Several bills recently introduced in Congress recognize the clear benefits that complete streets provide for improving the safety and livability of a community for everyone living there–regardless of age or ability.
Here in Washington, August is known for sweltering heat, but the real action is heating up back in your hometown. With Members of Congress back to their districts for August recess, now is a great time to talk to your representative about all the benefits of complete streets.
This joint report by T4America and the Transportation Equity Network is the first systematic analysis of the conundrum faced by communities and their transit systems: Historic ridership and levels of demand for service, coupled with the worst funding crisis in decades.
3:30PM EST
Attendance
Jeri Mintzer ([email protected]), Lindsey Gael ([email protected]), Elisa Ortiz ([email protected])
Kate Rube ([email protected]), Will Schroeer ([email protected]) – Smart Growth America, DC
Kristin Purdy ([email protected]) – Transportation for America
Kathleen Spencer ([email protected]) – Center for Planning Excellence, LA
Rachel Winer ([email protected]) – Idaho Smart Growth
Jim Gray ([email protected]) – NCB Capital Impact
Jane Kirchner ([email protected]) – America Farmland Trust, DC
Gloria Katz ([email protected]) – Smart Growth Partnership, Southeast Florida
Lee Epstein ([email protected]) – Chesapeake Bay Foundation
April Putney ([email protected]) and Sara Nikolic ([email protected]) – Futurewise, WA
John Maximuk ([email protected]) – Livable Communities Coalition, GA
Scott Wolf ([email protected]) – Grow Smart Rhode Island
Carey Knecht ([email protected]) – Greenbelt Alliance, CA
Gene Krebs ([email protected]) – Greater Ohio
This week’s news include a new policy in Rockville, MD, some complete streets inspired musings in Indiana, data supporting the safety in numbers theory, and more.
A new flurry of study results, meetings, and reports from the public health community – including a specific recommendation from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention – are pointing the way toward complete streets policies as an important tool in the fight against the obesity crisis.
The town of Edmonston in Prince George’s County, Maryland, just outside of Washington, D.C., is a small hamlet of under 2000 residents, most of them blue-collar workers. Like many other cities in America, times are tough in Edmonston, which has high rates of unemployment and foreclosure. What makes life particularly hard for Edmonston is that it is bisected by the Anacostia River. Due to poor environmental practices, the Anacostia periodically floods the town, wreaking devastation on a place already struggling to get by.
News on complete streets comes in daily now, so we’re going to start a new feature in our blog to keep everyone – including us! – up to speed.
During the housing crash it became clear that not all parts of the country were being affected equally — and not even all areas within a metro area were performing the same. In the DC region, foreclosures were rising and home prices were falling rapidly in several exurban counties, while prices were holding mostly steady … Continued
The report featured in last Thursday’s Washington Post (“Highway Conditions Contribute to Over Half of Fatal Auto Crashes”) got it half right: highway design does affect safety. But the argument that road and bridge widening is a cure for fatalities is wrong. That recommendation could have been written in 1959, and has been refuted on the ground in projects around the country.