After well over a decade of effort, fast-growing Nashville finally passed a transit funding referendum, proving that patience, perseverance and learning from mistakes leads to success.
A public bus in Nashville, TN (WeGo Transit)
The November 2024 elections will leave a lot to unpack in the coming weeks and months. So it’s understandable that you might have missed that Nashville’s $3.1 billion “Choose How You Move” transit referendum passed resoundingly on Tuesday with 66 percent support. This half-cent sales tax increase for consolidated Nashville-Davidson County will fund bus rapid transit expansion, transit service and the construction of 86 miles of sidewalk, as well as safety improvements and Nashville’s first opportunity to meaningfully invest in smart traffic signals.
Nashville’s success comes after many years of work and a previous loss at the ballot box.
Back in 2015, Transportation for America (alongside TransitCenter) led a Transportation Innovation Academy with leaders from Indianapolis, Raleigh and Nashville to share knowledge, visit cities with inspiring success stories, and help develop the local leadership to advance their transportation and transit plans. Key business leaders from each region participated, along with mayors and city/county council members, real estate pros, housing industry experts and local advocates.
Both Indianapolis and Raleigh went on to pass transit funding measures in 2016. But Nashville’s first attempt—the “Let’s Move Nashville” referendum—failed hard in May of 2018, with 64 percent opposition. TransitCenter’s in-depth analysis of the ballot measure’s failure identified several key factors: The measure was developed in an insular fashion within the mayor’s office without broad community input, rushed forward without solid plans or robust public engagement, took African American support for granted, and failed to prioritize improving the city’s limited bus service.
This time was different!
Strong leadership and a good plan
Mayor Freddie O’Connell took ownership and took the lead, developing a plan that distributes benefits across the county. This included an emphasis on bus service that could deliver more transit to more neighborhoods, and synergistic improvements such as sidewalk infill, traffic signal upgrades and safety improvements that directly benefit non-transit riders.
The Nashville Area Chamber of Commerce, a Transportation for America member, was a leading supporter just as they were in 2018. “This significant vote represents decades of work and is a triumph for Nashville’s future,” said Ralph Schulz, President and CEO of the Nashville Area Chamber of Commerce. “Mayor Freddie O’Connell deserves a great deal of credit for building a broad coalition of partners and developing a plan that people could get behind. With this investment, the Nashville region is now prepared to better capitalize on the opportunities it can provide its residents.”
In the campaign to win the ballot measure, the only substantive opposition was from a small anti-tax group “Committee to Stop an UnFair Tax.” This was in contrast to the 2018 measure, which had significant opposition from local and national conservative groups, as well as the Black faith community, who weren’t engaged on the substance of the plan nor brought into the process early enough. The campaign’s catchy but simple core message of “sidewalks, signals, service and safety” helped convey the broad benefits of the measure.
“For the first time in our city’s history, we will have dedicated revenue for transportation improvements, and that’s going to allow us to finally chip away at our traffic and cost of living issues,” said Mayor Freddie O’Connell. “We all deserve more time with our friends and family and less time just trying to get to them. Throughout this process, Nashvillians have been clear. They want to be able to get around the city we all love more easily and more conveniently.”
More good news
The money that will result from this successful ballot measure is paired with some encouraging policy developments in the city. Mayor O’Connell issued an executive order on Complete Streets and the city has adopted a Vision Zero Action Plan that will guide investments. T4America’s sister program at Smart Growth America, the National Complete Streets Coalition, has been working with Nashville’s department of transportation to train their staff and others on Complete Streets and Vision Zero implementation. Earlier this year, Nashville and the Tennessee Department of Transportation participated in Smart Growth America’s Complete Streets Leadership Academy, during which they developed quick-build demonstration projects to improve street safety while strengthening their approach to community partnerships.
Nashville is one of the fastest growing regions in the nation, but with infrequent and unreliable transit service and scores of city streets lacking sidewalks entirely, their approach to transportation has been stuck in the past. Voters were ready to do something. And on Tuesday, patience, perseverance and learning from past mistakes paid off.
Though it’s an uphill battle, national efforts to prioritize safety over speed really can gain momentum and achieve results. The Complete Streets movement is one such example.
A street in Portland, OR features a bike path, transit, and space for people walking. (Travis Estell, Flickr)
The term Complete Streets refers to an approach to planning, designing and building streets that enables safe access for all users, including pedestrians, bicyclists, motorists and transit riders of all ages and abilities. While every complete street is unique depending on a community’s local context, these streets ultimately support a variety of transportation options and enhance the quality of life for residents by promoting safety, accessibility, and sustainability.
While it wasn’t always this way, an overemphasis on vehicle travel at the expense of all other modes of transportation has resulted in incomplete streets being the default approach to transportation in the U.S. It’s our hope that decision-makers at every level will change that by prioritizing safety over speed.
The early days
The term “Complete Streets” was first coined in 2003 by Barbara McCann, who now serves as the Senior Advisor to the Associate Administrator for Safety at the Federal Highway Administration. Two years later, she helped form the National Complete Streets Coalition, now a program of Smart Growth America. This coalition has played a crucial role in advocating for Complete Streets policies and practices over the last 20 years.
One of the landmark moments in the movement’s history occurred in 2009 when the National Complete Streets Coalition released its first Complete Streets Policy Guide. This guide provided a comprehensive framework for communities to develop their own Complete Streets policies. An updated policy framework, released last year, which serves as a national model of best practices to create a policy at any level of government. Click here to see the updated framework.
Successes and ongoing challenges
The impact of Complete Streets policies can be seen in numerous cities across the United States. For example, the city of Portland, Oregon, is renowned for its successful implementation of Complete Streets principles. Portland’s emphasis on cycling infrastructure, pedestrian-friendly design, and transit options has contributed to its reputation as a model for sustainable urban transportation.
Similarly, New York City’s implementation of Complete Streets features, such as protected bike lanes and pedestrian plazas, has transformed its streetscape, making it safer and more accessible for residents and visitors alike. These examples underscore the potential of Complete Streets to create more vibrant, equitable, and sustainable urban environments.
Despite the successes, the Complete Streets movement faces several challenges. Implementing these principles often requires overcoming entrenched interests and overcoming budgetary constraints. Additionally, achieving broad public support and ensuring that all community members benefit from Complete Streets projects can be complex. The number of people hit and killed while walking continues to rise across the country, reflecting the need for decision makers at every level to prioritize safety over speed. Click here for the National Complete Streets Coalition’s reflections on the path ahead.
The Complete Streets movement reflects a growing recognition of the need for transportation systems that serve all members of society, and change is far from over. Over the past 20 years, the concept has evolved from a visionary idea to a widely accepted approach that is reshaping the way we think about and design our roadways. As cities continue to embrace Complete Streets principles, they pave the way for more equitable, sustainable, and livable communities, setting a new standard for how we envision and experience our public spaces.
Investments and policies that support car travel at the expense of all other transportation options have helped create a culture of driving in the U.S. Investing in a variety of transportation choices, like opportunities to bike, walk, and take public transit, would improve safety and accessibility for all.
Before the car started to take off in the early 1930s, streets were for everyone. Wagons, walkers, bikers, horses, they all utilized the street to get to daily activities and destinations. Pre-Industrial Revolution Americans would walk between 10,000 and 18,000 steps per day, and high rates of walking and biking to work or school continued throughout the late 60s. Because the street was so widely used by many different forms of transport, it functioned as a public space, a place where children could play as much as cyclists could bike to the store.
NYC Parks Photo Archive
When cars began rising in popularity in the 1920s, they entered a space not designed for them, posing a danger to other travelers. The public grew alarmed at rising death tolls and vehicle crashes, calling for reduced vehicle speeds and more protections from the car. Automakers, dealers, and enthusiasts flipped their narrative, advocating for legislation and funding campaigns that sought to regulate and restrict where people could walk and bike.
The latter campaign succeeded, but it didn’t make our streets safer. Instead, streets ultimately became a place where quick, convenient car travel is often prioritized over the safety and comfort of all other road users. In 2022, the number of people hit and killed while walking reached a 40-year high.
The illusion of choice
Post-WWII in the United States was a time of world-building, of focusing on creating a brighter future for the country in the aftermath of destruction. The infrastructure that came along with this shift made suburban lifestyles the ideal, and the car a symbol of freedom. A combination of economic incentives and a deprioritization of dense, mixed-use development led to sprawling cities with destinations spread far apart, connected by high-speed roadways.
Today, Americans are driving more for the same basic tasks. Research from Transportation for America and Third Way found that households in both rural and urban areas are driving significantly farther per trip as of 2017 than they were in 2001 to accomplish their commutes and daily tasks. Often, driving is the only convenient, safe, and reliable transportation option available, requiring households to shoulder the cost of a vehicle in order to access their daily needs. When people can’t afford regular access to a vehicle, when their car breaks down, or when they otherwise don’t have the ability to drive, they must navigate a transportation system that wasn’t built for them.
