Complete Streets

The latest developments, events, and resources from the National Complete Streets Coalition:

Completing Our Streets: From drudgery to metamorphosis

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repaving
Maintenance activities, such as repaving a roadway, offer an opportunity for modest, low-cost improvements toward more complete streets. Photo by Barbara McCann.

This post is the sixth in a twice-monthly series of excerpts from Completing Our Streets: The Transition to Safe and Inclusive Transportation Networks, the new book from Island Press by Barbara McCann, founder of the National Complete Streets Coalition. The book discusses the keys to the movement’s success, and how places and practitioners in the United States are tackling the challenges of putting a new transportation paradigm into daily practice.

All National Complete Streets Coalition Platinum Partners and those who upgrade to the next Partnership level will receive a signed copy of Completing Our Streets. Become a Coalition Partner today!

From Chapter 5: Looking for Every Opportunity

Integrating a Complete Streets approach into maintenance and operations projects allows change to begin to happen right away, and such projects also have value precisely because they are pedestrian in the first sense of the word. In Anniston, Alabama, city councilman Jay Jenkins told the Anniston Star that the city’s new Complete Streets policy would be “a plodding kind of change.” The initial changes made to complete the streets can be modest and unimaginative, but within this drudgery lies the makings of metamorphosis.

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Top 10 of 2013: Over 550 communities are making streets safer and more convenient with Complete Streets policies

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EOYACompleteStreets

This month, we’re looking back at some of Smart Growth America’s brightest moments and greatest accomplishments from 2013. First on the list? We’re celebrating the over 550 Complete Streets policies that have been enacted in the United States.

Complete Streets policies help create streets that are safe and convenient for everyone who uses them, and today over 550 communities across the country have enacted such policies. That’s a milestone worth celebrating.

In August the National Complete Streets Coalition, a program of Smart Growth America, brought together transportation officials and national smart growth experts in Washington, DC, to celebrate the accomplishment.

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Complete Streets News – November 2013

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Get our monthly Complete Streets News delivered straight to your inbox: Join our mailing list today! Policy Adoption The Peru, IN City Council unanimously approved a Complete Streets ordinance on November 4, and the community is already discussing its first project under the new paradigm. The Miami County YMCA led the policy efforts, working with … Continued

Complete Streets Local Leaders Council

Virginia Beach, VA aims to attract new businesses and residents with more walkable neighborhoods

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virginia-beach
Virginia Beach, VA’s Town Center. Photo by Barb Watson via Flickr.

Virginia Beach, VA is already a popular summertime destination. Now, city leaders are working to attract more year-round businesses and residents, and they’re using smart growth strategies to make it happen.

Virginia Beach is beginning to implement its comprehensive plan, beginning with the city’s Central Business District Core. The neighborhood is one of the city’s eight strategic growth areas, and Virginia Beach residents have said they want it to have “a mix of urban uses, great streets, mobility and transit alternatives.”

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Completing Our Streets: Who gets priority?

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Health Line
Cleveland, OH’s HealthLine is a bus rapid transit (BRT) system that offers rail-like convenience with the flexibility of a bus. It connects Public Square to the Louis Stokes Station at Windermere in East Cleveland. Photo by EMBARQ Brasil via Flickr.

This post is the fifth in a twice-monthly series of excerpts from Completing Our Streets: The Transition to Safe and Inclusive Transportation Networks, the new book from Island Press by Barbara McCann, founder of the National Complete Streets Coalition. The book discusses the keys to the movement’s success, and how places and practitioners in the United States are tackling the challenges of putting a new transportation paradigm into daily practice.

All National Complete Streets Coalition Platinum Partners and those who upgrade to the next Partnership level will receive a signed copy of Completing Our Streets. Become a Coalition Partner today!

From Chapter 8: The Balancing Act: Setting Priorities for Different Users

Making a commitment to Complete Streets breaks open a tidy linear system that has traditionally delivered roads designed only to speed motor vehicles to their destinations. The transportation project pipeline was good at taking in a narrow set of inputs at one end and pouring out a finished road at the other. Agencies must now bring many more modes, voices, and considerations into the process all along the way. What was a pipeline can become something of a swamp; everyone involved may end up feeling caught in a morass of competing claims for limited roadway space and limited funding. Rather than simply delivering a project, transportation professionals must navigate their way toward a solution that may not quite satisfy anyone.

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After the ordinance: Implementing Complete Streets strategies in New Orleans

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Esplanade Avenue in New Orleans, LA
Esplanade Avenue in New Orleans after Complete Streets improvements. Photo by Jennifer Ruley.

With one of the best Complete Streets policies in the nation and champions for multimodal transportation on the City Council and public agencies, New Orleans, LA is taking concrete steps to build a post-Katrina transportation network that’s safer, more equitable and more fully connected than before.

The city’s most recent addition to its list of accomplishments is it’s new Complete Streets Advisory Committee. This month the City finalized the membership of the new Committee, which will make sure public agencies and processes work together to create a transportation system that works for all residents, no matter how they get around. The Committee’s first tasks include reviewing local subdivision regulations and deciding how to measure the success of Complete Streets implementation.

