Parkway
ART-PKY-08 Parkway
Typical at: Rural Suburban Compact Urban
#Why this pattern exists
The term "parkway" carries genuinely conflicting meanings across different eras and regions of American road-building, and this pattern exists to resolve that ambiguity for Commonway System’s classification system rather than leave it unclassified. A Parkway cannot qualify as a Freeway under CS’s Functional Classification system, since Freeway is explicitly out of CS’s prescriptive scope and reserved for fully limited-access, grade-separated facilities; any Parkway that follows genuine freeway design standards should be treated and read as a Freeway pattern instead, and this page exists specifically to redirect that reader there. Where a Parkway does not meet freeway standards, which is the more common historical case, it must be classified and designed as an Arterial, subject to all Arterial standards including the no-direct-access, no-on-street-parking principle. This pattern’s working-assessment status is Discouraged, a stronger caution than an ordinary Situational tradeoff, specifically because of this classification ambiguity: the term itself invites confusion that a clearer classification avoids. It renders here under the site’s combined Situational/Discouraged badge, since Discouraged is not yet a distinct status value in the site’s badge system.
#Key considerations
- If your parkway is a fully limited-access, grade-separated facility, refer to the Freeway pattern instead; this page’s guidance does not apply
- If your parkway does not meet freeway standards (the more historically common case), it must follow all Arterial standards, including no direct property access and no on-street parking
- The "scenic, landscaped" character historically associated with parkways can and should be retained through median plantings, tree canopy, and generous right-of-way, but character alone does not exempt the facility from Arterial access-management rules
- Significant inconsistency exists across how different regions and eras have implemented parkways, which is part of why this pattern carries a stronger Discouraged caution rather than an ordinary Situational one
#Related patterns
default Freeway pattern (FRE-DEF-01) (redirect target for freeway-standard parkways); default Arterial pattern (ART-DEF-01) (the standards a non-freeway parkway must follow); Boulevard (ART-BLV-02), Scenic Highway/Byway (ART-SCB-03) (related but distinct Arterial subtypes)
Unsourced claim
Formal citations for this pattern have not yet been compiled from primary sources.