Decisions made in the past have left our streets incomplete, prioritizing one way of travel over a wealth of other options. Complete Streets are streets that are safe for all users and that connect community members to the resources they need. This blog is the first installation of a four-part series on the Complete Streets movement. Keep an eye out for our next blog, where we’ll dissect the origins of the Complete Streets movement and what it aims to achieve.
Quick-build projects prioritize affordable, rapid, and temporary solutions to inaccessible and unsafe streetscape conditions. Through this approach to project implementation, communities are able to set an example that establishes the need and precedent for continued change in their urban environment.
Short-term, low-cost projects can deliver valuable insights and bring the community together. (City of Fayetteville, AR)
What are quick builds?
Smart Growth America has a variety of resources on how quick builds develop and what they can achieve. Access them here.
In recent years, the practice of installing rapid, low-cost, and temporary improvements to public space has gained popularity. These initiatives, often called “tactical urbanism” or “quick builds” emphasize action, prioritizing short-term projects designed to improve street safety, public spaces, and enjoyability of the streetscape for all users.
There are many groups around the country utilizing quick builds in their communities, and all share a common goal of using low-cost materials to experiment with and gather input on potential design changes. While quick builds can create impressive changes to spaces, their real power lies in illustrating what works, what doesn’t, and what our urban spaces should look like.
Quick-build projects may look and work very differently depending upon the community’s needs; however, the approach remains similar. These initiatives work in the gray area, opting to avoid bureaucratic processes or expensive materials which delay changes to public spaces. They’re especially useful when a community needs to inspire action because it draws attention to perceived shortcomings, widens public engagement, deepens understanding, gathers data, encourages people to work together, and tests solutions.
Smart Growth America has been integrating quick builds into their Complete Streets initiatives through technical assistance projects across the country, testing new street designs and innovating best practices. In November 2022, Smart Growth America launched their most recent Complete Streets Leadership Academy (CSLA), a series of virtual sessions and in-person workshops designed to support community-led quick-build projects on state-owned roads. One of the goals of these projects was to strengthen relationships between state DOTs and local jurisdictions to help pave the way for further change.
Mike Lydon and Anthony Garcia’s book, Tactical Urbanism: Short-term Action for Long-term Change, illustrates examples of how the approach can be utilized and includes a toolkit to guide project planning and implementation. According to the guide, any initiative utilizing Tactical Urbanism should consist of three main principles: safety enhancement, ability to adapt across project implementation, and constant innovation.
Small actions lead to big changes across the nation
Projects like quick builds have been utilized to make significant changes to urban spaces since the early 2000s. Former New York City Department of Transportation Commissioner, Janette Sadik-Khan, has stated that a rapid quick-build-style approach was key to her work in New York City from 2007-2013. Sadik-Khan’s initiatives during the time included the implementation of 400 bike lanes, the launch of CitiBike, the building of 60 pedestrian plazas, and, most notably, the closure of car access on Broadway through Times Square.
The projects utilized quick-build approaches such as rapid implementation and the use of impermanent materials, and with support from leadership and funding to back them up, the eventual development of these initiatives into permanent structures points to quick build projects’ ability to push design changes across the finish line. The precedent set by Sadik-Khan has changed the way the country thinks about transportation, an impact we can see across the nation as multi-modal transportation initiatives expand.
With innovation and adaptation as key principles in these temporary and low-cost projects, it’s no surprise that the advocacy strategies for the approach have evolved over time. One example of this is the work of Vignesh Swaminathan, known on TikTok as Mr. Barricade. Not only have his short social media videos inspired and educated people around the world, but his work as a consultant put more quick builds into practice.
In 2019, Swaminathan worked with the City of San Jose, California to lay ten-miles of temporary protected bike lanes. Swaminathan helped the city save on the installation by coordinating lane installations with planned repavings and the use of plastic vertical bollards and bus stop islands. The city eventually plans to replace the plastic barriers with concrete islands, making the lanes permanent.
At the corner of Church and Center, a temporary project turns led to permanent intersection improvements. (City of Fayetteville, AR)
Shaping progress with community engagement
Some government leaders are using temporary, low-cost projects to put power into people’s hands. In Fayetteville, Arkansas, the city government has created an online application for citizens to gain approval for projects which will ultimately influence the city’s planning and development. The city has also developed a guide to community-led tactical urbanism which helps residents plan and implement projects. If government entities want to have an impactful role in urban infrastructure evolution, they can’t act alone—these processes require mutual trust, community buy-in, and participatory community feedback.
When government officials, practitioners, and community members come together to reap the benefits of quick builds, the practice can bring multimodal streetscapes to life. This provides an opportunity to test the effectiveness and popularity of design changes. Quick builds offer a mechanism to make small short-term safety improvements again and again, teaching us how to make our streets safer in the long term, too.
The rising rate of pedestrian fatalities is a consequence of deadly design decisions that prioritize driver speed and convenience over the safety of all other road users. Today, we dig into one example: crosswalk signals.
As communities work to advance safe streets, they must also ensure that these efforts lead to design changes that effectively integrate with the technology managing traffic flow for all users. Many walk signals are timed based on outdated standards that prioritize maximum green time for all motorized vehicle movements. Signal timing gets reviewed on a case-by-case basis, leveraging a manual last published in 2015 that isn’t supplemented often to consider the diverse needs of pedestrians, such as people with disabilities, seniors, cyclists, or parents with strollers.
Walk signals are just one example of how our infrastructure prioritizes the speed of vehicles over the safety of other road users. This practice comes at a deadly cost.
We are in the midst of a historic and alarming increase in the number of people struck and killed while walking, which has been on a steady rise since 2009, reaching levels not seen in more than 30 years. Speed is the number one culprit in these fatalities. Speed is also the best predictor of whether or not a collision will result in an injury or death. Design elements, including effective traffic signals, are essential to reducing speeds and improving safety.
If not designed correctly, intersections can be one of the most dangerous places where folks in and outside of cars interact. There are many recent examples of places that experience a high number of crashes at crosswalks. Saint Paul, Minnesota is a prime example of this. In 2016, Shelby Kokesch was killed while attempting to cross Kellogg Boulevard, a busy thoroughfare, from the Minnesota History Center. Though Kokesch used a marked crosswalk, it lacked a stop sign or a crossing signal. While one car pulled over to let Kokesch and her mother pass, the second vehicle—an SUV—did not stop.
At the time, Saint Paul responded with higher traffic enforcement around crosswalks, ticketing drivers who failed to stop at marked crosswalks and yield to pedestrians. During the crackdown, Sergeant Jeremy Ellison reflected, “An overwhelming response from people is, ‘I didn’t see them.’ People are not paying attention and they’re driving too fast.”
This is a design problem—and it has a design solution
Signalized intersections draw attention to pedestrian crossings and help ensure that traffic comes to a complete stop before travelers enter the crosswalk. Street design can be more influential on driver behavior than speed limits or enforcement alone. Complete Streets—an approach to designing streets that prioritizes the safety and comfort of people who walk, bike, and roll—can lead to slower driver speeds, reducing the risk of crashes and roadway fatalities for folks both in and outside of cars.
Designing an intersection with safety in mind can take a lot of different forms, such as shortening the length of an intersection by reducing the number of vehicle lanes—or by ensuring appropriate time to cross the street. Walk signals and walk signal timing also play an important role by giving pedestrians adequate time to cross. For example, leading pedestrian intervals allow pedestrians to begin crossing the street before cars turn right or left, signaling to drivers that pedestrians are present and making it easier for them to see and yield to other people using the road.
One aspect of a Complete Streets approach is practicing effective community engagement. Administering walk audits with a variety of road users, community residents, and decision makers can assist municipal planners in determining whether a signal offers enough time to cross the street. By implementing this approach, planners and engineers can experience a street in the same way as the people who travel on it every day. Using this method can allow cities and states to make their streets safer and more accessible.
Pedestrian fatalities will continue to rise until we prioritize the safety of all road users over the speed of a few. The effective use of crosswalk signals, combined with other elements of safe street design, can reduce the danger on our roadways and ensure that everyone can safely get to where they need to go. Learn more about a Complete Streets approach here.
The term “Complete Streets” was coined two decades ago, and while a lot of progress has been made, the fight for safe streets is far from over. To commemorate 20 years of the Complete Streets movement, we’ve rounded up some resources that can help you keep up the fight.
Thousands of planners, engineers, and others in government, consulting, and public interest groups have worked … to make safety for all users routine in policies and in practice. Now more than 1,700 Complete Streets policies are remaking transportation projects across the country.
—Barbara McCann
But we know this work is far from over. One of our three guiding principles at Transportation for America is safety over speed, a rule that we hope will guide decision makers to reduce the speed of vehicles and prioritize the safety of people walking and rolling to their essential destinations. And while some key safety programs passed in the 2021 infrastructure law, the federal spending bill left even more money available for the deadly status quo, which means we’ll need to keep advocating for safer streets at the local, state, and federal levels in the years ahead.
