We’ve officially revised our policy grading rubric, known as the 10 Elements of a Complete Streets Policy. The Complete Streets movement has evolved since it began in 2004 to focus far more on implementation and equity, but the framework for grading the quality of policies hasn’t kept pace.
November is Complete Streets month at Smart Growth America; we are sharing a series of blog posts that cover and explain each of the 10 revised policy elements in some detail. The entire revised framework will be available on our website on November 30, 2017.
Save the date! Eighth Annual Complete Streets Dinner — Conveniently scheduled during the 2018 Transportation Research Board meeting. This intimate and fun gathering brings together Complete Streets professionals, policymakers, supporters, and friends to celebrate the successes of the Complete Streets movement in the last year. This year’s dinner will be held Tuesday, January 9, 2018 from 6:00 PM – 9:00pm EST at Carmine’s in Washington, DC. Tickets will go on sale soon. For more information, contact Mae Hanzlik.
Register for our upcoming webinars — Join us and two San Diego based community organizations for Promoting Equitable Change through Creative Placemaking & Complete Streets on Tuesday, November 21st from 1:00-2:00 PM EST. As part of Complete Streets Month and the release of our new policy grading rubric we will host a webinar to discuss the changes for current and future Complete Streets policies. Tune in on December 1st at 1:00PM EST. Register today >>
Registration now open for Intersections: Creating Culturally Complete Streets — Join us in Nashville, TN on April 3-4, 2018 for mobile workshops, interactive panels and breakout discussions about cutting-edge Complete Streets and creative placemaking research, ideas, and practices. The conference will also be an opportunity to meet fellow advocates and practitioners from across the country.
Have an idea related to Complete Streets or creative placemaking? We are also accepting session proposals. Take part in the movement and register today >>
Missed any of our webinars? — Recordings of all the webinars in our Implementation & Equity 201 series are available on our blog, along with links to additional resources. So far, we’ve explored the intersections between Complete Streets and public health, economic development, Vision Zero, walkability, and autonomous vehicles.
Send us your policies and committees — Has your community passed a new Complete Streets policy? NCSC collects city, county, regional, and state policies for documentation in our Policy Atlas and Inventory and our Best Complete Streets Policies reports. For inclusion in these resources, please send a PDF copy of your policy to [email protected].
Billy Hattaway, Director of Transportation for the City of Orlando will be speaking on a webinar later this month, “Fitting the road to the context: Florida’s Context Classification and Complete Streets implementation.” Florida Department of Transportation is making major strides toward improving pedestrian and bicycle safety through its Complete Streets Implementation initiative. One of FDOT’s most innovative achievements has been the recent adoption of eight context classifications to guide road design decisions. Listen in on Tuesday, November 28th at 1:00PM CST. Register today >>
Joint ITE International and Midwestern/Great Lakes District Annual Meeting and Exhibit — ITE has released its call for abstracts for their upcoming meeting taking place August 20-23 in Minneapolis, MN. The goal is to create a program that inspires attendees, allows them to create connections, and leave the conference with a wealth of knowledge to use in their jobs and career.
NHTSA Publishes “Traffic Safety Facts” Research Note — The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) published a new research note titled, “Traffic Safety Facts: A Comparative Analysis of State Traffic Safety Countermeasures and Implications for Progress ‘Toward Zero Deaths’ in the United States.” The research note provides a summary of statistical findings related to traffic safety countermeasures, including bicycle and Complete Streets countermeasures.
Untokening 1.0 – Principles of Mobility Justice — These principles were drafted using perspectives gathered at “The Untokening: A Convening for Just Streets & Communities” held in Atlanta, GA on November 13, 2016. Instead of offering ready-made solutions, these principles outline recommendations for mobility justice that are rooted in the liberation of historically marginalized communities. Read the principles here >>
Preview of NACTO guide for high-comfort bike facilites — Streetsblog USA provided a sneak peek at the contents of NACTO’s new guide to analyzing any street to determine which need protected bike lanes or other facilities. NACTO’s full digital rollout of its “Designing for All Ages & Abilities: Contextual Guidance for High-Comfort Bicycle Facilities” is coming out in a couple of weeks. One of NACTO’s key points: Traffic speed is something cities can and should control. (From CenterLines, the e-newsletter of the National Center for Bicycling & Walking.)
Equity Summit 2018 — Join thousands of activists, organizers, scholars, and leaders from community, faith, business, government, philanthropy, and civic life in Chicago, April 11–13, for Equity Summit 2018. The Summit theme: Our Power. Our Future. Our Nation. — will drive the tenor and content of the plenaries, forums, workshops, and other programming.
Ride-hailing service Lyft is making moves in urban planning. Working with architecture firm Perkins + Will and the transportation consultants Nelson\Nygaard, the startup recently developed a street redesign for the era of autonomous cars. The proposed concept reimagines LA’s Wilshire Boulevard, transforming it from its current car-centric design into a multi-transit space with wider sidewalks, benches, planters, bike lanes, dedicated bus lanes, and lanes for shared self-driving cars.
Denver, CO became one of the latest cities to deliver overwhelming margins to a ballot measure that funded biking, transit, walking, pavement and traffic signal improvements citywide. Denverites voted 73 percent to 27 percent to back Measure 2A, a $431 million property tax package for “transportation and mobility” that was dedicated mostly to maintaining pavement and to reducing auto dependence — not expanding roadways.
An associate professor at The University of Texas at Arlington says there are solutions to reversing transit deserts that have exist in some of this nation’s urban centers but it could take decades of innovative planning to be successful. Diane Jones Allen, used case studies in New Orleans, Baltimore and Chicago to write “Lost in the Transit Desert: Race, Transit Access, and Suburban Form.”