Design and Management of Historic Roads (2012)

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Chapter 3: Many Routes Go In the Right Direction: Using Inherent Flexibility 3-1 3.0 Many Routes Go In the Right Direction: Using Inherent Flexibility 3.1 Background on Using Inherent Flexibility For any transportation project to end well, it has to start well. For projects involving historic roads, one of the most important factors in starting out correctly is for engineers and historic preservationists to understand the decision making flexibility available in their policies and procedures and then to apply it to develop site-specific, balanced solutions. Using available, or inherent, flexibility facilitates fulfilling the transportation need while achieving broader goals and objectives, like preserving distinguished features that convey historic significance. This concept is not new and is a well-established practice. Consideration of issues other than the cost and efficiency of improvements has been part of our national approach to project development since passage of the US DOT Act of 1966 and the National Historic Preservation Act in 1966. Since then, associations such as American Association of State Highway Transportation Officials (AASHTO), transportation agencies, state legislatures, and Congress have provided an ever- increasing range of tools and opportunities for transportation projects to reflect a variety of considerations and values in their outcomes beyond the most cost effective transportation solutions. For example, starting with passage of the Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act of 1991 (ISTEA), Congress has emphasized preservation of environmental and cultural values affected by transportation facilities. This includes the meaningful participation of a wide variety of stakeholders, such as those concerned with the built and natural environment, in defining project need and the finished appearance of transportation projects. Using flexibility in determining design values and outcomes is consistent with current federal and AASHTO guidance on how transportation projects should be advanced. Repeatedly, NCHRP and TRB research and reports have supported the soundness of the concept, and it has been validated by the successful approaches used to preserve seminal roads like Connecticut‘s Merritt Parkway or Oregon‘s Columbia River Highway or Vermont‘s policy that all highway improvements will be appropriately scaled for their setting. Ongoing research and case studies continue to demonstrate that using inherent flexibility and professional judgment does not imply any lessening of safety or less-than-acceptable design values. The approach is also consistent with the current emphasis on substantive safety and performance-based solutions. The means to use flexibility and professional judgment in decision making is present in any number of state and federal programs, from states being able to develop their own design criteria to best meet their site-specific needs to the policy on very low volume local roads that has been incorporated into the AASHTO‘s A Policy on Geometric Design of Highways and Streets, commonly known as the Green Book. It is also supported by guides and manuals, like AASHTO‘s A Guide to Achieving Flexibility in Highway Design (2004) and it‘s Guidelines for Historic Bridge Rehabilitation and Replacement (2008). The 2010 AASHTO Highway Safety Manual provides a tool to quantify safety and the severity of crashes by providing information

Chapter 3: Many Routes Go In the Right Direction: Using Inherent Flexibility 3-2 relative to the long-term safety performance of specific designs and site conditions. States and municipalities both have endorsed using flexibility and adopted a variety of tools for achieving balanced solutions, from legislative mandates to state design criteria. While ways to be flexible are inherent in current policies, criteria and manuals, the means is not; that is provided by leadership. In the introduction to its A Guide for Achieving Flexibility in Highway Design, AASHTO states that it "supports the concepts and principles of flexibility in highway design and believes that all professionals responsible for highway and transportation projects should understand how to accomplish flexible design solutions within current design processes and approaches.‖ If flexibility is to be a useful tool in developing balanced solutions, leadership at the federal, state, and local levels needs to promote an environment that encourages its use. Leadership also needs to expect using flexibility is how all projects involving historic properties, including historic bridges and roads, will be advanced. Ways to encourage and convey permission to use flexibility throughout the planning and project development and environmental review processes are as varied as are its sources; there is no one- size fits all approach or prescribed answer for specific needs. For projects involving historic roads or roads in historic districts, from functionally deficient bridge width to the need for additional lane capacity to improve operations, there are generally multiple ways to address the transportation need and preserve historic significance. 3.2 Ways to Use Inherent Flexibility 3.2.1 Legislative Mandates To ensure that cultural values and distinguishing characteristics are retained, some state legislatures and municipal governments have passed laws stating specifically how certain roads or classes of roads will be treated. Such legislation can carry the weight of settled law, and they direct transportation agencies on how projects should be advanced, thus transferring tort liability considerations in part from transportation agencies to the legislative branch itself. The advantages of legislative actions are many, but in general, they result in defined processes and climates where multiple disciplines are mandated to proactively work together toward the long- term historic preservation of roads. Legislative mandates can be as broad as Vermont‘s statewide design criteria or as specific as Tampa, Florida‘s ordinance mandating preservation of its remaining brick-paved streets. Nationally one of the most famous legislative mandates is Hawaii‘s protection of named historic and scenic rural roads, including Maui‘s Road to Hana, from being improved using "conventional highway design.‖ This is accomplished by adopting flexibility as the policy for those roads and providing liability immunity (Figure 3.1).

