Design Stage
S.No Criteria
1 Alignment Selection
2 Context Sensitive Design
3 Safety and Health
4 Transportation Planning
5 Pavement Technologies
6 Energy and Atmosphere
Subcritiera
Avoid Impact to ecological and Environmental Sensitive
areas
Avoid impacts to socioeconomic resources
Minimizing earth work or performing earth work
balance
Scenic and natural qualities
Design to adjust highway features using design flexibility
Items fit context of surroundings
Bridge Aesthetics
Design to utilize visual enhancement
Design Speed
Separation of Mode
Conflict Points
Road Safety Audit
Optimum Level of Service
Context sensitive design
Special Use HOV or Reversible Lanes
Transit Facilities
Bicycle lanes, parking and Facility Design
Pedestrian Paths and Facility Design
Traffic Signals Design and Coordination Planning
Innovative intersection/Interchange Design
Person Time and Fuel Usage Savings
Long life Pavement Design
Use of Recyclable Materials in Mix Design
Permeable Pavement
Use of WMA (Warm Mix Asphalt) Technologies in Design
Design to reduce urban heat island effect (Cool
Pavements)
Quiet Pavement Design
Road Energy Systems
Infrastructure Energy Efficiency
 Light Pollution
Reduce Impervious Area (Protection of Water bodies)
7 Water Management Storm Water Treatment
Design Practices to protect Water Quality (Storm Water
BMPs)
1) Alignment Selection
I. Avoid Impact to Environmental and Ecological Sensitive Areas:
This criterion is to ensure that the alignment of the proposed project design
avoids impact with environmental and ecological sensitive areas
II. Avoid impacts to socioeconomic resources : This criterion is concerned with the
alignment selection process of the highway such that it avoids impact to socio
economic resources e.g historic sites, parks, recreation centers, residential builds
etc.(Illinois Department of Transportation, 2012)
III. Minimizing total earthwork or performing earthwork balance: The alignment
should be selected in such a way that the total earthwork required for cutting
and filling are the same, if such a scenario is not achievable for the desired
results than earth work balance should be performed.(Illinois Department of
Transportation, 2012)
IV. Scenic and natural qualities: Avoid impact to the natural features and provide
opportunity for the traveling public to observe scenic views during their travel

2) Safety and Health

I. Road Safety Audit: This criteria element is to ensure that a road safety audit has
been performed for the proposed project during the design phase. (S. Muench et
al., 2011)
II. Design Speed and Consistency: This criteria is concerned with safe and
consistent design speed I.e the design speed selected for the project should be
context sensitive and consistent e,g the changes in design speed should not be
more than 20km/h(Clark et al., 2009)
III. Separation Modes: This objective of this criterion is ensure separation of modes
of transportation to Improve safety of non-motorized modes of transportation
I.e Pedestrians and cyclists should be protected from vehicles by boulevards or
non-mountable barriers (Clark et al., 2009)
IV. Conflict Points: This criterion is concerned with the development of an access
control plan so that the number of access can be minimized and conflict points
reduced. A plan should be developed that shows pavement markings and signage
so that regulatory control can be provided at the intersections of all roads (Clark
et al., 2009)
3) Transportation Planning
I. Special Use HOV or Reversible Lanes: Project design should consist of a special
use HOV or reversible lane(Clark et al., 2009)
II. Transit Fasicilities: Project design should ensure the encouragement of transit
use by providing proper transit fascilities such as transit stop signage, transit
shelters and route information at different stops etc(Clark et al., 2009)
 III. Bicycle lanes, parking and Facility Design: Project should include bicycle lanes
and parking fascility in design(Clark et al., 2009)
IV. Pedestrian Paths and Facility Design: Project should include continuous, hard
surfaced sidewalks a minimum of 2.0 metres wide adjacent to both sides of the
roadway in design(Clark et al., 2009)
V. Optimum Level of Service: This criterion is to ensure that the provision of the
required roadway capacity is encouraged without providing unneeded
capacity(Clark et al., 2009).
VI. Innovative intersection/Interchange Design: The objective of this criterion is to
ensure that the project includes innovative interchange or intersection design
such that traffic analysis proves that it can provide excessive operational
improvement when compared to conventional ones.(Clark et al., 2009)
VII. Person Time and Fuel Usage Savings: This criterion is to ensure that the design
options are compared and chosen on the basis of person time and fuel usage
savings instead of use of volume to capacity calculations (Clark et al., 2009)

4) Pavement Technologies
I. Long Life Pavement Design: This criterion is to ensure that long lasting pavement
structures are designed to reduce life cycle costs(S. Muench et al., 2011)
II. Use of Recyclable Materials in mix design: This criterion is to ensure that
recyclable materials such as recycled concrete aggregate or recycled asphalt
pavement are used in mix design(S. Muench et al., 2011)
III. Permeable Pavement: The objective of this criterion is to ensure that flow
control and quality of storm water runoff can be improved by means of using
permeable pavement technologies (S. Muench et al., 2011)

IV. Use of Warm Mix Asphalt (WMA) : This criterion is to ensure minimizing the
use of fossil fuel use at the hot mix asphalt plant as a result causing reduction in
emissions at the plant and reducing the exposure of workers to emission during
placement by using WMA technologies.(S. Muench et al., 2011)
V. Cool Pavements: This criterion is to ensure reduction In urban heat island effect
by use of materials such as albedo (S. Muench et al., 2011)
VI. Quiet Pavement Design: This criterion is concerned with reduction in tire
pavement noise by using open graded hot mix asphalt or by techniques
described by sandberg and ejsmont (2002).(S. Muench et al., 2011)
5) Energy
I. Road Energy Systems: Project Design process should Include Road Energy
systems
6) Environment and Water
I. Reduce Impervious Area: The objective of this criterion is to identify methods to
reduce storm water volumes and pollutants into the adjacent water resources
(Illinois Department of Transportation, 2012)
II. Design Practices to protect Water Quality (Storm Water BMPs):Incorporate
storm water best management practices in the design stage to protect the water
quality (Alsaffar & Lafta, 2016; FHWA, 2012; Illinois Department of
Transportation, 2012)