On May 5, 2011, Representatives Doris Matsui (D-CA) and Steven LaTourette (R-OH) introduced the bipartisan Safe and Complete Streets Act of 2011 into the US House of Representatives. The bill would help ensure safe travel for all Americans, regardless of how they travel.
Last week’s release of Complete Streets Policy Analysis 2010: A Story of Growing Strength (.pdf) brought a wave of attention from the blogosphere and inspired many to support us in closing a funding gap.
Last week, Smart Growth America’s Leadership Institute convened a two-day-long “Introduction to Infill” workshop in Billings, Montana. Infill is a development strategy that uses land within an already built-up area for further construction, focusing on reusing and repositioning obsolete or underutilized buildings and sites.
Together with the City of Billings, the Billings Association of Realtors, the Billings Home Builders Association, Healthy By Design, the Montana Association of Planners, Cole Law Firm, the Western Central Chapter of the American Planning Association and the Billings Chamber of Commerce, the workshop offered expert perspectives on infill development to the community in preparation for the City’s goal of developing an Infill Policy. This type of development is essential to renewing blighted neighborhoods and knitting them back together with more prosperous communities.
More than 80 participants from Montana and North Dakota attended the two-day workshop on April 26 and 27 in Billings. The workshop provided an overview of the state-of-the-practice, as well as the application of infill policies to specific issues – economic development, transportation, private sector involvement, and examples of infill development in Billings and around the country. Local perspectives were also provided through several sessions comprised of local developers, consultants, City staff and other organizations.
The workshop was designed to start the process of developing an infill policy for the City of Billings. A portion of the workshop was devoted to discussing the basic elements of an infill policy and beginning to define infill for Billings. A working group will be formed from the workshop attendees and others in the community in the coming months to develop a draft infill policy to present to the City Council for consideration in late 2011 or early 2012.
More information about the workshop, including the days’ agenda, workshop session descriptions and presentations are available at the City of Billings’ website. If you would like to know more about Smart Growth America’s Leadership Institute’s workshops and seminars, visit https://smartgrowthamerica.org/leadership-institute or email leadershipinstitute [at] smartgrowthamerica [dot] org.
Did you know that in one year congestion in the Baton Rouge and New Orleans regions cost residents $898 million in wasted fuel, time and productivity? Or that in 2009 congestion cost the freight trucking industry $350 million in lost productivity and fuel costs in the Baton Rouge and New Orleans areas?
Smart Growth America’s coalition member the Center for Planning Excellence, has released a new policy brief about better transportation options for southern Louisiana. Connected and Ready to Compete, draws on data, maps, testimonials and case studies to continue making the case for enhanced transportation options between New Orleans and Baton Rouge. This brief, the second in a series of three, follows the first report by specifically addressing why coordinated transportation investments and planning are economically and financially beneficial for the super region. Analyzing job centers, gas prices, national trends and regional opportunities, this report shows businesses, industries and local governments how better transportation coordination can benefit them.
Click here for more information from the Center for Planning Excellence >>
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Crossposted from Complete Streets.
New Analysis, Highlights Strongest Policies, Gives Advocates a New Tool
States and local governments in every quadrant of the nation are adopting strong complete streets policies, according to a new analysis by the National Complete Streets Coalition. The new report, “Complete Streets Policy Analysis 2010,” rates the strength of written policies that are designed to ensure that future transportation infrastructure investments provide safe options for everyone using the roadways. Rather than providing a single model policy, the report provides dozens of examples of strong policy language that is actually in use somewhere in the United States. It will serve as a resource to continue the expansion of the complete streets movement.
The report documents the tremendous growth in adoption of policies across the US. The number of policies came close to doubling in each of the last three years. Twenty-three states (and Puerto Rico and DC) and more than 200 smaller jurisdictions now have complete streets policies to ensure that future transportation investments provide safe options for everyone using our roadways.
“Recent polls show that voters’ top priority for infrastructure investments are safer streets for our communities and children,” notes Barbara McCann, National Complete Streets Coalition Executive Director. “Our report shows that this commitment is not only wide, but deep: community leaders and transportation practitioners are rolling up their sleeves and working together in small towns and big cities, in almost every state in the nation, to pass policies that will ensure that future transportation investments create complete streets.”
Is your agency or organization looking to start or advance a regional plan? In this latest webinar from the Sustainable Communities Network, award-winning planner Peter Calthorpe shares advice on how to begin, implement and successfully navigate the regional planning process, and ideas about how to leverage regions’ unique qualities to meet fiscal goals, land use challenges and transportation needs.
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Listen in: Click here to view the archived webinar |
Peter Calthorpe has over 30 years of experience in the field and is known for such successful projects as Envision Utah. His most recent book, Urbanism in the Age of Climate Change, documents new work and analysis relating patterns of development to energy and carbon consumption, along with other environmental, social and economic impacts.
Want to know about webinars like this one before they happen? Join the Sustainable Communities Network, an online community of state and local government officials, business leaders and non-profit professionals interested in the Partnership for Sustainable Communities. The Network provides opportunities to ask questions, learn best practices and share ideas with others from around the country. The Network also shares updates about federal initiatives, upcoming events, webinars and conferences to support vibrant, sustainable communities. Click here to subscribe.
Our new comprehensive report, Complete Streets Policy Analysis 2010: A story of growing strength, documents that states and local governments in every quadrant of the nation are adopting strong Complete Streets policies. In it, we rate the strength of written policies according to the established ten elements of ideal Complete Streets policies.
Minneapolis and Saint Paul, MN, have formed an innovative partnership aimed at taking the Twin Cities region to a new level of prosperity. The Minneapolis-St. Paul Metropolitan Business Plan, created as a part of the Brookings Institution’s Metropolitan Policy Program, is a long-term strategy for sustainable economic growth in which the cities will pool their assets rather than competing against each other. Minneapolis-St. Paul is home to a number of universities and colleges, Fortune 500 companies and medical research facilities, and the region’s business plan will help reduce transaction costs between businesses, inventors, suppliers, workers and consumers through better infrastructure and networking programs.
Economic activity thrives where transaction costs are lowest, and the Minneapolis-St. Paul plan aims to reduce these costs whenever possible. One of the ways the plan will do this is by constructing a light-rail line linking universities, medical and research institutions, central business districts and population centers throughout the region. Doing so will increase interaction between businesses and connect the area’s patent-holders with the economic actors that have capital to invest, hopefully increasing the percentage of inventions from the region that make it into the global marketplace. In addition to connecting existing assets like universities and medical centers, the cities will also encourage new development along the light-rail line to maximize the return on their investment.
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