Best Complete Streets Initiatives: Baltimore City Councilman Ryan Dorsey


Councilman Ryan Dorsey, in collaboration with the advocacy organization Bikemore, drafted a groundbreaking Complete Streets ordinance for the City of Baltimore. The Complete Streets ordinance, if adopted, will introduce stringent, binding requirements to proactively reduce disparities in community engagement, project delivery, and performance measurements. The proposed ordinance is the result of a yearlong stakeholder engagement process that has built a broad coalition of supporters to oversee the adoption and implementation of this ambitious ordinance.

Complete Streets

Best Complete Streets Initiatives: VELO Bloomfield


Based in Bloomfield, NJ (18 miles from New York City), VELO is a media and advocacy organization that informs and educates the public and policymakers on how to make the streets of Northern New Jersey safer for people, regardless of gender, age, race, disability, and/or socioeconomic status. VELO approach to equity includes raising the profile of transportation issues to policy and decision makers in working class, Latinx, and African-American communities. VELO excels in their community engagement efforts by not requiring people to alter their daily routines to participate. Since their launch, they have championed Complete Streets implementation, particularly in the immediate Bloomfield area, and amplified the voices of community members around transportation policies.

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TIGER grants focus on rural areas, recognize the value of complete streets, and ignore transit


Just a month after the Trump administration proposed a budget that would eliminate the competitive TIGER grant program entirely next year, the US Department of Transportation announced the winners of this year’s awards. This year’s winners show a clear shift in priorities—this round is decidedly rural or small town in nature and nearly devoid of transit projects. However, the winners also show that this administration recognizes how smaller-scale complete streets projects bring tremendous value to local communities.

Complete Streets Transportation

Best Complete Streets Initiatives: Las Cruces, NM

Opening day at Plaza de Las Cruces. Photo courtesy of Victor Gibbs.
Las Cruces, NM is one of many cities across the U.S. creating a more mixed-use, accessible, and walkable community. The key to their success? A Downtown Master Plan that recognizes the strong connection between land use and transportation. Originally adopted back in 2004, the Downtown Master Plan is a living document that reflects the community’s vision. This plan was crucial to the city’s adoption of a form-based code and advancement of Complete Streets initiatives, including a recent flagship project, Plaza de Las Cruces.

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Best Complete Streets Initiatives: Rochester, NY


Through the Inner Loop East Transformation Project, the City of Rochester, NY is reimagining its street network by putting people and place before cars. The project supports the city’s vision for a more vibrant, connected downtown by converting an outdated urban expressway into a walkable, bikeable Complete Streets boulevard that reconnects the neighborhoods once divided by the expressway. This project is an important step in achieving the goals set forth in the city’s Complete Streets ordinance and Master Plan.

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Janette Sadik-Khan: Paint the city you want to see

Janette Sadik-Khan spent six years spearheading some of the most pioneering approaches to people-first street design while leading the transportation department for in America’s most populous city. She’ll be bringing that experience and more to Intersections: Creating Culturally Complete Streets as a keynote speaker in April.

Complete Streets Creative Placemaking Transportation

Presenting our top-notch Intersections speakers


Curious as to how transportation, public health, civil engineering, art, local governance, cultural identity, and Complete Streets connect? This week we’re thrilled to share our expert line up of keynote and plenary speakers for Intersections: Creating Culturally Complete Streets. They will join over 60 other speakers in Nashville, April 3 – 4, to explore these themes.

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Complete Streets Policy Framework

The Complete Streets Policy Framework represents the current best practices for creating a strong policy that can be implemented at any level of governance. It’s the go-to policy framework to guide any community who wants to develop their own policy to shape how their streets are planned, designed, built, and operated.

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Five reasons why you should register for Intersections

Today’s the last day to use our “New Year New Intersections” promo to get a $55 discount for the Intersections conference, hosted by Smart Growth America and the National Complete Streets Coalition in partnership with the Urban Land Institute. Join the movement this April as we welcome speakers from across the country to Nashville to discuss the power of cross-collaboration, genuine community engagement, and civic design to create culturally complete streets.

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