Chapter 3: Many Routes Go In the Right Direction: Using Inherent Flexibility 3-3 In Oregon, the state legislature enacted a law enabling the preservation and enhancement of the Columbia River Highway Historic District. This legislation gives the State Transportation Agency permission to do what is necessary, including acquiring property, to preserve the scenic 1910s roadway and its setting for limited vehicular and recreational use, and it calls on the agency to work with a structured advisory committee and other agencies. Over the past two decades, a series of projects involving federal, state, and local participants have been instrumental in restoring and reconnecting the highway, which is also noted for technological innovations such as its grade and curve standards, reinforced concrete bridges, and Warrenite asphaltic concrete pavement. Funds from the 1986 Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area Act (Public Law 99-663) and federal highway sources have been important to the conservation and rehabilitation effort. The level of significance for the Columbia River Highway is considered so high that extraordinary measures to preserve it were deemed justified, and the collaborative and cooperative effort has been successful. The highway, a National Historic Landmark, ranks as one of the nation‘s premiere scenic highways and is often held up a model for preservation of a state-agency administered historic road (Figure 3.2). In order to provide ―clear technical direction‖ to designers, the Vermont State Legislature passed design standards in 1996 that include sensitivity to the social and environmental context of the state for all projects on all classifications of roads. This includes historic preservation of roads, road features, and historic settings through which roads pass. Design criteria are arranged by roadway classification and provide Special Design Guidelines to help designers avoid, minimize, or mitigate negative effects and better fit the improvement to its setting. In some instances the design values in the design standards are lesser, and in others they are greater than previous state and AASHTO guidance. Figure 3.1. Road to Hana. In 2005, the Hawaii state legislature passed legislation to protect the Hana Highway and other named historic and scenic rural roads. The state act is founded on using the design flexibility enabled by AASHTO and FHWA. It also provides for immunity from liability. The winding, 68-mile long Hana Highway is a popular tourist destination complete with many natural and historic attractions along the way, not to mention the technological feat of building the road in 1908.

Chapter 3: Many Routes Go In the Right Direction: Using Inherent Flexibility 3-4 3.2.2 Administrative Actions Administrative action by agency leadership can be used to define how specific features or types of projects will be treated. They can be as precise as New Hampshire DOT‘s 1990 Roadside Stone Wall Reconstruction Policy that makes reconstruction of stone walls an allowable project activity (Figure 3.3). Or, they can also be the dominant approach to highway design throughout the state, like the Missouri Department of Transportation‘s 2005 "practical design‖ policy that emphasizes using flexibility and creativity for cost-effective, balanced solutions. More and more states, like Ohio, are moving to a "fix-it-first‖ administrative approach to maintaining transportation facilities. The practice is proving to be particularly effective as a way to conserve roads and roadside features that are performing satisfactorily by using performance-based rather than standards-based design criteria. This approach is not only good for historic roads; it is also Figure 3.2. Historic Columbia River Highway Preservation. The success of Oregon DOT‘s efforts to preserve the Columbia River Highway illustrates what can be accomplished when multiple disciplines cooperate on achieving a legislated mandate – preservation of an iconic American engineering achievement. Here the historic design of the wood 1920 Standard Guard Fence seen in the historic view of the highway is recreated using a steel-backed wooden railing system. However, the new railing has larger- dimension lumber than the original railing and is backed by galvanized steel plates and uses heavy nuts and bolts rather than spikes. To ensure its safety performance, it was tested and certified for crashworthiness at 50 mph by the Texas Transportation Institute in 1993. Since then the standards have changed, but ways to modify the fence to meet NCHRP 350 criteria are being investigated by ODOT. Modern photo courtesy, Robert Hadlow, Oregon DOT; Cross & Dimmitt postcard view courtesy columbiariverhighway.com.

Chapter 3: Many Routes Go In the Right Direction: Using Inherent Flexibility 3-5 cost effective for projects that do not require major horizontal or vertical realignment as supported by the large body of research outlined below. Missouri Department of Transportation “Right-Sizing” In 2005, the Missouri Department of Transportation (MDOT) implemented its design policy to make practical design, also known as "right-sizing,‖ the dominant approach to highway design throughout the state. The focus of establishing project design criteria begins with the project purpose and need and the context of the road‘s surroundings (urban or rural) rather than striving toward maximum nominal values and standards based on road classification. The policy encourages designers and decision makers "to think outside the box‖ and develop the best value for the least cost while improving safety. MDOT‘s manual establishes desirable values and design guidance with constant emphasis on not over-building while improving safety. Even though their policy does not specifically address the environmental planning framework or types of settings beyond general categories of urban or rural (e.g., wetlands, residential, commercial, historic districts, etc.), it does encourage collaboration among multiple perspectives and using inherent flexibility. The surrounding environment, which could include a historic road corridor, helps to define project-specific design criteria. Massachusetts Department of Transportation Footprint Roads Program The Massachusetts Department of Transportation‘s Footprint Roads Program is applicable to roads demonstrated to be safe and where the needed work can be accomplished within the existing right-of-way or footprint, including historic roads and those in historic districts. It is intended for projects that generally are not addressing geometric deficiencies or are not located in "high-hazard‖ areas. The "permission‖ to retain existing geometry is based on the assumption that if the road is performing well, then it is not necessary to upgrade it to meet current values. Work that can be done under the footprint program includes drainage, signing, guide rail, treatment of the roadside, and placement of sidewalks and bike lanes. Connecticut Department of Transportation Merritt Parkway Policy In 1994, the Connecticut Department of Transportation‘s administrator declared it policy that the National Register-listed, late-1930s parkway would receive corridor-specific treatments. The agency also committed to not increase the capacity of the limited-access parkway, which is Figure 3.3. The dry laid rubble stone wall located near Chichester, NH was reconstructed in 1993 in accordance with the state DOT‘s administrative policy on rebuilding stone walls parallel to roadways. Photograph courtesy of Marc Laurin, NHDOT.

