The Best Complete Streets Policies 2023

Since the beginning of the Complete Streets movement in the early 2000s, more than 1,700 Complete Streets policies have been adopted in jurisdictions of all sizes and contexts across the United States. Adopting Complete Streets policies is a crucial first step to reducing traffic violence, improving health equity, responding to the climate crisis, and rectifying a long history of inequitable transportation practices. This Best Complete Streets Policies report spotlights the communities that have taken that first step and outlines how they made it happen.

But every Complete Streets policy is not created equally. To celebrate the strongest policies in the country and lift them up as worthy models for other communities to emulate, the National Complete Streets Coalition regularly evaluates and scores policies on a 100-point scale using a standardized set of ten elements. Based on that evaluation, the Coalition is proud to unveil this list of the 11 strongest Complete Streets policies passed between 2019 and 2022: 1

This year’s strongest policies

Thanks to some ties in scoring, what’s typically a top ten list this year includes 11 communities. Each numbered score in the table refers to the corresponding element in our policy framework found here:

JurisdictionStateYear passed#1#2#3#4#5#6#7#8#9#10Total score
Howard County MD2019129108871013815100
City of RogersvilleMO202012910687101381598
City of El PasoTX202212910487101381596
City of JoplinMO202212910887101381095
City of TucsonAZ20191291048791381595
City of Rolling MeadowsIL20201291068710128688
City of RiversideMO202210910857101051286
Village of WellingtonFL20221251045710681380
City of New OrleansLA20201231065771141378
City of SacramentoCA2019129108877131378

 

Download the report for the complete list of grades, Complete Streets policy trends, profiles of four leading communities, and why far more progress is urgently needed.