Complete Streets Brochures

What do others have to say
What do others have to say
about Complete Streets?
about Complete Streets?
“Now, finally, there’s an organized nationwide
“Now, finally, there’s an organized nationwide
movement to fight the good fight for saner streets.
movement to fight the good fight for saner streets.
It’s a coalition mounting a nationwide campaign
It’s a coalition mounting a nationwide campaign
for city and town roadways that include safe,
for city and town roadways that include safe,
quality space for pedestrians and cyclists and
quality space for pedestrians and cyclists and
public transit users, accommodating their wishes
public transit users, accommodating their wishes
just as seriously as those of car and truck drivers.
just as seriously as those of car and truck drivers.
It’s called, fittingly, the Complete Streets
It’s called, fittingly, the Complete Streets
movement.”
movement.”
- Columnist Neal Peirce
“We have very real challenges facing our country,
“We have very real challenges facing our country,
and they are all interwoven. We now know that
and they are all interwoven. We now know that
we must change our environmental and energy
we must change our environmental and energy
policy, and reduce our impact on the planet. By
policy, and reduce our impact on the planet. By
opening up our roadways to pedestrians and
opening up our roadways to pedestrians and
cyclists, we can help ease the congestion on our
cyclists, we can help ease the congestion on our
nation’s roads.”
nation’s roads.”
-Representative Doris Matsui
How can I get involved with
Complete Streets?
Complete Streets?
A broad coalition of advocates and transportation
professionals are working to enact complete streets policies
across the country.
JOIN US BY BECOMING A
MEMBER OR PARTNER!
Becoming a member or partner is easy. We simply ask that
you endorse the Coalition’s mission by returning the
respective sign-up form (available at www.completestreets.
org/getinvolved.html); collaborate with leading national and
regional organizations to advance complete streets and make
an annual contribution at the appropriate level.
While donations are not a requirement, they are central to
our ability to spread the work, coordinate action, and help
organizations nationwide get it right.
Organizations serving on the National Complete
Streets Coalition Steering Committee are:
AARP
Active Living by Design
America Bikes
America Walks
American Council of the Blind
American Planning Association
American PublicTransportation Association
American Society of Landscape Architects
Association of Pedestrian and Bicycle Professionals
City of Boulder
Institute ofTransportation of Engineers
League of American Bicyclists
McCann Consulting
National Center for Bicycling and Walking
Safe Route ot School National Partnership
Smart Growth America
Thunderhead Alliance for Bicycling and Walking
National Complete Streets Coalition
1707 L Street NW, Suite 1050
Washington, DC 20036
(202) 207-3355
(202) 207-3355
info@completestreets.org
www.completestreets.org
POLICY & IMPLEMENTATION
Dozens of places have been adopting policies at an
accelerating pace, including the States of California and
Illinois, Seattle, and Iowa City. Keep track of our progress by
signing up for our newsletter!
To help organizations successfully
adopt complete streets policies, the National
Complete Streets Coalition offers
interactive workshops led by national
experts on policy development and policy
implementation. Visit our website for more
information about scheduling a workshop.
Schedule a workshop!
and towns ought
to be for everyone,
whether young or old,
motorist or bicyclist, walker
or wheelchair user, bus
rider or shopkeeper.
These streets are unsafe for people on foot
or bike and unpleasant for everybody.
But too many of our streets are
designed only for speeding cars,
or worse, creeping traffic jams. These
Now, in communities across the country, a
movement is growing to complete the
streets. States, cities, and towns are
asking their planners, engineers,
and designers to build road
networks that welcome
all citizens.
The streets
of our cities

What are Complete Streets?
Complete streets are designed and operated to enable safe
access for all users. Pedestrians, bicyclists, motorists and bus
riders of all ages and abilities are able to safely move along
and across a complete street.
Why do we need Complete
Streets policies?
Streets policies?
Americans want mobility.
Recent opinion polls found that 52 percent of Americans
want to bicycle more, and 55% would prefer to drive less
and walk more. More than half (54%) of older adults who
reported an inhospitable walking, bicycling, and transit
environment outside their homes said they would walk,
bicycle and take transit more if the streets were improved.