Chapter 3: Many Routes Go In the Right Direction: Using Inherent Flexibility 3-6 located in a densely populated part of the state. The agency worked with a multi-discipline stakeholder committee (working committee) to develop a landscape master plan and guidelines for general maintenance and transportation improvements intended to guide future work within the landscaped parkway reservation. The committee concentrated on addressing the overriding safety issue of the severity of roadside crashes through a series of treatments including increasing the shoulder width from 2 feet to 4 feet, placing an aesthetic traffic railing (steel backed timber that meets NCHRP 350 criteria), and removing identified high risk trees. Key to the success of making the highway safer while preserving its seminal significance has been involving multiple perspectives in the development of mutually acceptable treatments and addressing documented safety problems with site-specific solutions rather than corridor-long, standardized solutions. 3.2.3 Using Resurfacing, Restoration, Rehabilitation Design Criteria (3R) Changes in federal aid policy in 1976 allow states to use federal funding to extend the life and improve the safety of existing roads while retaining their characteristics and without the cost of full roadway reconstruction. Known as 3R (resurfacing, restoration, or rehabilitation), it is widely used for repaving existing roads. However 3R work can also include incremental safety improvements, like widening pavement where it is limited to less than a lane width, rehabilitating short segments of pavement with partial-depth repairs, and targeting safety improvements to existing highways that are otherwise performing adequately. 3R cannot be used to add lanes. Since historic roads are most often existing roads, much of the work to them is incremental in nature and, therefore, could appropriately be considered 3R rather than new construction. Any state transportation agency, with approval from FHWA, may develop 3R design criteria tailored to the specific needs of their jurisdiction for all types of highways, except those on the National Highway System (NHS). Most states have 3R design criteria and policies that may provide opportunities to improve the safety performance of historic roads while preserving their essential features. 3.2.4 Guidelines for Geometric Design of Very Low-Volume Local Roads The guidelines recognize the unique needs of very low volume local roads and matches decisions about road geometry and bridge width to current performance and the cost-effectiveness of proposed work. Now part of Green Book policy, the approach uses risk assessment and cost benefit of safety improvements as the basis for rehabilitation and new construction decisions rather than full design criteria on local roads with average daily traffic (ADT) of less than 400. If the road is performing satisfactorily, then upgrading it is not needed; existing values may remain. The policy is particularly relevant to historic roads or roads in historic districts because many are often very low volume local facilities, and they have a performance history.

Chapter 3: Many Routes Go In the Right Direction: Using Inherent Flexibility 3-7 The AASHTO policy and guidance are founded on NCHRP‘s 1994 Report 362 that demonstrated less-stringent standards for existing roads could save money without compromising safety. The study represents a watershed in thinking about safety and design criteria, and it has probably done more to promote flexibility in highway design and thinking about what really underlies Green Book design criteria than any other research to date. Its adoption by AASHTO speaks to the commitment on the part of highway designers and facility owners to consider sound and supported approaches to design decisions and to accommodate different values for different circumstances, like very low-volume historic roads and roads in some rural settings. 3.2.5 Use Substantive Safety as Basis for Design Criteria and Decision Making When working with historic roads or roads in historic settings, it is particularly important to recognize the difference between nominal and substantive safety because of the effect that the two can have on defining design values. "Nominal‖ means that when design values for specific roadway elements are consistently met, then a road is considered safe for the long term. If a value is not met, a road is typically considered unsafe. But what does that mean? Is the road as safe as it can be? Is it as safe as it should be? Or is it as safe as the budget permits? Since nominal values are typically a blend of operational and safety considerations reduced to a single required value, or range of values to be considered safe by engineers, the safety within a given nominal value cannot be quantified to predict how many accidents and their severity may occur in the future. Substantive safety is the long-term or expected safety performance of a roadway based on comparison of models and statistics for locations with similar characteristics. It provides the actual numbers of predicted accidents, their type and their severity. By using substantive safety, the degree to which a specific design may be safer than others can readily be measured and compared. In the past it was not always possible to determine substantive safety. With AASHTO‘s 2010 release of the Highway Safety Manual (HSM) and its supporting Interactive Highway Safety Design Module (IHSDM), techniques and methodologies are now available to predict long term safety performance by quantifying crash frequencies and their severities as well as side-by-side comparisons of existing and changed geometry. In actual experience, the road‘s level of performance will vary based on one of any number of factors related to the context and type of highway and its geometry. Current understanding of the relationships among many factors supports that the true safety risk is better represented by substantive safety and that analyzing it should be part of the decision making process rather than relying on nominal design criteria values alone. The benefits of quantifying safety are many. The Highway Safety Manual and its supporting software can be used to quantify whether or not proposed changes to historic roads will produce the expected improvement to long-term safety performance. It moves decision making beyond assumptions about the safety associated with nominal values and enables owners, managers and designers to calculate the cost of safety when

