The rural town context applies to roads in rural areas located within a developed community. Design of rural town arterials combines that of rural and urban arterial criteria that includes land use and pedestrian access along a specific corridor where both classifications are being utilized in a low population density area.

Arterials in rural town contexts can still carry high traffic densities and may have any number of through-traffic lanes along with varying lane and shoulder widths to meet LOS requirements. Rural town arterials have more constraints that include but are not limited to:

Rural town arterials may include residential neighborhoods, schools, industrial facilities, main street business districts, each of which present differing design challenges and differing levels of pedestrian and bicycle activity.