Aesthetics And Highway Design

The purpose of this paper is to describe an approach for considering aesthetics as integral to highway design. By 'aesthetics' I intend the true meaning of the word, enhancing the visual quality of the highway setting, integrating the road with the landscape, improving the overall form of the roadway. I do not mean simply 'beautifying' the road with trees and shrubs once the route has been selected and the road has been engineered. Consideration of aesthetics simply cannot be added to evaluation or engineering. I will, however, suggest an approach for reconsidering aesthetics, right along with geometrics and operation and safety, etc. in every stage of highway planning and design starting at the preliminary stages. A fully integrated multidisciplinary approach is essential to ensure that unquantifiable environmental amenities and values are considered along with economic, technical and quantifiable environmental concerns in highway planning and design. This means using a design team of engineers, landscape architects and planners in all phases of route selection, preliminary design and detailed design. If we assume that design is the art of making technology (in this case highways) livable, aesthetics - the integration of the highway with the landscape - should be at the foundation of the design process. It should be inherent in the design process, not only evaluated once the route has been selected or the highway has been engineered. And if it is, it need not be evaluated, because it is the basis upon which all routes or alignments were generated. We are realizing that highway design is more than an engineering problem. To reflect a higher, more responsible concern for the road's aesthetic quality, design requires a collaborative effort among many professions. For the covering abstract of the Conference see IRRD Abstract No. 807661.