Chapter 3: Many Routes Go In the Right Direction: Using Inherent Flexibility 3-8 deciding to retain or modify historically significant roadway features, like trees and walls along the right of way or intersection design. 3.2.6 Use Interactive Highway Safety Design Module and Highway Safety Manual to Support Changes to Geometry AASHTO and FHWA have developed tools that can quantify the safety and operational effects of geometric design and support using flexibility in decision making. The Highway Safety Manual (HSM) offers advisory guidance that brings science and statistical analysis to quantifying safety. It enables designers and all stakeholders to determine quantifiably what effect on safety proposed changes will make. The manual is linked to FHWA‘s Interactive Highway Safety Design Module (IHSDM), a suite of software that is used as an analytical tool to predict long term safety performance for all roadway types except freeways. It checks existing and proposed designs against relevant design policy values and provides expected safety (substantive safety) and operational performance. Because the IHSDM facilitates checking the long-term safety performance of both current and proposed geometric design, modifications to existing roads can be evaluated for their substantive safety rather than relying on assumptions about the safety of nominal values. The IHSDM software is free and can be downloaded from http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/ihsdm/. 3.2.7 Context-Sensitive Solutions Over the past decade, the context sensitive design/context sensitive solutions (CSD/CSS) approach considering projects as more than efficient transportation solutions has come to be recognized as an effective methodology for advancing a wide variety of projects, including those involving historic roads. Since 1991, AASHTO has consistently endorsed CSD/CSS. It underlies federal highway-related legislation and gives permission to project managers and designers to put effort into developing solutions that fit with their setting or historic context, even if they cost more than the most efficient solution. It is increasingly becoming the way transportation agencies do business and is the approach recommended for all projects involving historic roads, whether they are small or large. CSD/CSS is not so much a specific design outcome as it is a defined, reiterative process by which transportation agencies work collaboratively with multiple perspectives to equally address safety, mobility, and for historic roads or roads in historic settings, historic preservation of significant characteristics. The approach provides the opportunity to address what needs to be preserved and why it is important as part of the planning and early project development process when that information can have the greatest effect on the outcome. Using the SCD/CSS approach can also result in advancing projects more efficiently. Some practitioners consider CSD/CSS as highway "beautification‖ in a different guise. From the historic roads standpoint, it is worth cautioning that typical commonly used CSD/CSS

Chapter 3: Many Routes Go In the Right Direction: Using Inherent Flexibility 3-9 treatments, such as the use of traffic calming devices, roadside landscaping, or the use of form liner finishes that mimic historical materials like stone are not historic preservation. Such treatments are more appropriately considered as beautification rather than preservation or conservation of distinguishing historic features. The more appropriate approach for historic roads and roads in historic districts is to reflect historic context in design solutions, and those that meet the Secretary of the Interior standards, is to use compatible contemporary treatments that blend in with the historic character and scale of the historic setting rather than ones that compete with it (Figure 3.4). 3.2.8 Tort Liability and Flexibility Fear of tort liability can contribute to reluctance by some to use inherent flexibility. The purpose of this general discussion is to demonstrate that while tort liability should be considered, it should not be an impediment to decision making that balances sound engineering with historic preservation of what makes roads historic. It is a well-established principle that tort liability is not an acceptable rationale for selecting the highest design values and rejecting the flexibility inherent in the range of design criteria found within AASHTO‘s Green Book and state design guidelines. Nor does fear of tort liability override public policy objectives embodied in national and state legislation on environmental and cultural resources protection, including the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966 and federal transportation legislation, such as the Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Efficient Transportation Equity Act: A Legacy for Users (SAFETEA-LU) of 2005. This act emphasizes consideration of the environmental, scenic, aesthetic, historic, and community impacts of highway projects. There is an ample range of federal and state legislation to make preservation of historic roads or historic settings a legally legitimate and defensible goal. Court decisions at the federal and state levels have upheld design decisions that balance many factors, including aesthetics, environmental impact, historic preservation, and available financial resources. For instance, in Bowman v. United States, Federal courts determined that a design decision not to place guide rails along a certain section of the Blue Ridge Parkway had been weighed carefully and appropriately, balancing many factors, such as safety and the effect on the historic parkway. In Helton v. Knox County, Tennessee, the Tennessee Supreme Court upheld the county‘s decision not to install standard guard rails based on cost and concern for the preservation of a historic bridge.

