The National Complete Streets Coalition recently held a day-long Strategy Meeting of its members to determine the next steps toward our goal of effective policy implementation. We worked together to answer the question, “How can we ensure that half the states and 200 local communities take action to fully implement strong Complete Streets policies?”
We are far past our original goal of policy adoption in 5 states and 25 local communities: we recently crossed the 200 mark, with policies adopted in 23 states and 155 local jurisdictions. One of the reasons the Coalition has been so successful in promoting Complete Streets policy adoption is that it has set a clear and simple standard: adopt a policy that ensures that transportation projects take into account the needs of all users. The Coalition provides accessible resources on what constitutes a good policy, and is about to release a new analysis of policy language used across the country. We keep track of policy adoption, sharing the stories and celebrating those who adopt. Working with the diverse champions promoting Complete Streets, we’ve made it easy for advocates, agency personnel, and elected officials to understand, write, and adopt policies.
Now we need to establish a new standard. In too many communities, the Coalition has observed that the good intent behind adoption of a policy begins to stall when entrenched practitioners balk, when the political will to move ahead isn’t strong enough, or when no one quite knows what to do next. In order to address this challenge, the Coalition is working to establish a new standard that focuses on policy implementation. This new standard will support and accelerate change by serving as a measure of the degree of policy implementation: which agencies have actually transformed their practices, and started to build projects that create complete streets? The attendees at the Strategy Meeting helped work on the first draft of an assessment tool designed to answer that question.
It is important to note that the Coalition breaks down the success of the Complete Streets innovation into four distinct phases: policy adoption, agency institutionalization, project-level outputs, and larger societal outcomes. A lot of attention is being paid right now in transportation circles to that last phase: the need for a more performance-based transportation system that measures societal goals such as a reduction in vehicle miles traveled or even increased physical activity. Less attention is being paid to how we get there – how do we change the day-to-day practices of an industry built almost exclusively around providing improved automobile level of service?
Indeed, transportation agency officials and advocates alike have been asking the National Complete Streets Coalition to provide more detailed tools and next steps to aid them in implementing their policies. The implementation assessment tool will be a transparent guide to the previously murky process of cultural change necessary within transportation agencies. It will give Complete Streets proponents inside and outside of transportation agencies a leverage point to push for full institutionalization. It will also establish a framework for providing more intensive assistance, which is delivered through our workshop program.
While technical assistance to individual states and communities is important, our past experience has shown that setting a standard has a far greater reach. If we can provide agencies, advocates, and elected officials with the tools to meet an implementation standard, and collect stories about their successes, we will amplify the impact of the Coalition’s work. We will be able to ensure that change spreads far beyond those places the Coalition has the ability to touch directly with workshops or consulting calls.
Fortunately, the Strategy Meeting demonstrated that we have a wide variety of expertise to draw on as we develop a new standard for measuring who is taking action to implement Complete Streets policies. Watch this space for more information on the assessment tool, or contact Christine Green if you’d like to contribute to its development. We are looking forward to the next phase in ensuring America’s streets are safe for everyone, whether they walk, bicycle, drive, or take public transportation.