The nation is ready for complete streets at the federal level. Lee County, Florida is in the process of adopting a complete streets policy, and the local paper opined recently that a federal complete streets provision, as included in the new House transportation bill, would be a welcome compliment to local efforts to improve livability through transportation investments. As we close in on the 100-mark for state and local jurisdictions with adopted policies, the need for federal action becomes more acute.
As noted in our previous post, complete streets can be found in two places in the draft House bill, the Surface Transportation Authorization Act (STAA). It appears in the federal aid standards and in the new Office of Livability. The federal aid standards section would be revised to require new projects receiving federal aid be consistent with “comprehensive street design policies and principles,” which must take into account the needs of all users of the transportation corridor. One of the responsibilities of the new Office of Livability would be to monitor this requirement and to take actions to encourage state and local governments to adopt their own comprehensive street design policies.
We appreciate the potentially profound impact of this reform and are grateful for the leadership of Chairman Oberstar in including Complete Streets in the new bill. We look forward to working with him to strengthen the provisions in the Office of Livability by referring to language in the Complete Streets Act of 2009, (S 584 / HR 1443); specifically, we’ll refer to the clear list of the elements that make a complete streets policy successful. This list was derived from the experiences of cities and states that are already working to implement complete streets, and would be a valuable addition to the authorization bill. We will also continue to grow co-sponsorship for HR 1443 (thank you to Representatives David Loebsack [IA-2] and Adam Schiff [CA-29], our latest co-sponsors). The Complete Streets Act would require state and regional policy adoption, and we know that communities that craft their own policies are more likely to see it through to implementation.
For the National Complete Streets Coalition, the deaths related to incomplete streets that we report each month in our newsletter are testimony of the need to change street planning practices sooner rather than later. We look forward to working with Congress to create a new federal transportation bill that helps complete America’s streets.