Chapter 3: Many Routes Go In the Right Direction: Using Inherent Flexibility 3-10 Figure 3.4. When history is the context, then history, and not conjecture or beautification, should be used to inform the design of new features, particularly in historic districts. In an attempt to blend into historic settings, applied decoration is often used to make the road- related features look like something that it is not as illustrated by the replacements of straightforward encased stringer bridges (A) located in a late-19th and early 20th-century market and proto-industrial town that is a National Register-listed historic district. A variety of stock trim items and stone veneer have been applied as decoration to standard box beam bridges, and this in an area where stone is historically not plentiful and was rarely used for bridge superstructures (B, D). The historic iron railings, originally and logically located at the cub line, have also been used as part of the decorative scheme. Because the decoration creates a false sense of history, the new bridges do not compliment their historic setting or reflect the historic significance of the district. Decorated treatments like these should be avoided. Well-proportioned modern bridges, much in the spirit of the ―modern‖ bridges they replaced, is the approach recommended in the Secretary of the Interior‘s guidance. Additionally, consideration should be given to quietly complimenting historic settings, not competing with them. That generally encourages restrained treatments that let the historic character dominate, like the new highway through and over old Yuma (C). Photographs M. McCahon.

Chapter 3: Many Routes Go In the Right Direction: Using Inherent Flexibility 3-11 Practice has demonstrated that the best defense against tort liability is procedures for thoroughly documenting design decision processes that balance safety with other goals, like the preservation of significant features of historic roads. Most transportation agencies already have in place such documentation procedures to demonstrate that the nominal and substantive safety aspects of the design were evaluated with a thorough assessment of the selected design values. Project documentation should also thoroughly describe the physical and environmental factors that make the chosen design necessary, including decisions to preserve distinguishing characteristics that make roads historic. Typical information that should be collected and evaluated includes, but is not limited to, a description of existing highway conditions and those features that make the road historically significant through an objective application of the National Register criteria and a thorough description of the work that would affect those features. It should also include crash data for at least the previous three years, cost analysis, discussion of any adverse impacts that would result from meeting current or higher value design criteria, and safety enhancements that would be made to mitigate the effects of non-standard features. 3.2.9 Use National Park Service Guidance to Integrate Preservation Starting in the mid-1970s with The Secretary of the Interior’s Standards for Rehabilitation, the National Park Service (NPS) has promulgated preservation guidance for rehabilitating historic properties that emphasizes repair over replacement and limited rather than wholesale changes to accommodate keeping them viable and in use. Their standards and guidelines have come to be the definition and measure of appropriate approaches to working on historic properties, and they provide a useful framework for developing design solutions that include historic preservation of essential features. The standards were initially developed for buildings, but their broad applicability to all types of historic properties has stood the test of time. They have come to be the evaluation criteria for determining if work will have an adverse effect or not. The rehabilitation standards have been revised several times, and in 1992 they were augmented by The Secretary of the Interior’s Treatment for Historic Properties1 that added standards for preservation, restoration, and reconstruction to rehabilitation. What has not changed is their reality-based, common sense direction on how to address those distinguished attributes and physical features for which a property was demonstrated to be historic. They also provide guidance on new construction and adding new features. Flexibility was purposely built into The Secretary of the Interior’s Standards for Rehabilitation with the intention of promoting appropriate preservation solutions rather than freezing properties 1 The Secretary of the Interior’s Standards for Historic Preservation Projects were initially prepared in 1979 by W. Brown Morton III et al. They were subsequently updated and expanded to include Guidelines for Rehabilitating Historic Buildings in 1983. They were revised again in 1990 and 1992. Detailed information about the standards for rehabilitation is contained in1991 (reprinted 1997) The Secretary of the Interior’s Standards for Rehabilitation and Illustrated Guidelines for Historic Buildings by W. Brown Morton III et al and the 1995 The Secretary of the Interior’s Standards for the Treatment of Historic Properties with Guidelines for Preserving, Rehabilitating Restoring & Reconstructing Historic Buildings by Kay D. Weeks et al. Both are National Park Service publications.

Chapter 3: Many Routes Go In the Right Direction: Using Inherent Flexibility 3-12 in time or precluding change. Indeed, the Standards confirm that historic properties must be updated to remain current and viable, and they prescribe ways to make improvements and preserve historic significance. The most common treatment for maintaining historic roads is rehabilitation, and it is defined as "the process of returning a property to a state of utility, through repair or alteration, which makes possible an efficient contemporary use while preserving those portions and features of the property which are significant to its historic, architectural, and cultural values.‖2 In many ways, the Secretary of the Interior‘s treatment and standards are the historic preservation equivalent of the Green Book in that they outline a hierarchy of treatments and a range of values. The guidance starts with conserving historic fabric whenever practical, then making any needed replacement in kind or making needed new work or features compatible in scale and finish. Note that recreating false history does not meet any of the Secretary of the Interior’s Treatment of Historic Properties or the Standards for Rehabilitation. The guidance encourages adding to, rather than taking away from, meaning that placing a modern but compatible design traffic barrier in front of a historic railing in order to preserve the historic railing can be an acceptable solution and one that does not have an adverse effect (Figure 5.18). 3.3 Memorandum of Agreement and Programmatic Agreement The Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) and the Programmatic Agreement (PA) are widely accepted and useful tools that transportation agencies use to formalize acceptable systemic approaches and treatments pursuant to Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act. They are used to implement regulations codified in 36 CFR Part 800. The difference between a MOA and a PA is that a MOA is typically historic property specific and a PA covers a range of activities associated with a class of resource or a specific historic property like a particular historic road. MOAs and PAs are binding, signed agreements negotiated among the FHWA, the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation, state transportation agencies, the SHPOs, and other participating parties such as municipalities and community stakeholders. There are many forms of PAs related to historic roads. Most states' transportation agencies work within PAs that cover minor project categories such as roadway resurfacing or minor drainage improvements. The agreements are intended to make efficient use of resources and streamline processes that under most circumstances are unlikely to have any impact on historic resources. Typically they also spell out which kinds of projects require greater levels of effort and consultation to identify cultural resources and the potential effects on them. For instance, the New York State Department of Transportation (NYSDOT) has a PA that covers a range of activities associated with the maintenance and improvement of the Taconic State Parkway, a National Register-listed, 100-mile long scenic highway developed in phases between 2 U.S. Department of the Interior National Park Service. The Secretary of the Interior‘s Standards for Rehabilitation, 1995.

