A new approach to addressing the potential transportation impacts of new development in urban areas, outlined in a new report by our State Smart Transportation Initiative (SSTI), could be a powerful recipe for reducing the demand for driving, while helping create more prosperous transit- and pedestrian-friendly cities.
For decades, most local, regional, and state governments have had a myopic approach to handling the transportation needs related to infill development: they require developers to add more street/road capacity. And this single-minded approach has produced lots of new, expensive roads that increase driving, pollution, roadway deaths, and impediments for people trying to get around without cars. A more productive approach seeks to minimize traffic from development before resorting to just building expensive, bigger and wider roads.
As July unfolds before us, we look back on the progress of the Complete Streets movement since the year began: We’ve seen incredible progress federally, and we celebrated two new state laws. Eighteen communities have committed to complete streets since January, and we released a Best Practices report on policies and implementation.
A central strategy of the Complete Streets movement has been to learn from local success. We are proud to share a publication that takes this strategy to its highest level: Complete Streets: Best Policy and Implementation Practices, a joint project of the staff of the National Complete Streets Coalition and the American Planning Association.