Our colleagues at the National Complete Streets Coalition (NCSC) are doing the same—and arming advocates with tools to join the movement. Take a look at some of their most recent resources.
1. Policy Action Guide
In partnership with CityHealth, NCSC produced this guide to equip planners and practitioners with practical resources for overcoming barriers and navigating the complexities of policy implementation. From building coalitions to crafting compelling narratives, it offers a comprehensive toolkit for effecting change at the state and local level. Access it here.
2. Complete Streets Story Map
Spread the word about the Complete Streets movement. Whether you’re a planner, engineer, advocate, or new to the smart growth space, the Complete Streets story map (produced in partnership with CityHealth) can serve as an interactive tool that breaks down what makes a Complete Street and why they’re important. The tool also features two case studies—Pittsburgh, PA and Milwaukee, WI—that demonstrate how these communities achieved their Complete Streets vision. Learn more here.
3. Policy Evaluation Tool
NCSC evaluates and scores Complete Streets policies across the country using their Policy Framework (updated just last year). Now, advocates and policymakers can do the same, using a free and open-source tool to evaluate existing or drafted local, MPO, or state-level Complete Streets policies. Use the tool.
There’s more to come
Smart Growth America will soon release a summary of their 2023 Complete Streets Leadership Academies, where they partnered with states and local communities to implement safe street design on state-owned roadways. Stay tuned to see what they learned from this year-long technical assistance project in communities across the country—and keep following us here for more opportunities to advance street safety where you live.
Two new bills introduced to Congress by Senators Ed Markey and John Fetterman make Complete Streets a minimum design mandate, redefining our road design standards and ensuring funding for the implementation of Complete Streets projects. Let Congress know these bills can’t wait!
Photo by S Chia on Flickr.
The Complete Streets process and approach to road design emphasizes safe access for all road users, including pedestrians, bicyclists, motorcycles and transit users, by prioritizing infrastructure that meets the needs of those who have historically been left behind by traditional transportation approaches. Senators Markey and Fetterman have put forward a pair of new bills that would make Complete Streets a minimum design mandate, taking the first steps toward a new safety mindset that will ensure all road users have access to safe, equitable transportation options. Learn more about these two bills below.
Building Safer Streets Act
Earlier this Congress, (just some months and a speaker ago), Senator John Fetterman introduced the Building Safer Streets Act with companion legislation introduced in the House of Representatives by Congressman Seth Moulton. This bill, introduced on October 30, 2023, aims to tackle America’s road safety crisis by modernizing our nation’s dangerous road design standards that led to over 40,000 fatalities over the past decade. To accomplish this goal, the bill would set new standards for safer streets by reforming the development process for the Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices (MUTCD) and redefining how road projects should integrate transit, multimodal, and safety features. (To understand why reforming the MUTCD matters, see our statement on its most recent update.)
Further, the Building Safer Streets Act would streamline FHWA road design practices, require the FHWA to publish new guidance to help develop multimodal streets that work in local contexts, and would no longer allow the value of time metric to be misused to increase dangerous speeds when evaluating project benefits. Ensuring benefits to all communities, the bill would change the Safe Streets for All program to give greater consideration and federal support for small and rural communities.
Complete Streets Act
On January 25, 2024, Senator Ed Markey reintroduced the Complete Streets Act with companion legislation reintroduced in the House of Representatives by Congressman Steve Cohen. This bill will provide safe and accessible transportation access for all road users by prioritizing pedestrians, bicyclists, and public transit users.
To achieve this goal, the Complete Streets Act will ensure that a greater portion of states’ federal highway funding be directed toward the development of a Complete Streets Program. These programs will allow eligible entities throughout the state to utilize program funding for technical assistance and capital improvements to support the implementation of improved sidewalks, bike lanes, crosswalks, and bus stops. Furthermore, this bill will also require states to incorporate Complete Streets standards into projects that change roadways, including construction and maintenance projects.In addition it pushes for the formal adoption of PROWAG and pushes for enhancements that are cognizant of people with physical, vision, hearing, and cognitive disabilities.
Because of a mistake by Congress in the 2021 infrastructure law, 40 percent of the new $1 billion-per-year Safe Streets for All program must be directed to planning rather than constructing tangible infrastructure projects. A clarification that the planning grants can support quick-build safety demonstration projects presents an enormous opportunity for cities and towns to directly tap the available $400 million and experiment with low-cost temporary street safety projects. This is the first of two blogs regarding opportunities to use this funding. To learn more, read part two here.
Photo by Kurt Martig, courtesy of the City of Chattanooga.
Cities and towns can typically make street safety improvements in one of two ways: they can spend their own local money on streets that they control, which comes with its own set of challenges, or they can engage their state DOT which controls federal formula transportation dollars and many of the most dangerous streets. The new Safe Streets for All (SS4A) program was so crucial because it created a new way for cities, towns, and counties to directly access federal funds to quickly create and execute on Vision Zero plans.
The program has $5 billion over the life of the infrastructure law, or about $1 billion per year. The next round of funding is expected to be made available this month, and cities of all sizes should consider applying for planning grants that can support quick-build demonstration projects.
What are quick-build demonstration projects?
Quick-builds, also known as demonstration projects or tactical urbanism projects, are temporary, low-cost improvements to test new changes to street design.
These quick, light, flexible, adaptable projects allow everyone involved—community members, transportation staff, elected leaders—to test specific designs and interventions that measurably improve safety and convenience for everyone who uses the street, all while gathering valuable feedback. They incorporate methods and designs that are proven to reduce crashes, injuries, and fatalities—documented and supported by the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA).
Even though temporary, these projects are a vital first step toward making real, tangible changes. And many demonstration projects often end up staying in place indefinitely, or (more typically) forming the basis of the design for a permanent project to come later. The process of creating and executing them builds new knowledge and partnerships—within the transportation department and even with other jurisdictions, related agencies, and advocates—that are vital for building permanent projects.
Photo courtesy of Living Streets Alliance staff. From Smart Growth America’s profile of Tucson’s Complete Streets policy.
Why should a community consider quick-build projects?
Doing something concrete—even temporarily—is a powerful way to improve safety for people walking, biking, rolling (and driving), and demonstrate an ongoing commitment to protecting all road users. It also shows how stemming the tide of preventable traffic deaths and injuries requires immediate action, creativity, and a willingness to test new things. Despite the urgent need to make streets safer immediately, even the most simple, common sense projects to build new crosswalks, widen sidewalks, add a new bike lane, or make other improvements for safety and convenience can take a lot of time and money.
Quick-build projects are one way to make some level of improvement nearly overnight at an incredibly low cost, while providing a venue for gathering valuable feedback, testing the impact of the changes, and surfacing potential pushback from community members who might oppose a permanent project. In some cases, quick-build projects end up staying in place until capital budgets and planners can execute a permanent project.
Smart Growth America will soon be releasing a summary of their 2023 Complete Streets Leadership Academy, where they worked with 10 cities and four state DOTs to design quick-build demonstration projects on state-owned roads. Stay tuned!
Demonstration projects can also be incredibly cheap. We’ve supported numerous successful demonstration projects over the last few years with grants as low as $5k-15k. Imagine what a city could do with $1 million to support a Vision Zero planning effort that’s paired with as many demonstration projects as they can build with several hundred thousand dollars?
Nearly $1 billion will be available for planning grants alone
The notice of funding availability (NOFO) from the US Department of Transportation is expected to be released sometime in February, so cities, towns, counties, metro areas or others interested in putting an application together should be getting their act together now. Unlike other USDOT grant programs that are oversubscribed, this one is far less competitive: Nearly every jurisdiction that applied for planning grants so far has been awarded funds.
In fact, over the first two rounds, USDOT didn’t receive anywhere close to $400 million in applications for planning grants. This means that nearly $450 million is rolling into this round and between $900 million and $1 billion is expected to be available for planning activities (and demonstration projects!) in this round alone. That’s an enormous sum.
This is only a temporary fix—in more ways than one
Congress made this mistake, and Congress will have to be the one to fix it. But a legislative fix is a long shot and changes to the makeup of Congress or the administration next January could complicate things further. This is just the second year of SS4A funding, and many cities already have Safety Action Plans created. As more planning funds are awarded, cities will need more capital grants instead of planning dollars. A million more demonstration projects would have a significant impact, but we need permanent changes on our streets, and more of the SS4A program should be devoted to making those permanent changes.
Finally, while demonstration projects are productive for all the reasons listed above, they’re still just short-term solutions to the long-term crisis of streets that are unsafe and inconvenient for people to use without a car. The best quick-build projects will make people safer today while also supporting and advancing local plans to apply for future implementation dollars, or create a foundation for other long-term solutions to address fatalities.