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Completing Our Streets: The revolution begins with a meeting

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Brownsboro Rd before and after
Bill Deatherage, of the Kentucky Council of the Blind, walking along Louisville, KY’s Brownsboro Road before and after sidewalk construction. Photo by Anne M. McMahon.

This post is the fourth in a twice-monthly series of excerpts from Completing Our Streets: The Transition to Safe and Inclusive Transportation Networks, the new book from Island Press by Barbara McCann, founder of the National Complete Streets Coalition. The book discusses the keys to the movement’s success, and how places and practitioners in the United States are tackling the challenges of putting a new transportation paradigm into daily practice.

All National Complete Streets Coalition Platinum Partners and those who upgrade to the next Partnership level will receive a signed copy of Completing Our Streets. Become a Coalition Partner today!

From Chapter 4: Process Over Projects: Changing How Decisions are Made

The disconnected sidewalks, marooned bus stops, curb ramps to nowhere, and other gaps in transportation infrastructure are usually a reflection of gaps in the processes used for planning, design, and construction. In many jurisdictions, no one has thought about how to balance the needs of more than one mode, or how to get the details right on small-scale nonmotorized infrastructure, or how to coordinate transportation planning with the surrounding neighborhood. Another gap is human. The people navigating that landscape by foot or wheelchair were likely not in the room when the decisions were made.

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Complete Streets News – October 2013

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Get our monthly Complete Streets News delivered straight to your inbox: Join our mailing list today!

Policy Adoption

The Fort Lauderdale, Florida, City Commission adopted a Complete Streets policy on October 1, along with a design manual to guide implementation. The city is encouraging better pedestrian, bicycle, and transit accommodations through both the transportation planning and the development review processes. With several demonstration projects already underway, the city will provide further strategic guidance in its Multimodal Connectivity Program, to be released later in the fall. Read more >>

The Massachusetts Department of Transportation (MassDOT) introduced a new Healthy Transportation Policy Directive that will boost the Department’s commitment to Complete Streets. Under the directive, all MassDOT Divisions will review all projects currently in design to ensure they “increase and encourage more pedestrian, bicycle and transit trips.” Any projects that do not do so must have approval from thee Secretary and CEO of Transportation before moving ahead. MassDOT will be able to use guidance from NACTO, including its Urban Bikeway Design Guide, in fulfilling the directive’s intent. “This policy directive is the next step in putting into daily practice our commitment to build a healthy, sustainable transportation system that meets all our customers’ needs,” said MassDOT Secretary Davey. Read more >>

Lincoln, Nebraska Mayor Chris Beutler signed a Complete Streets executive order last month. The order calls for the development of an interdepartmental process to ensure Complete Streets is applied; establishes limited exceptions; and requires annual reports on progress. Read more >>

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Completing Our Streets: Closing the gap between policy and practice

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Boulder, CO
Boulder, CO has made a concerted effort over the past 20 years to implement Complete Streets as part of everyday decision making. Photo by Barbara McCann.

This post is the fourth in a twice-monthly series of excerpts from Completing Our Streets: The Transition to Safe and Inclusive Transportation Networks, the new book from Island Press by Barbara McCann, founder of the National Complete Streets Coalition. The book discusses the keys to the movement’s success, and how places and practitioners in the United States are tackling the challenges of putting a new transportation paradigm into daily practice.

All National Complete Streets Coalition Platinum Partners and those who upgrade to the next Partnership level will receive a signed copy of Completing Our Streets. Become a Coalition Partner today!

From Chapter 3: Closing the Gap Between Policy and Practice

While adoption of a Complete Streets policy is the first step on a clear path for changing transportation practice, the attempt to marshal political and community support behind a new approach to transportation planning too often flounders once the policy is in place. This is particularly true when the effort has been made primarily from the outside, when advocates or lawmakers have created and adopted a policy with resistance or only lukewarm interest from the transportation agency that has to implement it. The advocates’ euphoria may wear off quickly when absolutely nothing happens inside the department after the policy passes. Or the disillusionment may come more slowly, after many months of working with the agency’s staff and leadership only to find that the changes made are minor or have been blocked by midlevel management.

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Houston, TX, announces plans to adopt city-wide Complete Streets policy

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A Complete Streets approach in Houston
Bagby Street in Houston, TX used a Complete Streets approach, which will now be a new standard for the city. Photo courtesy of the City of Houston.

The city of Houston, TX, cast its vote for safer, more vibrant streets yesterday when Mayor Annise Parker announced her intention to sign an executive order creating a city-wide Complete Streets policy.

The mayor’s Complete Streets and Transportation Plan will make Houston’s streets safer, more accessible and more convenient for motorists, public transit riders, pedestrians, people of all abilities and bicyclists. The new policy, detailed in a draft executive order from the mayor, will be implemented over time as improvements to existing roadways and redevelopment occur.

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