2, or visit our 
website at www.byways.org. 

The Rivers, Trails & Conservation 
Assistance Program works beyond national 
park boundaries to bring conservation assistance 
to communities, serving as a catalyst 
for tangible results. 

Opinions expressed in these 
case studies are not necessarily 
those of the USDOT/FHWA 
or the NPS. These documents 
do not constitute standards, 
specifications, or regulations 
and are distributed in the interest 
of information exchange. 
The United States Government assumes no 
liability for the contents or use thereof. 


LOGO:
U.S. Department of the Interior 
National Park Service 


LOGO:
U.S. Department of Transportation 
Federal Highway Administration 


SIDEBAR: PRINTED ON RECYCLED PAPER FHWA-EP-99-011