Washington, D.C. (Dec. 20) — Yesterday, the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) released the 11th Edition of the Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices (MUTCD), a document “that governs how traffic control devices communicate the design intent to the road user to safely and efficiently navigate the roadway system.” Smart Growth America and Transportation for America are glad to see FHWA include more considerations for people outside of a personal automobile and provide additional flexibility for practitioners. However, in the face of historic rates of roadway fatalities, especially pedestrian fatalities, incremental improvements are a lackluster response.
Beth Osborne, Vice President of Transportation and Thriving Communities at Smart Growth America, released the following statement:
“This update to the MUTCD did respond to some of our requests, particularly allowing transportation agencies to paint red bus-only lanes and green bike lanes. There are also long-awaited updates that could have positive impacts, such as new considerations before setting the speed limit at the 85th percentile speed and making it a little easier to justify new crosswalks.
“However, this falls short of the kind of major paradigm shift required to protect vulnerable users at a time when the United States leads the developed world in roadway fatalities. For example, while transportation agencies must consider context and the users of a road before setting speed limits at the 85th percentile speed, they may still do so even if that causes dangerous conditions. The document also indicates great concern about color and designs in crosswalks that would better draw a driver’s attention to those areas, including a misguided fear that pedestrians might actually stand in traffic to look at those colors and designs.
“Some of FHWA’s trepidation around innovation may come from a misunderstanding of how agencies use manuals like this. In our direct technical assistance programs, the MUTCD is cited as a barrier to many common-sense safety interventions in almost every state DOT. New flexibility often goes underutilized for lack of clear and strict guidance. That is because engineers understand the status quo while the flexible option requires an engineer to create something new, something most overworked agency engineers do not have time to do. Even when they do, their general council usually cautions against trying new things because flexibility does not come with the same legal coverage as a standard.
“To achieve safer streets, we stand behind FHWA’s goal to make the MUTCD a living document and look forward to continued partnership to align their intentions with results. To that end, we call upon the FHWA to improve data collection and implement a feedback loop that allows amendments to the current MUTCD as soon as 2024 to prevent more avoidable deaths. We commit to working with FHWA to modernize the MUTCD and with Complete Streets champions in their efforts to make streets safe for everyone.”
In part I of this blog series, we reviewed the evidence on three roadway safety strategies that rely on changing driver behavior—education, enforcement, and technology—to show where they fall short in making America’s roads safer. Design-based solutions, which accept and plan for human mistakes, can avoid the pitfalls of behavioral solutions. A recent report from New York City’s Department of Transportation sheds some light on which of those solutions work best—and for whom.
Streets and roads designed for safety—not speed—are tried and true interventions that reduce injuries and deaths. They require minimal driver education, because self-educating driver cues are built in. They have self-enforcing geometric features that force drivers to obey traffic laws without the threat of police violence. And while technology can be a critical part of safe road design, slower vehicle speeds lessen the need for fast-acting automated systems to avoid crashes.
What does a safely designed street look like? Fundamentally, it is a street with features—like narrower and fewer lanes, extended curbs, and bike lanes—that accept the mistakes made by human drivers and induce slower vehicle speeds to minimize the danger caused by those mistakes. Safe streets better reflect the complexity of a street with many different types of traffic, and are often called Complete Streets. Safe streets are going to look different in every place they’re implemented, since they are necessarily responsive to local contexts. But across the board, safe street design 1) lowers speeds and 2) considers all road users.
Percent change in pedestrian injuries and those killed or seriously injured (KSI). Source: NYC DOT
The results of the report show a massive impact from safe street design. In the above table, KSI stands for pedestrians killed or seriously injured. All the design features significantly reduced pedestrian deaths and injuries, with all but conventional bike lanes reducing pedestrian deaths and serious injuries by over 25 percent. These safety benefits were even more pronounced for senior pedestrians.
Percent change in driver injuries and those killed or seriously injured (KSI). Source: NYC DOT
The safety benefits also extended to motor vehicle occupants, with all the features but turn calming (which was affected by a small sample size) reducing injuries and deaths for motor vehicle occupants at nearly the same rate as pedestrians.
Street design as a core safety strategy
One of T4A’s core principles is to design for safety over speed. Read our full platform.
The cross-user benefits of safe street and road design are not unique to New York City. A review done by the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) of rural roadways in Warren County, Pennsylvania and Augusta County, Virginia found that self-enforcing, safer street design led to fewer crashes. RAO Community Health, a nonprofit in the highly car-dependent Charlotte, North Carolina, has begun modeling the benefits of safer street design to the city’s most vulnerable communities.
Every year, more states and localities all around the country recognize the safety benefits of Complete Streets, adopting policies to promote their construction. The U.S. Department of Transportation has incorporated the principles of safe street design into their national Safe Systems Approach.
The core of the success behind design is simple: it slows vehicles down. The basic fact of the matter is that vehicle speed and road safety are opposing forces. The higher a drivers’ speed, the greater risk of fatalities. No amount of education, enforcement, or technology can make up for the fact that mistakes are inevitable. Safe street design can ensure that mistakes need not be fatal.
Advocates and governments should leverage the well-documented track record of safe road design in reducing crashes, injuries, and fatalities (both domestically and internationally) to push for its adoption in every jurisdiction around the country. The Vision Zero movement has done excellent work in shifting the paradigm toward design. Nearly 40,000 people were killed on our roadways in 2020. If the U.S. wants to cut down this unfathomable number of fatalities, every community will need to rethink its road design standards.
Changes at the federal level could work to support these local efforts. For one, the FHWA needs to incorporate its Safe Systems Approach into its new Manual for Uniform Traffic Control Devices (MUTCD), the national standards for roadway design used by every jurisdiction around the country. Better national guidance on safe streets will encourage more localities to act. But it’s worth noting that the MUTCD is not gospel. State and local governments can design roads in any way they want. Advocates should remind their local officials of this fact.
Now you know what works, but how can you communicate the need for design to practitioners? Stay tuned for part III of this series, which will include useful advice on doing just that.
Sometimes we have to see it to believe it. How would street design really look if we prioritized the safety of all road users? Smart Growth America and the National Complete Streets Coalition’s latest video illustrates that when streets are designed to move as many cars as possible as quickly as possible, other road users pay the price.
The number of people struck and killed by drivers increased by an astonishing amount during the pandemic, but traffic fatalities were already on the rise long before COVID-19. For years, states and localities have focused on enforcement, ineffective education campaigns, or blaming the victims of these crashes, ignoring the role of the underlying perpetrator in these deaths: roadway design.
Right now, transportation engineers tend to favor “forgiving” street design like wide, high-visibility roadways with minimal features that would slow cars down. When all streets are designed this way, drivers are lulled into a false sense of security and speed up—doing exactly what the designs are encouraging them to do. At the same time, crosswalks and other safety elements that would slow car travel are kept to a minimum, making it inherently difficult for all other road users to travel safely.
Let’s get one thing straight: this design style isn’t “forgiving” at all. The higher a vehicle’s speed, the less response time a driver will have if they make a mistake. Without stop signs and crosswalks (features that slow drivers down), pedestrians have fewer options to cross streets safely. High speeds are also more likely to result in a fatality than an injury.
Complete Streets are streets for everyone. Complete Streets is an approach to planning, designing, building, operating, and maintaining streets that enables safe access for all people who need to use them, including pedestrians, bicyclists, motorists, and transit riders of all ages and abilities.
One way to limit the risk of pedestrian fatalities is to remove pedestrians and nondrivers from the street altogether, as we do on interstates. But what about every other type of roadway, like commercial and residential streets?
In our latest video, we take a look at the design elements that enhance street safety, and you’ll notice that they all have something in common. When we install traffic signals, bike lanes, narrower lanes, and crosswalks, drivers naturally drive at slower and safer speeds.
Properly designed Complete Streets can improve safety on residential and commercial roadways. But many Complete Streets have been implemented incorrectly, cutting corners to preserve the convenience of drivers. This unfortunate trend reflects a national culture that prioritizes vehicle speed over all else, a culture that is inherently at odds with safer roadways.
If safety truly is the top priority, streets must be designed in a way that makes dangerous behavior difficult and safe behavior easy. Only then can our streets be safe for all.
Screen grab from our recent video “Not just a way to get from A to B”, a look at Tucson, AZ’s attempts to expand Complete Streets while centering equity.
When done right, active transportation infrastructure can cut greenhouse gas emissions, improve public health, keep people safer, and promote equity. But how will the new infrastructure law’s $650 billion in formula and competitive grant programs help to build safer, Complete Streets? What policies changed to prioritize active transportation investments? Here’s what you need to know, and how you can make these programs and policies work for you.
This post is part of T4America’s suite of materials explaining the 2021 $1.2 trillion Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), which governs all federal transportation policy and funding through 2026. What do you need to know about the new infrastructure law? We know that federal transportation policy can be intimidating and confusing. Our hub for the new law will walk you through it, from the basics all the way to more complex details.
