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Complete Streets Policies Growing Strong

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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.”

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"Regional Planning with Peter Calthorpe" webinar materials now available online

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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.

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.

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Transportation for innovation in Minneapolis-St. Paul

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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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Ohio Looks to Pilot Area-Wide Brownfield Program

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Last month, the State of Ohio took some important steps to support localities looking for better ways to redevelop abandoned gas stations and other contaminated land in their communities. Ohio officials met with community-based organizations from across the state to discuss starting a pilot state area-wide planning program that could kickoff as early as this summer.

Area-wide planning is a smart growth strategy that helps communities understand the combined impact of multiple brownfield sites. By looking at vacant and contaminates sites as a connected whole, rather than in isolation, communities can better plan for housing, transportation and infrastructure projects that support the entire community. An area-wide approach can help foster a new vision for communities impacted by brownfields and support the revitalization of all of the properties there. This is particularly useful for some sites, like abandoned gas stations, which may be more difficult to redevelop individually because of their smaller size.

Recognizing the benefits of this process, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) launched an Area-Wide Planning Pilot Program last year, which will provide the 23 communities selected for assistance with financial and technical support to implement area-wide planning strategies to revitalize the empty gas stations, closed landfills and abandoned factories inhibiting investment in their neighborhoods.

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In New York, encouraging businesses to come downtown is key to revitalizing Syracuse and Onondaga County

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In New York state, Onondaga County Executive Joanie Mahoney (R) is changing how her county approaches economic development. In a report from WRVO, Mahoney explains that encouraging development in downtown Syracuse, which lies at the heart of Onondaga County, will help the economy of the entire region.

Previous county executives focused development in the ring of suburbs outside of Syracuse, which lies at the heart of Onondaga County. By accommodating – and even subsidizing – growth outside the city center, the county has slowly eroded Syracuse’s once-thriving business district: more than a dozen office buildings downtown now stand 100% empty. Mahoney explains that Onondaga County can’t thrive if growth comes at the cost of downtown Syracuse, and she’s working to bring a different model of development to the county.

Mahoney also explains that the county is struggling to support development in Syracuse’s outer suburbs: it’s simply too expensive for the county to afford. While it might be cheaper up front to build a building on the outskirts of town, it raises the burden on taxpayers who then have to fund the sewer lines and roads to those new buildings.

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Red Wing, Minn Writes an Rx for Business: Complete Streets

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Red Wing, Minn., is a great example of a small town adopting a Complete Streets policy as key part of its efforts to improve public health, economic investment, and quality of life. Today’s post, written by Rails-to-Trails Conservancy, tell’s Red Wing’s Complete Streets story. And be sure to check out a new fact sheet on other small towns and rural communities adopting Complete Streets policies.

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