Many streets where people bicycle or
walk are incomplete.
Our states, cities, counties, and towns have built many miles
of streets and roads that are safe and comfortable only for
travel by motor vehicle. These roadways often lack sidewalk,
crosswalks, crosswalks, and space for bicyclists; furthermore,
roadways often make no room for transit riders and no
accommodation for people with disabilities.
A recent federal survey found that about one-quarter of
walking trips take place on roads without sidewalks or
shoulder, and bike lanes are available for only about 5
percent of bicycle trips. Another national survey of
pedestrians and bicyclists found that the top complaints
were the lack of sidewalks and bikeway - essentially,
incomplete streets.
Few laws require states to build roads
as complete transportation corridors.
In 2000, the US Department of Transportation advised states
receiving federal funds that “bicycling and walking facilities
will be incorporated into all transportation projects unless
exceptional circumstances exist.” Unfortunately, fewer than
half the states follow this federal guidance. Many highway
improvements add automobile capacity and increase vehicle
speeds, but do nothing to mitigate the negative impact this
usually has on bicycling and walking.
Streets without safe places to walk
and bicycle put people at risk.
While only nine percent of all trips are made by foot or
bicycle, more than 13 percent of all traffic fatalities are
bicyclicts or pedestrians. More than 5000 pedestrians and
bicyclist die each year on U.S. roads. The most dangerous
places to walk and bicycle are sprawling communities with
streets built for driving only.
Roads without safe access for
non-drivers become barriers.
Roads without safe access for non-drivers become barriers
to mobility. About one-third of Americans do not drive, so
complete streets are essential for children and older
Americans, as well as people who use wheelchairs, have
vision impairments, or simply cannot afford a car.
A good complete streets policy:
- Specifies that ‘all users include pedestrians, bicyclists,
transit vehicles and users, and motorists, of all ages and
abilities
- Aims to create a comprehensive, integrated, connected
network
- Is adoptable by all agencies to cover all roads
- Applies to both new and retrofit projects, including
design, planning, maintenance, and operations, for the
entire right of way
- Makes any exceptions specific and sets a clear proc
dure that requires high-level approval of exceptions
- Directs the use of the latest and best design standards
- Directs that complete streets solutions fit in with the
context of the community
- Establishes performance standards with measurable
outcomes
What does a good
What does a good
Complete Streets policy include?
Complete Streets policy include?
Become part of the movement toward complete streets. For more information, visit www.completestreets.org
Dan Burden
Dan Burden
Dan Burden Dan Burden

How are Complete Streets policies
How are Complete Streets policies
implemented?
implemented?
Instead of a project-by-project struggle to accommodate
bicycle- and pedestrian-friendly practices, complete streets
policies require all road construction and improvement
projects to begin by evaluating how the right-of-way serves
all who use it. An effective complete streets policy should
prompt transportation agencies to:
* Restructure procedures to accommodate all users on
every project.
* Re-write design manuals to include the safety of all users.
* Re-train planners and engineers in balancing the needs of
diverse users.
* Create new data collection procedures to track how
well the streets are serving all users.
Complete Streets?
Complete Streets?
A broad coalition of advocates and transportation profes-
sionals are working to enact complete streets policies across
the country.
MEMBER OR PARTNER!
MEMBER OR PARTNER!
Becoming a member or partner is easy. We simply ask that
you endorse the Coalition’s mission by returning the
respective sign-up form (available at www.completestreets.
org/getinvolved.html); collaborate with leading national and
regional organizations to advance complete streets and make
an annual contribution at the appropriate level.
While donations are not a requirement, they are central to
our ability to spread the work, coordinate action, and help
organizations nationwide get it right.
