We’re heading to Texas, Maine, Tennessee, and Kansas!
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has selected McKinney, Texas; Nashville/Davidson County, Tennessee; Portland, Maine; and Wichita, Kansas to receive Complete Streets assistance through its new Sustainable Communities Building Blocks program. The four communities will each host a modified version of our Complete Streets Workshops.
In McKinney, we’ll work with local stakeholders, elected officials, and transportation professionals to build a new vision for its transportation networks.
We’ll help Portland follow through on their recently adopted resolution and build a strong, comprehensive Complete Streets policy that meets local needs.
We’re excited to head back to the Nashville area where we’d held a two-day introductory workshop for the region a few years ago; now, we’ll assist the city and county in assessing and improving their current processes and procedures to ensure their policies are effectively implemented.
We’ll also be making a return trip to Wichita, where, in 2009, we’d helped lay preliminary groundwork for Complete Streets. Now, we’ll help them take their next steps in applying that knowledge and vision.
A total of 32 communities will participate in the program, which aims to to provide quick, targeted technical assistance in sustainable planning. EPA selected the communities from a pool of over 350 applicants in consultation with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT).
The program is part of the Partnership for Sustainable Communities, in which the three federal agencies — EPA, HUD, and DOT — are coordinating their activities to improve access to affordable housing, provide more transportation options, lower transportation costs, and protect the environment in neighborhoods nationwide.
NOTE: This post was updated on April 15 to reflect later news that we would also be working in Wichita, Kansas as part of this program.