For the purposes of this piece, active transportation refers to bicycling, walking, and rolling, like on scooters, wheelchairs, segways, and other personal mobility devices—as well as the infrastructure that supports those activities, like bike lanes, trails, and safe sidewalks. These types of bike- and walk-friendly infrastructure are usually present in Complete Streets, which we define as streets for everyone—designed and managed to prioritize safety, comfort, and access to destinations for all people who need to use a street.
Getting more people out walking, biking, and rolling can have enormous benefits to public health, climate, economic growth, and equity. But encouraging more routine trips on these modes requires providing safe and convenient facilities in which more people feel comfortable and safe walking, biking, scooting, or rolling. While the infrastructure law preserves the state’s wide flexibility that most use to prioritize moving vehicles quickly over other forms of transportation, it does create new opportunities to expand and improve active transportation through Complete Streets and other projects.
What’s in the law?
Special programs or funds are NOT required for states to make sizable investments in active transportation. If improving safety and providing other travel options are important to your state or agency, the broad flexibility of the biggest federal programs allows them to shift their funding accordingly.
Active transportation and Complete Streets advocates did manage to get some key provisions into the infrastructure law in the form of both policy changes and new or improved funding opportunities. One new funding opportunity is the new $7.3 billion formula and $1.4 billion competitive PROTECT program for at-risk coastal infrastructure grants, where bike/pedestrian facilities were included as eligible projects.
Within the largest pot of funding that states and metro areas control (the Surface Transportation Block Grant program), the amount set aside for smaller but vital transportation projects like bikeways, new sidewalks, safe routes to school, and micromobility was increased from 1.5 percent up to 10 percent. The law also lets local municipalities control more of that funding directly by increasing the share of that 10 percent that they directly control from 50 up to 59 percent. Note: the other largest formula programs with which you may be familiar (the alphabet soup of NHPP, STBG, CMAQ, HSIP) have flexibility for active transportation and Complete Streets projects, but states are responsible for flexing those formula dollars for those purposes versus the status quo of valuing vehicles and their speed.
As is reflected in the table below, states and regional metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs) now have to spend at minimum 2.5 percent of their federal planning funds to adopt Complete Streets standards, policies, and prioritization plans as well as to plan for active transportation, among other goals like transit-oriented development that make active transportation easier.
The new Bridge Formula Program, meant to fix many of the nation’s worst bridges, will be evaluated based on “benefits to non vehicular and public transportation users.” Some groups are optimistic about the active transportation infrastructure that could emerge from these bridge repair projects, but there are numerous loopholes that will allow states to continue leaving these accommodations off as they repair or replace bridges. We want to see USDOT release clear guidance that these bridge projects shall provide benefits to those who bike, walk, and roll.
Most of the new opportunities in the infrastructure law come through discretionary or competitive funding programs. Here’s a brief guide to the funding programs that can be most easily used for active transportation and Complete Streets projects:
Competitive programs applicable to active transportation
Program name
Authorized funding (over five years)
Can be used for:
Should be used to:
Transportation Alternatives Program (TAP)
$7.2 billion over five years. (10% of each state’s Surface Transportation Block Grant program funds)
Projects that promote modes of transportation other than driving, with notable inclusions being anything eligible under the SRTS program and newly defined “vulnerable road user safety assessments”
Build well-planned active transportation networks that provide enough connectivity and access to induce drivers to switch their mode of travel to walking, biking, and/or rolling.
Active Transportation Infrastructure Investment Program
$1 billion, subject to annual appropriations of $200 million each year.
“Active transportation” networks (within communities) and spine (between communities) projects.
Build well-planned active transportation networks that provide enough connectivity and access to induce drivers to switch their mode of travel to walking and biking
Protect pedestrians and bicyclists not by moving them away from roads, but by making roads safer.
Promoting Resilient Operations for Transformative, Efficient, and Cost-saving Transportation (PROTECT)
$1.4 billion (competitive grant portion)
Extreme weather resilience and emergency response infrastructure.
Provide evacuation and recovery mobility to all road users. Build biking, walking, and rolling infrastructure into all resiliency plans and evacuation routes.
Local and Regional Infrastructure Project Assistance (a.k.a RAISE competitive grants)
$15 billion, up from only $4 billion spent from 2009-2020
Local or regional projects that improve safety, environmental sustainability, quality of life, economic competitiveness, state of good repair, and connectivity.
Build projects that promote active transportation. Capital projects like in Rockford, IL and northwest Indiana as well as planning projects like in Charleston, WV serve as models for successful complete streets RAISE projects.
State and regional formula programs applicable to active transportation
Program name
Authorized funding (over five years)
Can be used for:
Should be used to:
Complete Streets set-aside
2.5 percent of each MPO’s federal planning funds
Producing Complete Streets standards, facilitating planning for Complete Streets project prioritization plans, and developing active transportation plans.
$1 million minimum to states, formula based on primary and secondary school enrollment numbers. States can leverage core highway formula funds to fund the program.
Active transportation and complete streets projects, plus education or enforcement activities that allow students to walk, bike, and roll to school safely.
Build complete streets and active transportation facilities that access as many residential and commercial zones as possible.
Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality (CMAQ) program
$13.2 billion
Any transportation project that reduces emissions from vehicles, from traffic alleviation to micromobility (bike or scooter share) and electric vehicles.
Focus emissions mitigation efforts on mode-shift away from driving, specifically toward enabling active transportation.
Carbon Reduction Program
About 2.56% of each state’s total apportionment from the federal transportation program
Projects that support the reduction of transportation greenhouse gas emissions.
Give people safe and convenient options to bike, walk, or roll instead of driving by planning, designing, and building active transportation facilities.
Promoting Resilient Operations for Transformative, Efficient, and Cost-saving Transportation (PROTECT)
$7.3 billion (formula grant portion)
Extreme weather resilience and emergency response infrastructure.
Provide evacuation and recovery mobility to all road users. Build biking, walking, and rolling infrastructure into all resiliency plans and evacuation routes.
Bridge Formula Program
$26.5 billion
Replacing, rehabilitating, preserving, protecting, and construction highway and off-network bridges.
Make sure that every bridge repaired under this program includes active transportation infrastructure, not just to check a box, but to connect to adjacent active transportation networks.
How else could the administration promote active transportation?
America’s roads are increasingly dangerous for pedestrians and other vulnerable users. Without addressing that reality, biking, walking, and rolling will remain dangerous and therefore unattractive options.
Though the infrastructure law overall provides a pittance to active transportation while dumping money into the status quo, there are things USDOT can do to improve access to active transportation. For one, they can give teeth to their Safe System approach, encouraging and guiding State DOTs to develop projects that promote safe roads at low speeds. USDOT already has a statutory obligation on the books to prevent projects that “have significant adverse impact on the safety for nonmotorized transportation traffic” (23 U.S. Code 109(m)). USDOT has never enforced or codified internal procedures for that provision, so the department is actually out of compliance with the law and should rectify that with urgency.
In addition, USDOT should update the MUTCD (the street design manual that all traffic engineers use) to build active transportation priorities into road design from the start.1 USDOT should also release clear guidance on how to best utilize the 2.5 percent Complete Streets planning funds set-aside mentioned above. States and MPOs should look to enhance and improve Complete Streets networks with this funding, not just use this new funding stream for work already underway.
On a positive note, the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) released a memo that, among other things, urged states to simplify the review process for carbon-cutting safety and multimodal projects like bike lanes and sidewalks. This swift language from the administration is encouraging but not binding, and states can still spend the money however they’d like.
USDOT should immediately pursue all avenues for institutionalizing their new road safety strategy which included a full section on the importance of street design and the role it plays in unsafe speeds and safety. Their guidance on revising our broken process for setting speed limits, including moving away from the 85th percentile rule, is powerful, but will fail to have an impact if states ignore it. FHWA should be trying to enshrine this practice with their division administrators and engage state and local traffic engineers in better training.
How can the new money advance our goals?
It can be hard to measure and assess the benefits of increasing active transportation and building safer, Complete Streets. That’s one reason why we at Smart Growth America produced a Benefits of Complete Streets tool to help local communities better measure the potential benefits to health, safety, environment, and economy (using an equity approach) of Complete Streets in your community. Let’s zoom in on how we can maximize climate and equity benefits from the new infrastructure money.
Climate
Vehicle travel is a key contributor to U.S. emissions, so providing people and goods with mobility alternatives is a clear win for climate. But this is a challenge for such a vehicle-dependent country. A 2018 survey found that travel distance and fatigue were the two main reasons why many vehicle trips were not replaced with bike trips. As such, new federally-funded projects should make walking, biking, and rolling as easy, safe, and fast as possible. Walkability audits and assessments, like this survey conducted by the City of Milwaukee in 2021, can help cities plan for Complete Streets and active transportation facilities in the places where they will have the most impact and shift as many trips as possible away from vehicles.