Chapter 3: Many Routes Go In the Right Direction: Using Inherent Flexibility 3-13 1927 and 1963. This PA came about as a result of a series of on-going NYSDOT tasks to address safety and operational deficiencies and concerns. It covers specific activities and divides the parkway into segments where different approaches will be used based on operational characteristics such as heavier traffic volumes on the southern end and the greater opportunities to retain distinguished roadway features at the less congested, rural northern end. Some of the activities covered by the PA include placing barriers designed in deference to and complementing the parkway‘s historic character, adding lanes to increase capacity, lengthening of acceleration and deceleration lanes, and modifying the median to improved safety and lessen the likelihood of cars crossing into opposing lanes. The PA has proven to be useful to practitioners because of its level of specificity regarding the treatment of physical features of the parkway that were identified as important to maintaining historic significance (Figure 5.19). An MOA is developed when a project is determined to have an adverse effect on a historic property, including to a historic district. MOAs contain a series of stipulations that have been negotiated among the parties, and they must be carried out by the implementing agency. For example, the MOA for the reconstruction of Paris Pike through the historic district near Lexington, Kentucky, stipulated the process by which the reconstruction design development would take place and the creation of a task force with representatives of various engineering, planning, and historic preservation perspectives; objectives and a schedule; the qualifications and process by which design consultants would be selected; and treatments for specific features related to the road‘s historic significance including stone walls, gates, and buildings. Since the significant features of the historic district were largely beyond the road and how the road related to the landscape rather than the road itself, the MOA correctly focused on issued that maintained the relationship of the road to its setting (Figure 3.5). A concept that is gaining currency for transportation projects is to use the extra effort that incorporating preservation goals and objectives often entails, as the mitigation for any adverse effect. Since the stated intention of the environmental laws is to minimize harm, the additional analysis done to achieve that goal as part of the overall project may prove to be the most effective means to mitigate an adverse effect. When significance has been adversely affected, it is generally preferable for the mitigation to improve new design rather than attempt to create a false sense of history. The all-too-common practice of decorations mimicking period treatments is not recommended as mitigation. It meets none of the evaluation criteria or the principles of good design (Figure 3.5). 3.4 America’s Byways (Scenic Byways) Designation When the project goal is maintaining and enhancing the road for other reasons, like heritage tourism, beautification, recreation, or economic development, consideration should be given to

Chapter 3: Many Routes Go In the Right Direction: Using Inherent Flexibility 3-14 designating it a scenic byway. FHWA‘s National Scenic Byways Program3 links promoting leisurely travel opportunities with grass roots efforts to protect and enhance roads with cultural, historic, archaeological, recreational, natural, and scenic values. It is often a better fit for achieving non-historic preservation desired outcomes, especially when the road itself is not historic. An additional advantage to scenic byway designation is that FHWA provides funding though state DOT‘s for byway planning and specific implementation projects. Scenic Byways designation may offer a viable alternative to National Register eligibility for the large class of historically themed resources connected by a road, like US 101, the Oregon coast highway linking Conde B. McCullough‘s renowned 1920s and 1930s bridges, a Pony Express route, or important sites associated with the Civil Rights movement. The program is used to bring together from the outset all the stakeholders, including transportation agencies, to plan and develop the designation application, which includes defining the features to be protected and enhanced as well as the means to achieve the goal of promoting the value of the byway through education and to the traveling public. The group defines the "intrinsic qualities‖ of the byway corridor and develops a 14-point Corridor Management Plan (CMP) specifying how those qualities and the linkage or access to them will be maintained and upgraded as needed. A significant part of that plan addresses road-related characteristics and highway deficiencies, including a review of the road‘s safety and accident record to identify any ―correctable faults in highway design, maintenance, or operation,‖ and a discussion of design standards that are applicable to correcting deficiencies and their effect on the intrinsic qualities. Since DOT‘s, planners, and elected officials are part of the group developing, and are thus committing to the CMP, the process enables planning and project development related to the byway corridor to be proactive, objective, cost effective, and flexible. The program permits states to develop, in consultation with the FHWA, their own design criteria for scenic byways. With its emphasis on resources adjacent to roadways and definition of intrinsic qualities that are worthy of historic preservation for edification and enjoyment, the National Scenic Byways Program in many ways is modeled on the National Register of Historic Places. This includes its registration procedures, emphasis on historic preservation of resources within their broader historic context(s), use of roads as themes that link contiguous resources with shared contexts, demonstration of how roads meet prescribed criteria, nomination applications with required information and analysis, defined and justified boundaries, and vetting and review by experts, much like a professional review board. In fact, the similarities are so direct that the Byways Designation process even utilizes the National Register aspects of integrity as an evaluation criterion (see Chapter 4). 3 The National Scenic Byways Program was established in 1991 as part of ISTEA and reauthorized in 1998. It is administered through state DOTs. Nationally the designated byways are promoted as a collection as America’s Byways.

