Smart Growth America is excited to announce the 14 local elected officials who will participate in our 2025 Champions Institute. These champions will come together to learn, develop, and advance efforts to improve community design and create communities where all can thrive. Smart growth strategies help towns and cities of all types across the country … Continued
Senator Michael A. Jackson recently introduced a bill in the Maryland State Legislature that demonstrates a model for removing barriers to speed reduction at the state level. This kind of legislative action to improve road safety demonstrates much-needed leadership and puts the power of safer streets back into the hands of the community. Speed vs. … Continued
This post was written by Heidi Simon and Eric Cova. The Complete Streets movement was started more than twenty years ago to build shared energy and strategy for making our streets safer. As the convener of the National Complete Streets Coalition, we have worked alongside communities large and small to implement real changes that make … Continued
Through this Request for Proposals (RFP), Smart Growth America (SGA) is seeking proposals from qualified firms or individuals to provide technical expertise on Complete Streets, specifically focused on quick-build demonstrations. Services will run from March to July 2025 and include workshop facilitation, community support, and technical advice. The deadline to submit is Tuesday, February 18, … Continued
Complete Streets look different in every community. In partnership with AARP, we created a series of five videos showcasing Complete Streets efforts in diverse communities across the country. Our Championing Complete Streets series highlights Complete Streets efforts in Fort Wayne, IN, Versailles, KY, San Diego, CA, Missoula, MT, and Oklahoma City, OK. Complete Streets is … Continued
The Thriving Communities team at Smart Growth America, alongside our partners at the National Complete Streets Coalition, worked tirelessly throughout 2024 to advance our vision of healthy, prosperous, and resilient communities. We saw many successes, from our Complete Streets Leadership Academies helping to shape safe streets policies and implementation across the country to our Dangerous by Design report influencing the national conversation about street design. Despite this, we’re ending the year facing many of the same issues that we started it with—historically high pedestrian fatalities, communities chipping away at decades of car-centric design, and far too little support for the type of systemic change we know is needed.
The National Complete Streets Coalition is gearing up for their 2025 Best Complete Streets Policies report. This report will recognize communities across the country that are working to make their streets safer, healthier, and more equitable. It will also provide guidance and good practices for other communities that would like to adopt or strengthen their … Continued
Smart growth strategies help towns and cities across the country become healthier while improving resiliency and sustainability. With support from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Active People, Healthy Nation Initiative, Smart Growth America’s Champions Institute provides mayors, city councilors, tribal chairpeople and councilors, and other local elected officials with knowledge and resources to … Continued
While the number of people hit and killed while walking is declining across the world, the US is the only developed nation with an increasing number of pedestrian deaths year after year. In 2022, 7,522 people were hit and killed while walking. Now, we’re trying to play catch up by adopting a decades-old UN rule that falls short of necessary common-sense pedestrian safety measures.
Troubling trends in two very different places highlight the urgent need to focus on systemic change to prevent additional deaths.