Equity
Biking, walking, and rolling in low-income communities are often hazardous, unpleasant, and inconvenient modes of travel. Good multi-use paths are often located in the wealthy enclaves of many American cities rather than more marginalized communities. This is a major factor contributing to the higher incidence of pedestrian deaths among BIPOC and low-income people. Cities with equitable active transportation plans use two key strategies: data collection and community engagement. Two good examples: Baltimore, MD models equitable data collection in their Complete Streets performance measures and Huntsville, AL has done great community engagement for their demonstration projects. With these strategies in place, every active transportation project has a stronger chance of creating positive equity outcomes and being strong contenders for competitive grant funding from the infrastructure law.
So what?
A new bike lane won’t have much impact if it just connects to dangerous roads on each end. As former Pittsburgh DOT head Karina Ricks said in this terrific video about their city’s Complete Streets policy, it really requires a complete network approach to build Complete Streets and create safe connections that connect many people to many destinations. Despite all the new funding programs, eligibility, and carve-outs, federal funding for active transportation and Complete Streets is still dwarfed by the hundreds of billions of dollars in funding for roads and bridges. Many of those projects will expand roads and increase vehicle speed, making walking, biking, and rolling more dangerous and inconvenient.
States and localities should be ready to combat this by utilizing their limited active transportation funding in the most effective way possible. And states should use their considerable formula money flexibility to advance active transportation and Complete Streets (they have the authority to do so.) This will include utilizing the above strategies to maximize benefits, but it will also mean positioning for competitive grant application success. Local leaders will benefit from understanding the flexibilities within each funding program so they can make sure they get their share from their state and MPO, whether those entities are friendly to active transportation or not.
The deep irony here is that for all the promises made by Congress about improving safety and providing more options for people to get around, it will be up to state and local leaders to do the heavy lifting to deliver on those promises and get the most out of this law’s modest provisions for active transportation and Complete Streets.
(For more information on active transportation and Complete Streets funding in the infrastructure law, check out our funding brief on the topic.)
After the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) and USDOT issued a report to Congress this week about Complete Streets, Beth Osborne, Vice President of Transportation at Smart Growth America—the home of the National Complete Streets Coalition—issued this statement:
“This simple but critical concept of Complete Streets—designing our streets so that everyone can use them safely—was created within our National Complete Streets Coalition almost 20 years ago. After years of working tirelessly to encourage towns, cities, counties, states and the federal government to adopt this approach, we are deeply encouraged to see the concept enshrined and institutionalized within official USDOT documents, including this report. FHWA has done an excellent job in clearly laying out and describing the actions that are needed throughout the entire federal transportation program to truly build safe streets and roads for all people, including getting better safety data, assessing safety in project development, and making safety the primary goal and Complete Streets the default design.
“The title of this report is also telling. There are certainly ‘Opportunities and Challenges’ when it comes to making our streets safer and more convenient. Now we need to turn those challenges into opportunities and opportunities into reality. Every day the status quo approach stands and transportation agencies are allowed to design, build, or maintain their streets only for cars is a day where we allow the historic levels of death on those roadways to continue. This report gives us a path forward—one that needs to be acted on in the immediate future.
“The National Complete Streets Coalition will continue our hands-on work with states and localities to advance Complete Streets policies and upend our country’s outdated paradigm for street design that has produced a historic increase in traffic injuries and fatalities. We look forward to working closely with FHWA to turn their excellent recommendations into action.”
The National Complete Streets Coalition and Transportation for America are programs of Smart Growth America.
Smart Growth America and the National Complete Streets Coalition, with partnership and support from CityHealth, produced a series of videos telling the story of Complete Streets policies in three U.S. cities. These videos provide insight into what Complete Streets policies can accomplish, what makes for an effective policy, and strategies for complete streets implementation.
Don’t miss our videos about three cities that have passed a policy and are now doing the work to make the transportation system safer and more accessible for all members of their community.
About Complete Streets and these videos
Complete Streets are streets for everyone—designed and managed to prioritize safety, comfort, and access to destinations for all people who need to use a street. Complete Streets policies can help cities transform how they make decisions about their streets. Done right, these policies can help cities improve public health and address longstanding inequities in the transportation system. The National Complete Streets Coalition at Smart Growth America has been advancing the adoption and implementation of Complete Streets policies for two decades to ensure that everyone who needs to use our streets—no matter how they get around—can safely and comfortably do so.
CityHealth and the National Complete Streets Coalition at Smart Growth America recognize cities with exemplary Complete Streets policies—a key step in producing safer streets that can be used by everyone. Learn more at cityhealth.org and completestreets.org.
Pittsburgh, PA
In Pittsburgh, the need and demand for modes of transportation beyond car travel was clear when former Mayor Bill Peduto and the City Council passed the 2015 Complete Streets ordinance, creating the Department of Mobility and Infrastructure (DOMI), and starting the ongoing process of creating space for transportation modes beyond car travel. Though a Complete Streets policy didn’t change Pittsburgh overnight, the policy serves as a blueprint that will outlast individual mayors and DOMI directors and continue guiding Pittsburgh towards safer streets.
If you are a mayor, look at your population. And if your population needs multiple different ways to get from point A to point B, then you have a responsibility. Because mobility not only affects being able to get to work, it affects being able to get to the doctor, it affects being able to get food. And in fact, the greatest factor in economic mobility is the ability to get from point A to point B.
Bill Peduto, mayor of Pittsburgh, 2014-2022
Hear from
Mayor Ed Gainey
Bill Peduto, mayor 2014-2022
Kim Lucas, acting director of DOMI
Karina Ricks, former director of DOMI
Erika Strassburger, City Councilmember, District 8
Louisville, KY
“A lot of our high-intensity traffic areas are also in the same areas that our poorest health outcomes are occuring at. Now we have the opportunity to try and correct that.” —David James, City Councilchair & co-sponsor of the Louisville Complete Streets ordinance
Adopted in 2019, the Louisville, KY Complete Streets policy is newer, but some changes are already underway in the city, including simple design changes to Bardstown Road, a neighborhood main street that was instead engineered to move as many cars as possible as fast as possible, at the expense of moving all people safely and enhancing a valuable destination. In the video, city council members, city transportation staffers, and a Louisville resident describe the changes they’ve observed in the city and why they are excited to see implementation continue.
Hear from
David James, City Council Chair & co-sponsor of Complete Streets ordinance
Cassie Armstrong, City Councilmember
Dirk Gowin, City of Louisville, Transportation Division Manager
Amanda Deatherage, City of Louisville, Transportation Planner Supervisor
Jackie Cobb, Louisville resident
Tucson, AZ
For three years, local groups, including the Living Streets Alliance, advocated for a Complete Streets policy in Tucson in response to the city’s pedestrian injury and fatality rate. The policy was adopted unanimously in 2019. Now, the city is focused on implementing the policy in the communities that need safety and public health investments most.
We’re using safety as a key driver…as well as investing in areas of our community that have historically seen lower levels in investment…where you see residents that are going to be more dependent on walking, biking, taking transit as their primary means of transportation, and they’re gonna face [street safety] risks at higher levels.
Patrick Hartley, City of Tucson, Complete Streets Coordinator
Right now, the city is building hundreds of miles of bike boulevards throughout the city, and as they restripe streets, they’ve found opportunities to expand bike lanes, narrow car lanes, and even drop travel lanes on larger roadways that don’t have much traffic. Residents look forward to a safer, healthier, and more equitable city.
Hear from
Mayor Regina Romero
Patrick Hartley, City of Tucson, Complete Streets Coordinator
Evren Sönmez, Living Streets Alliance, Director of Strategic Policy and Practice
There are ample opportunities for the infrastructure law to support good projects and better outcomes. These five in-depth, detailed guides explain the available federal programs for funding public transportation, passenger rail, Complete Streets and active transportation, and EV infrastructure.
We boiled down the funding opportunities within the federal transportation program, with a focus on how much flexibility there is for transit, intercity rail, Complete Streets and EV infrastructure. These more sophisticated guides are especially helpful for very engaged advocates or agencies who are looking for in-depth specifics about funding and program eligibilities.
The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (the IIJA, or 2021 infrastructure bill) is the law of the land, guiding all federal transportation policy and funding decisions through at least late 2026. On top of the infrastructure law’s $102 billion in competitive or discretionary grant programs, the established formula funding programs also have considerable but typically untapped flexibility for funding projects across the transportation infrastructure spectrum, such as the main source of highway funding going instead to certain transit projects.
In addition to the approved IIJA, the (stalled) 2021 budget reconciliation bill, the Build Back Better Act (BBBA), would bring additional major investment in sustainable and equitable transportation. While that bill is on hold for now, record investment is still on the way through the IIJA. 2
While the bulk of the new IIJA funding will just advance the status quo, these bills, taken together, do better acknowledge the importance of climate change, equity, safety, and connecting communities.
We can have it all: a federal transportation program that reduces carbon emissions while boosting our economy. The House of Representatives led the way last summer with the INVEST Act, a bill that starts the work of connecting federal funding to the transportation outcomes Americans—including our businesses—need. Here’s how.