Chapter 3: Many Routes Go In the Right Direction: Using Inherent Flexibility 3-15 Figure 3.5. When the Road Is Located In a Historic District. The Kentucky Transportation Cabinet‘s Paris-Lexington Road Reconstruction Project has been widely recognized as an excellent example of balanced design solutions applied to a historic district in the Bluegrass Region of the state, but that outcome is not how the project stated. The project need was to address the poor safety performance of the main road through the historic district, which is significant for cultural landscape beyond the right of way. Initially planning to improve the road began in the 1960s, it did not take historic significant into account. There was considerable community opposition and concerns about the effects of widening the 12.5-mile-long highway from two to four lanes, and a court injunction held the project up until 1993. The way forward was defined by a Memorandum of Agreement and a public involvement process that created an advisory task force to ensure that the design respected historic, scenic, and rural qualities of the Paris Pike Historic District. Property owners were invited to attend workshops and take part in a visual preference survey. Resource mapping was conducted to identify the location of features that merited preservation, including stone fences, farm entryways, trees, and buildings. Developing the improved highway was an iterative process gradually identifying design preferences and treatments incorporating grass (unimproved) shoulders, minimal cut and fill, aesthetic guiderails, pulloffs, and interpretive centers. In the end, it was not the fabric of the original roadway cross-section that was preserved but rather the roadway‘s relationship to its historic setting, which was the basis of the road‘s significance. Preservationists and engineers collaborated on every aspect of the design, including walking and mapping the route identifying changes in the alignment of the old two lane road and the location of the two additional travel lanes. Where necessary historic features were reconstructed or moved, the original relationship to the roadway was maintained. The project was completed with no design exceptions.

Chapter 3: Many Routes Go In the Right Direction: Using Inherent Flexibility 3-16 The Scenic Byways program goes further and addresses the inability of the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966 to save historic properties by coupling designation with stakeholders committing to preserve and interpret the resources. This includes proactive activities to ensure a broad consensus of understanding about what is being preserved, why it is important, and a methodology for specifically how preservation and enhancement will be accomplished. Applications also require definition of the intrinsic qualities evaluated as "representative, unique, irreplaceable, and distinctly characteristic to the byway‖ in order to provide decision makers an understanding up front of what is of value and why. The program also requires a public involvement-developed corridor management plan that defines how the intrinsic qualities will be preserved and enhanced at the time of application. This ensures that the entire process is locally supported and initiated, including from the state DOT that administers the program. 3.5 Design Exceptions There are a variety of site-specific conditions and constraints where it will not be possible to meet the 13 controlling design criteria values and dimensions. For instance, designers may encounter situations when the appropriate design solution supports using values or dimensions outside the allowable range. When, at the end of the analysis screening and evaluation stage, it is not possible to use the inherent flexibility to achieve a balanced design and still meet the 13 controlling criteria minimum values, a design exception may be considered. A design exception is a documented decision to utilize a highway element or segment of highway to design criteria that do not meet minimum values or ranges established for that highway or project. This includes 3R projects as well as new construction and full reconstruction. Additionally, some states have adopted other roadway elements that also require design exceptions. Seeking a design exception is a conclusion that is arrived at through the project development process rather than an assumption or desired goal made at the beginning of it. There are many reasons why design exceptions may be considered and found to be necessary, including impacts on the natural environment, preservation of historic properties, and construction costs or right-of-way costs. And while the reasons for design exceptions are valid, designers and owners know that any exception to design criteria may adversely affect safety and traffic operations. Consequently potential impacts to safety and operations need to be fully analyzed and understood prior to committing to a design exception. Mitigation measures to minimize impacts resulting from variances may also be required. Design exceptions will not be granted if they result in measurably degrading the relative safety and operation of the roadway (Figure 5.4). To apply for an exception, design engineers must thoroughly describe the physical or environmental factors that make the exception necessary. Although the use of exceptions in and of themselves does not automatically establish a lower level of safety, imply negligence, or demonstrate failure to follow established procedures, agencies must be mindful of a potential lawsuit if an accident occurs. For this reason, design exceptions must be formally written, usually following a specified format, and provide detailed

