This Friday, thousands of people across the country will put on their helmets and take to the streets for National Bike to Work Day, an annual event promoting active commuting options and safer streets.
Will you be joining the event? If so, make your ride even more impactful by telling USDOT to #MakeMeCount when it comes to measuring how well a street works.
This morning kicked off this year’s Infrastructure Week, a chance for political leaders and advocates to talk about how to make our nation’s roads, bridges, sidewalks, water, and digital infrastructure better for everyone.
Looking for ways to get involved? Here are five things to read and share this week:
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1. Two big moves for safer, more complete streets
Federal Highway Administration has a lot of influence over our nation’s infrastructure, and last week the agency made two big moves to clear the way for states, metro areas, and local communities to use federal dollars to design safer, more complete streets. Read more >> |
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2. Mapping structurally deficient bridges
Do you drive across a bridge each day? There’s a good chance it’s structurally deficient. That’s according to The Fix We’re In For, our report about bridge conditions across the country. Find structurally deficient bridges in your area with our interactive map or get an overview of the national findings with this infographic. |
The Federal Highway Administration made two big moves this last week to clear the way for states, metro areas, and local communities to use federal dollars to design safer, more complete streets.
Both of these updates are great news for anyone advocating for streets that better meet the needs of everyone that uses them, as well as better serving the goals of the surrounding community. FHWA deserves a big round of applause for making these changes.
If you are working on a local transportation project and your DOT or some other agency cites vague federal rules when refusing to build a safe and complete street, show them the FHWA memo below. Their guidance makes it extremely clear: there’s wide latitude to design streets to best suit local needs, and old regulations that treat all roads like highways have been rolled back.
A Complete Streets approach can help Americans improve our health, our daily commutes, our local economies, and our communities.
How can advocates encourage Complete Streets, and work with engineers and practitioners to get these projects built?
Join us to answer these questions at Street Lights: Illuminating Implementation and Equity in Complete Streets, the first-ever Complete Streets conference, taking place on November 15, 2016 in Sacramento, CA.
We want you to join us. This day-long conference will be a chance for transportation planners and engineers, community, equity, and health advocates, local officials, and Complete Streets practitioners to share ideas, brainstorm solutions, and celebrate the success of the Complete Streets movement nationwide together.
One of the main reasons Smart Growth America advocates for compact, walkable urban development is because this approach can greatly benefit the finances of municipalities. Smart growth strategies can reduce infrastructure costs and ongoing expenses for cities while also boosting tax revenues. Smart Growth America’s own work has shown that, and we know this to be true too because of the outstanding work of others in the field like Joe Minicozzi, AICP and the principal at Urban3, LLC, a consultancy based out of Asheville, NC. We’re fans of their work and and cite it often as yet another illustration of how good smart growth can be for city finances. We want to take this opportunity to highlight some of the evidence Minicozzi has amassed over the years demonstrating smart growth’s fiscal benefits.
Urban3 has been hired by cities and towns across the United States and Canada to analyze the financial implications of their development strategies. Most city planners and elected officials understand that a city brings in more tax revenue when people shop and eat out, Minicozzi explained in 2012, but they often underestimate just how much more valuable this economic activity is when it happens downtown rather than on a city’s outskirts.
Across the country, demand is growing for walkable neighborhoods. Which cities are well-positioned to meet that demand, and which will miss the boat?
We asked these questions two years ago in Foot Traffic Ahead: Ranking Walkable Urbanism in America’s Largest Metros. That report, released in conjunction with the Center for Real Estate and Urban Analysis at the George Washington University School of Business, outlined which of the country’s metro areas are the most walkable today and which have the most potential to be walkable in the future.
Next month we’re going to revisit these questions and provide updated analysis in Foot Traffic Ahead 2016. Coming out on June 14, this brand new research will provide unparalleled insights into current and future smart growth development, including the latest rankings of the top 30 walkable urban places (or “WalkUPs”) in the nation’s largest metro areas based on their current and future commercial real estate metrics. Sign up to get your copy when the report comes out next month:
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Today, the City of Somerville, MA, and LOCUS: Responsible Real Estate Developers and Investors publicly released the results of the progress made to date, as well as the next steps, in the Union Square Strategic Planning and Community Benefits process, a public-private partnership between LOCUS and the City.
The recommendations report identifies a series of priorities for ensuring that social equity goals are interwoven with development goals as the city’s Union Square neighborhood undergoes redevelopment centered around the planned MBTA Green Line light rail extension. Shared priorities including displacement prevention, affordable and attainable housing, jobs and workforce development, sustainability, open space, small businesses supports and more, are identified.
Complete Streets integrates people and place in the planning, design, construction, operation, and maintenance of our transportation networks. Hundreds of communities across the country have already adopted Complete Streets policies—the next step is to implement them.
Last week the National Complete Streets Coalition held a webinar that offered transportation planners, engineers, and practitioners insights about turning policies on paper into changes on the ground. The webinar provided an overview of the Complete Streets planning-to-design process; how Complete Streets and active transportation are impacting communities’ health and economy; get tips on what to consider when starting a Complete Streets project; learn strategies for design retrofits; and hear case studies of places that have done it successfully.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)’s Brownfields program helps communities clean up and redevelop contaminated land and put it back into productive use. EPA Brownfield grants and assistance have helped turn former industrial sites into new parks, office buildings, performing arts centers, and more in communities across the country.
Although the program gets funding from Congress each year, it is not an official part of the federal budget. On April 21, 2016, the U.S. House of Representatives Subcommittee on Environment and the Economy held a hearing about the program, including what about it currently works well, what could be improved, and how the program helps communities handle issues like environmental liability concerns, financial barriers, cleanup considerations, and reuse planning.
If someone takes the bus to work, and no one is around to count them, do they still matter?
We say yes, but the U.S. Department of Transportation seems to disagree.
Last week, USDOT issued a draft rule that will govern how states and metro areas will have to measure and address congestion, along with freight movement and emissions. These new requirements will help measure what America’s transportation dollars are actually buying us—which is great.
However, the rule as it is currently written would measure success in outdated ways. Using old measures will lead to the continued use of outdated strategies, such as prioritizing fast driving speeds above all other modes of transportation and their associated benefits.