AARP
Active Living by Design
America Bikes
America Walks
American Council of the Blind
American Planning Association
American PublicTransportation Association
American Society of Landscape Architects
Association of Pedestrian and Bicycle Professionals
City of Boulder
Institute ofTransportation of Engineers
League of American Bicyclists
McCann Consulting
National Center for Bicycling and Walking
Safe Route ot School National Partnership
Smart Growth America
Thunderhead Alliance for Bicycling and Walking
(202) 207-3355
(202) 207-3355
www.completestreets.org www.completestreets.org
Dozens of places have been adopting policies at an
accelerating pace, including the States of California and
Illinois, Seattle, and Iowa City. Keep track of our progress by
Where are Complete Streets
Where are Complete Streets
To help organizations successfully adopt
complete streets policies, the National
Complete Streets Coaltion offers
interactive workshops led by national
experts on policy development and policy
implementation. Visit our website for
more information about scheduling
a workshop.
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*as of
Feb. 2009
Feb. 2009
and towns ought
to be for everyone,
whether young or old,
motorist or bicyclist, walker
or wheelchair user, bus
rider or shopkeeper.
These streets are unsafe for people on foot
or bike and unpleasant for everybody.
But too many of our streets are
designed only for speeding cars,
or worse, creeping traffic jams. These
Now, in communities across the country, a
movement is growing to complete the
streets. States, cities, and towns are
asking their planners, engineers,
and designers to build road
networks that welcome
all citizens.
The streets
of our cities

Complete streets are designed and operated to enable
safe access for all users. Pedestrians, bicyclists, motorists
and bus riders of all ages and abilities are able to safely
move along and across a complete street.
What do Complete Streets
policies do?
policies do?
Complete Streets policies direct transportation planners
and engineers to consistently design with all users in mind
including drivers, transit riders, pedestrians, and bicyclists
as well as older people, children, and people with
disabilities.
Streets policies?
Streets policies?
Complete streets improve safety.
Complete streets improve safety.
A Federal Highways Administration safety review found
that streets designed with sidewalks, raised medians, better
bus stop placement, traffic-calming measures, and
treatments for disabled travelers improve pedestrian safety.
Some features, such as medians, improve safety for all
users: they enable pedestrians to cross busy roads in two
stages and reduce left-turning motorist crashes to zero, a
type of crash that also endangers bicyclists.
Complete streets encourage walking
Complete streets encourage walking
and bicycling for health.
and bicycling for health.
The National Institutes of Medicine recommends fighting
childhood obesity by establishing ordinances to encourage
construction of sidewalks, bikeways, and other places for
physical activity.
One study found that 43% of people with safe places to
walk within 10 minutes of home met recommended
activity levels; among individuals without safe places to
walk, just 27% were active enough.
While there is no prescription for a complete
street, common features include:
- SIDEWALKS
- BIKE LANES
- WIDE SHOULDERS
- PLENTY OF CROSSWALKS
- REFUGE MEDIANS
- BUS PULLOUTS
- SPECIAL BUS LANES
- RAISED CROSSWALKS
- AUDIBLE PEDESTRIAN
SIGNALS
- SIDEWALK BUILB-OUTS
look like?
look like?
Complete streets address climate
Complete streets address climate
change and oil dependence.
change and oil dependence.
The potential to reduce carbon emissions by shifting trips
to lower-carbon modes is undeniable: The 2001 National
Household Transportation Survey finds that 50% of all trips
in metropolitan areas are three miles or less and 28% of all
metropolitan trips are one mile or less – distances easily
traversed by foot or bicycle.Yet 65% of trips under one mile
are now made by automobile, in part because of incomplete
streets that make it dangerous or unpleasant to walk,
bicycle, or take transit. Complete streets would help
convert many of these short automobile trips to multi-
modal travel.
Walking and bicycling require no gasoline and transit’s use
of fuel is much more efficient than that of automobiles.
Simply increasing bicycling from 1% to 1.5% of all trips in
the U.S. would save 462 million gallons of gasoline each year.
Using transit has already helped the United States save 1.5
billion gallons of fuel each year since the early 1990s, which
is nearly 36 million barrels of oil.
Become part of the movement toward complete streets. For more information, visit www.completestreets.org
Dan Burden
safety.fhwa.dot.gov
Nevada Bicycle Coalition
John LaPlante
Surveys have found that a lack of sidewalks and safe places to
bike are a primary reason people give when asked why they do
not walk or bicycle more. Photo from City of Santa Barbara.
k of sidewalks and safe
eys have found that a la
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