Chapter 3: Many Routes Go In the Right Direction: Using Inherent Flexibility 3-17 information on why the design criteria cannot be met. Proportional cost increases (i.e. it is cheaper to construct 11 feet versus 12 feet wide lanes) are generally not accepted as a reason to grant a design exception. After a design exception is granted, records to support the application need to be filed and kept as a defense against any ensuing litigation. The documentation includes explanation of why the particular design standard could not be met, the rationale for opting to pursue an exception, and detailed information on why the exception should not create an operational or safety hazard. The expected long-term safety performance can be demonstrated using the HSM or IHSDM program. For historic roads, the discussion would include a complete description of the deviation; the past three years of accident history; how the deviation is expected to affect future safety; what the adverse impact would be on the historic property to meet the design standard; proposed mitigation and support for the design exception based on sound engineering practices and benefit/cost analysis. 3.6 Corridor-Specific Management Plans A corridor-specific management plan can be an effective means to define appropriate treatments or cyclical maintenance for the long-term conservation and preservation of historic roads and roads in historic districts or settings. A plan can be as detailed or as general as deemed appropriate by the stakeholders. While management plans are a common tool for historic sites, they are less common in the transportation field. Most National Park Service parkway units, such as the Blue Ridge Parkway, also have management plans. These comprehensive plans not only specify roadway improvements that are in keeping with the long-term stewardship of the historic road, usually they also develop approaches for dealing with the maintenance of off-the-road features such as landscaping and planned view sheds, along with a host of other issues from seasonal traffic volumes to interpretation and visitor amenities. This style of plan has much in common with the type of corridor management planning undertaken by the Scenic Byways program because it also deals with resources beyond the road. A few states have historic road management plans that are specific to particular roads such as Connecticut‘s Merritt Parkway, New Jersey‘s Route One Extension, and Oregon‘s Columbia River Highway. The advantage of management plans for linear historic districts is that they are developed collaboratively with treatments that represent a balance among engineering, maintenance, and preservation considerations. They are particularly effective for expediting decision making because discussion about what and how to preserve significance has already occurred. Additionally the plans make clear points of agreement, duties, and responsibilities of all stakeholders involved in developing it. It must be noted that any management plan is a snapshot in time and that conditions and circumstances may, and generally do, change. Good management plans include provisions for periodic reviews and are revised or updated as needed to maintain their currency. They also include demonstration on the part of all parties to continue

Chapter 3: Many Routes Go In the Right Direction: Using Inherent Flexibility 3-18 to work cooperatively toward the originally stated goals and objectives. Plans are only as effective as the sincerity of owners and managers in implementing it. Another concept that can contribute to a holistic approach to historic road preservation is to consider changes within the context of a transportation corridor as a whole rather than just the limited changes often associated with incremental improvements. Decisions about incremental work should be framed within the context of the whole road rather than just specific locations or segments. This includes regional planning considerations. It seldom makes sense to widen bridges to Green Book values when there are no plans to widen or improve the many miles of narrow approach roads with unimproved shoulders. Lessons may also be learned from the increasing number and variety of state historic bridge management plans. Some plans are in the form of manuals that provide general guidance on processes related to evaluating historic bridges and standard treatments for rehabilitation or maintenance by bridge type and/or material. In some states the management plans are intended to be a proactive approach to identify and plan for long-term preservation for certain classes of bridge, from the most historically and technologically significant to those in the best overall condition. Others, like Vermont‘s, are comprehensive and includes programmatic agreements, priority of treatments and types, and bridge-specific plans prepared by engineers and historians to identify preservation potential based on state highway design guidelines and current condition. 3.7 Maintenance Manuals or Protocols There is also benefit in developing either road specific or generic guidance on routine and enhanced maintenance, particularly when the material is intended for the managers and departments charged with keeping the facilities functional. The people who do the work bring an important practical perspective that is needed in developing effective protocols. Maintenance is a an often overlooked but critical component of preservation, from both the transportation and historic perspectives, but more and more states are making the connection between performing routine and cyclical maintenance tasks with good asset management. This climate presents an opportunity for education on how to best conserve and preserve historic roads and make the shared objective a matter of practice. Generally accepted conservation and preservation practices are often cost effective and in fact may represent the most cost effective treatment, from both the initial and life-cycle cost perspectives. Using Inherent Flexibility Sources AASHTO. A Guide for Achieving Flexibility in Highway Design. Washington, DC, 2004. AASHTO. "Guidelines for Geometric Design of Very Low-Volume Local Roads (ADT<400).‖ Washington, DC (2001) 96 pp.

Chapter 3: Many Routes Go In the Right Direction: Using Inherent Flexibility 3-19 Harshbarger, J. Patrick, et al. Historic Bridge Rehabilitation/Replacement Decision- Making Guidelines. Prepared for AASHTO, March, 2007. U.S. Department of Transportation Federal Highway Administration. Flexibility in Highway Design. 1997. Vermont Agency for Transportation. (http://www.aot.state.vt.us/progdev/standards/01intro.htm )