A Washington, DC street in June 2020. Photo by Ted Eytan in Greater Greater Washington’s Flickr pool.
Transportation is the largest source of carbon emissions in the United States, and the majority of them come from driving. Infrastructure investments that give people more options than hopping in the car are key to reducing these emissions. And luckily, these investments are great for our businesses, too.
When the House of Representatives passed the INVEST Act last summer—a transportation bill that took huge steps toward aligning funding with the outcomes Americans want (getting to where they need to go)—we took a deep dive on the parts of the bill that do the most to reduce emissions. It’s not just one “climate title”—reducing emissions is in the bill’s DNA.
With the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee holding a hearing this Wednesday on the “business case for climate solutions,” let’s revisit the climate measures in the INVEST Act to see how they boost our economy.
Investing in public transit = good for business
As our partners Smart Growth America found in their report Core Values, businesses are relocating to transit-accessible downtowns to attract talent, bringing economic development with them. Yet the federal transportation program works against this trend. Public transportation has been underinvested in for decades, with the few federal funds transit receives undermined by overwhelming highway funding that doubles down on sprawl—an environment where transit can’t succeed.
The INVEST Act increases transit funding by 47 percent, while also overhauling policies that have long obstructed transit as a truly viable option in communities, as we wrote last summer. The bill incentivizes transit agencies to increase service frequency, reversing policies that in practice incentivized agencies to do the opposite in order to decrease operating costs to the detriment of transit service.
Members of Chambers for Transit—our coalition of over 35 local chambers of commerce fighting for robust public transit investment—know that increased transit investment improves access to jobs, sparks new development, and creates the kinds of vibrant communities that can attract a talented workforce. (That’s why Chambers for Transit sent a letter to the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee last week.) It also improves access to the economy for people of color and low-income people, who make up larger shares of transit riders.
Measuring access, not vehicle speed = good for businesses
Businesses want the federal transportation program to invest in projects that improve people’s access to jobs and services—not increase vehicle speeds. That’s why so many of our Chambers for Transit members support using new technologies to prioritize projects that improve people’s access to the things they need. (This is one of our three principles for transportation policy).
For decades, the federal transportation program has done the opposite, measuring the success of its investments by vehicle speed. This doesn’t take into account whether or not people actually arrived at their destination. And it encourages states and planning organizations to build more and wider roads. This pushes homes and businesses farther apart from each other, making it much more difficult to walk, bike, or use transit, while in the long-haul, making congestion worse and increasing vehicle miles traveled and emissions. It also limits access to the economy to people who can afford to and are able to operate a car.
To build the type of communities where you don’t have to drive everywhere, we need to measure success by access: how many destinations you can reach from your home by any mode. The INVEST Act transitions the federal transportation program to just that.
Through a new performance measure, the INVEST Act requires recipients of federal transportation funding to improve people’s access to jobs and services, whether they drive, take transit, walk or bike. This will direct more funds to projects that shorten or eliminate the need for driving trips. The bill also requires states to measure and reduce greenhouse gas emissions from their transportation system. States that reduce emissions can be rewarded with increased flexibility, while states that fail to reduce emissions will face penalties.
Improving safety to make it easier to walk and bike = good for business
Connected, walkable neighborhoods vastly economically outperform neighborhoods where the only way to get around is by driving—especially in terms of real estate. For-sale housing in dense, walkable neighborhoods in the 30 largest metropolitan areas were valued nearly double more than the rest of the for-sale housing market in those regions, as found in Foot Traffic Ahead, a 2019 Smart Growth America report.
It’s not just real estate: businesses thrive on streets safe for biking and walking, as expertly highlighted (with great photos, too) by our friends at Strong Towns. You’re much more likely to cross the street to grab a cup of coffee if it’s safe and easy to do so. And with pedestrian fatalities skyrocketing across the country, there are too many streets where that is impossible.
The INVEST Act takes a comprehensive approach to make walking and biking safer through a combination of increased funding, policy reform, and better provisions to hold states accountable, as we wrote last year. Some of the bill’s safety provisions include:
Requires states to adopt Complete Street design principles and makes $250 million available for active transportation projects including Complete Streets
Changes to how speed limits are set to prioritize safety results over a faster auto trip.
Requires states with the highest levels of pedestrian and bicyclist fatalities to set aside funds to address those needs.
Prohibits states setting annual targets for roadway fatalities that are negative—in other words, targets that assume the current trend line of increased fatalities is unstoppable, essentially accepting more fatalities every year as an unavoidable cost.
Reducing transportation emissions has a host of other benefits
To reduce transportation emissions, we have to give people more viable transportation options than driving. That means public transportation, biking, walking, and incentivizing community growth where destinations aren’t sprawling.
Not only are these investments good for our businesses, but they improve equity too, by removing the $10,000 barrier to enter the economy—the average annual cost of car ownership. These investments also increase transportation access for people with disabilities or people unable to drive, and they significantly reduce air pollution, too—one of the largest risk factors for bad cases of COVID-19.
If Congress wants to help our businesses embrace the 21st century and fight climate change, it’s time to invest in transportation that works—not new roads to nowhere.
With Congress writing long-term transportation policy this month, we need to make sure that this bill doesn’t continue the broken status quo. This week, we need you to take action to support the Complete Streets Act.
With the Senate writing long-term transportation policy right now, our Month of Action is going full-steam ahead. Thank you if you took last week’s action to send our template reauthorization letter to your member of Congress.
For Week 2, we need you to take action to support the Complete Streets Act.
The number of people struck and killed by drivers while walking increased by 47 percent over the last decade, as our partners at Smart Growth America found in the latest edition of Dangerous by Design, to be released tomorrow. We are in the midst of an astonishing safety crisis as the United States has become—over decades of broken policy—an incredibly deadly place to walk.
But a handful of leaders in the U.S. House and Senate have introduced a bill that would finally require states and metro areas to design and build safer streets for everyone. The Complete Streets Act of 2021 is desperately needed but it will take your support—and the support of your members of Congress—to get this bill passed into law.
Keep an eye out tomorrow for Dangerous by Design 2021, Smart Growth America’s report showing how dangerous each state and the largest metro areas are for people walking.
Last Thursday, former South Bend mayor Pete Buttigieg faced the Senate for questioning on his nomination to be Secretary of Transportation. We liked almost all of his answers, and we weren’t alone: Senator Tester said Buttigieg’s testimony was “refreshing.” Here’s what T4America liked and didn’t like from Buttigieg’s confirmation hearing.
Former South Bend mayor Pete Buttigieg facing the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee as President Biden’s nominee to be Secretary of Transportation. Screen grab from C-SPAN.
✅ Complete Streets is a priority for Buttigieg
When answering a powerfully-worded question from Senator Schatz (D-HI), a cosponsor of the Complete Streets Act, Buttigieg confirmed his commitment to a Complete Streets approach. He even highlighted the Complete Streets projects that took place in South Bend. (Smart Growth America provided technical assistance to South Bend to pursue Complete Streets demonstration projects.)
“It’s very important to recognize the importance of roadways where pedestrians, bicycles, vehicles, any other mode can coexist peacefully. And that Complete Streets vision will continue to enjoy support from me if confirmed,” Buttgieg said.
✅ Our “autocentric view” is a problem
Doubling down on his commitment to Complete Streets, Buttigieg noted that transportation in the United States overwhelmingly prioritizes cars. “There are so many ways that people get around, and I think often we have an autocentric view that forgets historically all of the other different modes,” Buttigieg told Sen. Klobuchar (D-MN). “We want to make sure that every time we do a street design that it enables cars, bicycles, and pedestrians, and businesses and any other mode to coexist in a positive way. We should be putting funding behind that.”
✅ Addressing past damages is a priority
Transportation infrastructure—particularly urban highways that have demolished and divided communities of color—is sometimes a major roadblock to improving equity in this country. Buttigieg knows this and told senators so in his opening remarks. “I also recognize that at their worst, misguided policies and missed opportunities in transportation can reinforce racial and economic inequality, by dividing or isolating neighborhoods and undermining government’s basic role of empowering Americans to thrive,” Buttigieg said.
✅ Policy hasn’t kept up with automated vehicles
Automated vehicles (AVs) is one of the transportation technologies that often captures lawmakers’ imagination. But in response to Sen. Fischer (R-NE), Buttigieg acknowledged that the federal government has failed to provide the leadership necessary to ensure that AVs actually deliver the benefits they promise. “[AV technology] is advancing quickly and has the potential to be transformative, but in a lot of ways, policy hasn’t kept up,” Buttigieg said.
This couldn’t be more true. After investigating deaths from two separate AV crashes, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) billed the utter lack of federal safety performance standards as one of the causes for the fatalities.
But proactive federal policy is needed for more than just ensuring that AVs are safe. Policy is needed to ensure that AVs are equitable, accessible, and sustainable. That’s why we joined Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety and other partners in creating tenets for AV policy.
