Complete Streets Technical Assistance

Three Colorado cities win our second Complete Streets Consortium award

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Westminster engages the community in a mobile needs assessment at a park-n-ride bus station. Photo via Westminster’s Mobility Action Plan.

Through our first Complete Streets Consortium Series, the National Complete Streets Coalition has been working with three Tennessee regions to foster state-wide collaboration and overcome barriers to safer, more equitable streets.

Now, we are excited to announce that a trio of Colorado cities has won our second-ever Complete Streets Consortium technical assistance. The Cities of Arvada, Aurora, and Westminster applied for and won the award collaboratively, and will together receive a set of three free technical assistance workshops. Each of the winning cities will host one of the workshops, which will be tailored to the region’s specific opportunities and challenges including creating first/last mile connections to new transit stations.

Complete Streets Technical assistance

What we learned about Complete Streets implementation from Safe Streets Academy applications

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As the first-ever Safe Streets Academy prepares for launch next month, the quality and number of applications that were submitted offered a deeply informative look into the challenges to Complete Streets implementation that jurisdictions across the country currently face. The National Complete Streets Coalition decided to put that information to use by creating an infographic that summarizes some of the most pressing challenges.

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Complete Streets Consortium Series: recapping the Chattanooga, TN workshop

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The Complete Streets Consortium Series works with three jurisdictions across the same state to improve inter-agency collaboration, create a peer-learning network, and identify strategies to overcome common barriers to Complete Streets implementation. Last month, we held the first of three workshops in the series in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Check out the visual recap below:

Complete Streets Technical assistance

Announcing the winners of the Safe Streets Academy

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Scores of cities are eager to build safer streets for all of their residents, but many also quickly discover the plethora of barriers that make it difficult to change years of practice. Our new Safe Streets Academy, announced today, is bringing together three jurisdictions in a collaborative environment to explore how to overcome those barriers and develop strategies for improving safety for all users of the street.

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Everything you need to know about applying for our Safe Streets Academy

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Applications are currently open for the National Complete Streets Coalition’s Safe Streets Academy, a program designed to help jurisdictions transform their commitment to traffic safety into practice.

On Friday, June 23, we hosted a live Q&A webinar all about the Academy application process, and a recording of that event is now available in the video above.

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A Tennessee trio wins our first Complete Streets Consortium award

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A green lane for bicyclists in Knoxville, TN. Photo via the Knoxville Mercury.

Building a connected network of streets that is safe for everyone, no matter how they travel, takes region-wide collaboration. Our newest technical assistance award is designed to help three agencies in Tennessee do just that.

Smart Growth America and our program the National Complete Streets Coalition are proud to announce that a partnership of agencies in Chattanooga, Knoxville, and Nashville, TN is the winner of our first-ever Complete Streets Consortium technical assistance.

Complete Streets Technical assistance

Indianapolis works to implement its strong Complete Streets policy with Smart Growth America workshop

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indy-workshop-borderChallenges and opportunities on the whiteboard at a Complete Streets workshop in Indianapolis last week. Photo by the Indiana Complete Streets Coalition, via Twitter.

In 2012 the Indianapolis-Marion County City-County Council unanimously passed the Indianapolis Complete Streets ordinance, a policy intended to ensure that streets are designed, built, operated, and maintained to be safe and accessible for everyone, regardless of whether they travel by bus, bike, foot or personal vehicle. Indianapolis’ Complete Streets policy was the best in the nation that year, and remains one of the strongest city ordinances adopted to date.

Since the policy’s passage, Indianapolis staff and Health by Design partners have been working to ensure successful implementation of the policy and to monitor and track related performance measures. To help accelerate the move from policy to implementation, Smart Growth America’s National Complete Streets Coalition held a Complete Streets implementation workshop on June 10 and 11, 2015, as part of a free, grant-funded technical assistance program. The workshop provided additional tools, resources and guidance for policy implementation. It also offered an opportunity to communicate the benefits of Complete Streets and local project examples to the public.

Complete Streets Technical assistance

Complete Streets workshop helps Hot Springs, AR improve public health

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Downtown_Hot_Springs,_Arkansas_(aerial)
Bird’s eye view of downtown Hot Springs, AR. Photo by Samuel Grant via Wikipedia Commons.

Thanks to its thermal springs and mountainous setting, Hot Springs, AR, has long been a destination for health, wellness, and recreation. Over the years, however, the city has largely built a street network designed for the needs of automobiles—with little regard for the mobility of pedestrians, bicyclists, and transit riders. Now, local officials in Hot Springs are recognizing that prioritizing car and truck travel to the exclusion of these other users has had a significant impact on the health and well-being of its community—and they’re working to make a change.

On September 17 and 18, 2014, Smart Growth America visited Hot Springs for a two-day workshop on drafting a Complete Streets policy—a package of codes and laws ensuring that streets are designed for community members of all ages and abilities. Provided as part of a free, grant-funded technical assistance program, the workshop helped provide Hot Springs with the tools to write a comprehensive policy and develop a plan to implement it.

Complete Streets Technical assistance