Designing for the Transportation Network
At Civiltech, our Urban Design services make streets and public spaces functional and attractive. We designing safe, accessible, and inviting pedestrian environments with innovative crosswalk and sidewalk treatments. We enhance the aesthetics of our urban and suburban improvements through streetscape and landscape improvements. We strive to ensure that our designs are visually pleasing and relatable for the end user.
We help our clients celebrate and enhance the unique features of their communities. Our designs create community identity, enhance livability, and bolster commercial appeal through landscaping, streetscaping, placemaking, wayfinding, and gateways.
Downtown Streetscape
Pennsylvania Avenue Improvements; Central Business District (CBD) Streetscape and Utility Improvements
The Pennsylvania Avenue Improvements was the first section of the overall Central Business District (CBD) Streetscape and Utility Improvements project to have PS&E’s submitted and construction completed.
Complete Streets
Civiltech’s urban design team applies a Complete Streets design approach to all of our projects ensuring that all modes of transportation are addressed including pedestrian, bike, and transit, while respecting vehicular mobility. Also, Complete Streets are streets designed to enable the safe use of users of all levels of mobility.
Our Complete Streets design approach brings together planning, landscape architecture and engineering to develop a sense of community identity and investment in roadway projects. We engage the community to improve the sidewalks, paths and roads on which people live, work and play.
Complete streets approaches vary based on community context. Transportation network components affected are wide ranging including sidewalks, bike lanes, bus lanes, transit stops, pedestrian crossings, pedestrian signals, and streetscape and landscape elements.[MF1]
- Pedestrian and Bicycle Facility Design
- Transit Access Design
- Coordination Between Disciplines
- Traffic Signal Design
- Landscape Architecture
- Streetscape Design
Civiltech’s urban design team brings a Complete Streets approach that considers the needs of all modes of transportation. This is a multi-disciplinary effort that brings together planning, engineering, and landscape architecture that relies on data and community engagement. These projects often include a wide range of features including sidewalks, shared use paths, bicycle lanes, bus lanes, bus stops, pedestrian crossings, pedestrian signals, and streetscape and landscape elements.
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Streetscape Design
While often led by our Landscape Architecture team, Civiltech’s Streetscape Design services enhance projects across all departments including Preliminary, Design, and Construction Engineering. Streetscape Design be a stand-alone project or be a component of a Transportation Engineering project.
The primary approach to a successful streetscape project is to design for people. This is achieved by looking at all projects through a Complete Streets lens. A successful urban and suburban street is one that safely and comfortably accommodates pedestrian and bicycle movement as well as access to transit and navigation in vehicles.
Streetscape Design contributes to community identity, therefore, public involvement is a critical component of the design process and materials specifications. Innovative streetscape design provides a community with beneficial commercial appeal in addition to livability.
- Pedestrian Plaza Design
- Lighting
- Street Furnishings
- Tree and Planting Design
- ADA Compliance
- Pedestrian and Bicycle Facilities
- Urban Tree Canopy Design
- Community Identifiers and Place Making
Collaboration
Urban Design projects often include extensive collaboration between Civiltech departments. Projects in an urban context need to fit within the overall fabric of the community and require a comprehensive approach to improvements to the urban infrastructure and transportation networks.
Planning, engineering, and landscape architecture often operate in silos. Planning activities or landscape designs that occur outside of a full project team can often result in proposals or ideas that cannot realistically be implemented. Likewise, landscape architecture added later in the process to “decorate” an engineering design can be restricted by functional needs that were not incorporated during the design process.
At Civiltech, we feel that Urban Design services that involve the collaboration or our strong Engineering teams, our Transportation Planning team, and our Landscape Architecture team creates a synergy. This results in exciting, successful, and meaningful project outcomes that have the most positive impact on communities, providing new perspectives and viewpoints.
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