If you want to advocate for and support safer, more complete streets in your community, our brand new Champions Corner is a one-stop shop of resources for local elected officials, decision makers, and stakeholders who want to improve access to activity-friendly routes to everyday destinations in their communities.
Today, we are proud to announce the selection of 21 local elected officials to join the inaugural class of the Active People, Healthy Nation℠ Champions Institute. Over the course of six months, these leaders will receive comprehensive training to help them become champions in their communities to promote activity-friendly routes to everyday destinations.
Many people think the only Americans regularly relying on transit to reach jobs and services live in big cities. Yet the majority of counties with high rates of zero-car households are rural. In fact, more than one million households in predominantly rural counties do not have access to a vehicle. Rural Americans without cars face unique barriers and they deserve a tailored approach to their transit needs rather than just assuming they can or will drive everywhere.
The National Complete Streets Coalition is just that—a coalition—and our success is made possible by our many partner organizations. Voices for Healthy Kids is the newest member of our Steering Committee and we’re proud to welcome them. We sat down with Stephanie Vaughn, Marketing Manager at Voices for Healthy Kids, to learn more about their work and what drives their commitment to Complete Streets.
What do communities get for their investments in Complete Streets? In this study of 37 projects, Smart Growth America found that Complete Streets projects tended to improve safety for everyone, increased biking and walking, and showed a mix of increases and decreases in automobile traffic, depending in part on the project goal. Compared to conventional … Continued
Smart Growth America’s Local Leaders Council recently spoke with Laura Jackson, an Executive Vice President of Wellmark Blue Cross Blue Shield, to get her perspective on why smart growth strategies should be a priority for the health care industry and how the way we build communities can help abate rising health care costs and improve public health.
“Smart growth practices are a way to help people understand that there are certain things you can do, either low cost or no cost in many cases in communities, to live a longer healthier life,” says Jackson.
The newest release of F as in Fat notes the alarming pace of America’s obesity crisis and makes six overarching strategies to bring our waistlines into check, including the recommendation for Complete Streets laws at the state and federal level. Recent news on the impending federal transportation authorization bill, however, indicates that such a recommendation has not yet penetrated the walls of Congress.
Communities from Texas to Illinois and Pennsylvania to California are including healthy, active transportation activities in their Community Transformation Grant (CTG) application — and technical assistance from the National Complete Streets Coalition and the Safe Routes to School National Partnership can help them achieve their goals. We’ve rounded up additional resources for communities in today’s blog post.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is currently accepting applications for Community Transformation Grants. We encourage you to include technical assistance from the Safe Routes to School National Partnership and the National Complete Streets Coalition in your application.
This week’s round-up of Complete Streets talk across the country, from the first inklings of policy development in New Hope, Minnesota to an article in Albany, New York’s Times Union on how Complete Streets are part of comprehensive cancer prevention strategy. [Continue Reading “Quick Takes: Mid-October…”]