✅ He supports passenger rail
Buttigieg said he’s the “second biggest enthusiast for passenger rail in this administration,” referring of course to President Biden, a long-time rider and fan of Amtrak, as the first. “Americans deserve the highest standard of passenger rail,” Buttigieg said.
When Sen. Roger Wicker (R-MS)—a major supporter of restoring passenger rail to the Gulf Coast—asked Buttigieg if he’s a rail rider himself, Buttigieg said he enjoys short rail trips “and long ones too.” In light of Amtrak’s proposal to cut its long-distance network, this might signal Buttigieg’s support for those critical routes.
✅ The BUILD program should be easier to apply for
The U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT) offers a host of grant programs for cities and towns to construct and maintain transportation infrastructure. But the application process is often daunting for smaller entities. As mayor of a small city that wasn’t able to have “full-time staff managing federal relations,” Buttigieg told Sen. Wicker (R-MS) that making BUILD and INFRA grants easier for small and rural municipalities to apply for are one of his priorities.
“It’s very important to me that this process is user-friendly, that criteria are transparent, and that communities of every size, including rural communities and smaller communities, have every opportunity to access those funds,” Buttigieg said.
✅ Senators on both side of the aisle support Buttigieg
Buttigieg felt the love from both sides of the aisle during his confirmation hearing, with Sen. Tester (D-MT) going as far to say that Buttigieg’s testimony should serve as a model for other nominees facing Senate approval. Sen. Wicker (R-MS) listed Buttigieg’s accomplishments in his opening statement, praising his “impressive credentials that demonstrate his intellect and commitment to serving our nation.”
With slim Democratic majorities in both the House and Senate, bipartisanship will be key to passing surface transportation authorization. But historically, infrastructure is one the areas where lawmakers bipartisanly agree to pass bad policy—rather than ruffling feathers and taking a hard look at what the federal government spends money on and why. (We blogged about it here.) It will take lots of work—like the herculean effort the House underwent this summer to pass a new kind of transportation bill—to make sure that the long-term transportation bill lawmakers must pass this year actually connects funding with the outcomes Americans want.
🚫 His climate answer only mentioned electric vehicles
When Sen. Schatz asked about Buttigieg’s approach to climate change, Buttigieg only discussed electric vehicles, charging infrastructure, and increased vehicle fuel efficiency as a solution. Yet it’s a fact that electric vehicles and improved fuel efficiency—while critical—aren’t enough to reduce transportation emissions on their own.
While we applaud Buttigieg’s support of President Biden’s “whole government” approach to addressing climate change (meaning that climate work isn’t confined to a single department like the EPA), we need Buttigieg to understand that USDOT needs to do more than invest in electric vehicles as a climate solution.
We like what we heard. Now let’s make sure it happens
Buttigieg might be one of the most promising new Secretaries of Transportation that we’ve seen, but we must hold him accountable to following through on these initiatives. Now is not the time to lay back: we have a lot of work to do to ensure that USDOT does what it can internally to connect transportation funding to the outcomes Americans want (like our three principles) and that Congress passes a long-term transportation bill that ends decades of broken, misguided policy.
The following blog post is co-authored and published in partnership with the League of American Bicyclists, a national non-profit advocating to make cycling accessible and safe for all Americans, and the National Complete Streets Coalition, a non-profit, non-partisan alliance of public interest organizations and transportation professionals committed to the development and implementation of Complete Streets policies and practices and a program of Smart Growth America.
For decades, state departments of transportation have treated pedestrian and cyclists fatalities like weather events: something that increases simply as people drive more, putting these deaths outside of the control of DOTs. But with COVID-19 proving this to be false, it’s past time for state DOTs to implement performance measures to reduce the number of people killed while walking or biking. Here’s our comparison of state safety targets.
(Update: 2/2021 – This post originally stated that the number of states setting targets to improve fatality/injury numbers was increasing each year, which is not the case. 18 states set negative targets in 2018, and 20 states did so in 2020. That language has been changed. – Ed.)
Transportation policy can take a long time. In 2012, Congress passed the Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century Act (MAP-21) which required the US Department of Transportation (US DOT) to establish a safety performance measure to assess federal investments in transportation. In 2016, the Obama administration promulgated a final rule. And now, in 2020 the US DOT has assessed state safety performance measures.
Most transportation advocates believe that performance measures are critically important to the future of federal transportation policy. Performance measures require data collection by states, regular reporting assessed by US DOT, and result in financial impacts for states that do not meet performance targets. While this concept is pretty simple, it is a profound shift in transportation policy towards accountability. It is also more important than ever in 2020, as the rate of roadway fatalities jumped 20 percent, even though driving was down 17 percent due to Coronavirus-related travel restrictions
Non-motorized safety performance measures were opposed by 23 state DOTs and the American Association of State Highway Transportation Officials. They exist thanks to the work of many advocates, including nearly 10,000 individuals who contacted the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) during the rulemaking process.
The good news: In every year that states have set safety targets, most states (at least 30) have set targets that would reduce non-motorized fatalities and serious injuries. If state DOTs are serious about reaching zero traffic deaths, this must continue and they must do more to make these targets come true.
The bad news: Many states are setting safety targets that anticipate more people dying or being seriously injured while biking and walking. In 2020, 20 states set safety targets of more deaths and serious injuries—more than the 18 that did so back in 2018. For those 2018 targets, six of those 18 states exceeded even their grim targets of increased fatalities and serious injuries. At least 10 states have targets that are clearly trending up, sometimes dramatically, including in states with very poor safety records for people biking and walking. This implies that those states do not have a serious theory for reducing non-motorized fatalities and serious injuries or are not serious about reaching zero traffic deaths. And these bad targets are in the context of the US making much less progress on traffic deaths than peer countries.
Pennsylvania’s safety targets versus average fatalities and serious injuries
For example, Pennsylvania has never set a non-motorized safety target that was lower than the 5-year baseline average for fatalities and serious injuries. The FHWA assessment was that Pennsylvania has not met its target or made significant progress. The state’s targets have trended up significantly, implying that the state has no serious plans to reverse its poor performance.
A little more than a third of the states that FHWA found met their safety performance target across all modes had higher levels of non-motorized fatalities and serious injuries than their 5-year baseline average. This means that despite data showing that people who bike and walk are less safe, these states will not be incentivized to spend Highway Safety Improvement Program funds on safety improvements for people who bike and walk.
Safety performance target assessments
The FHWA cautions against drawing conclusions based upon its safety performance target assessments. Each state sets its target in a unique way and missing a target may mean different things in different states. Sometimes these differences are notable, like Florida setting a target of zero, although the state has no chance of meeting that target (the state of Florida also notes by their own target that they expected the rate of driving to have a greater impact on safety than anything else).
We believe that there are still lessons to be learned from comparing state targets assessments and here are a few.
1. The non-motorized safety performance target as the worst performing safety target.
More states failed to meet their target and more states failed to improve relative to their baseline than any other type of target.
2. Only four states—Delaware, Hawaii, Rhode Island, and Vermont—set a goal to decrease non-motorized fatalities and serious injuries and achieved it.
This low rate of meeting reduction targets is unlikely to be due to overly ambitious targets (like Florida’s target of zero) because more than 75 percent of the states that missed their target to reduce non-motorized fatalities and serious injuries performed worse than their 5-year baseline average.
3. Only 32 percent of states performed better than their five-year baseline average.
This is understandable given that pedestrian and bicyclist deaths hit 30-year highs in the period assessed, but highlights the widespread nature of pedestrian and bicyclist safety problems.
4. Four of the five states with the most bicyclist and pedestrian fatalities—California, Florida, New York, Texas, and Georgia—performed worse than their five-year baseline average.
New York was the only state to improve upon its average. Florida and Georgia were the only states in this group that set targets to improve.
States that fail to meet their own targets (some of which are targets to have less safe roadways) suffer very minor consequences—all states have to do is spend safety funds on safety projects and submit an implementation plan. But for the first time, thanks to Congress requiring performance measures, we can see how they are performing and hold them to account.
For decades, many departments of transportation (like Florida stated in their safety report) and transportation experts have claimed that increases in driving dictate increases in traffic fatalities and serious injuries. This claim allows transportation agencies to treat traffic fatalities somewhat like weather events — outside of their control. However during the COVID-19 pandemic, we have seen that this claim cannot be true. The National Safety Council found in the first six months of 2020, the rate of roadway fatalities jumped 20 percent, even though driving was down 17 percent. Transportation agencies must recognize their responsibility to make safe systems rather than claiming they are powerless to make roads safer.
The United States has reached a point where the transportation sector is the go-to example of a sector where deaths are tolerated. Congress, and decision makers at all levels of government, need to take decisive action to reorient the transportation sector to prioritize safety. The House INVEST Act took important steps to prioritize safety and Congress should build upon those steps in the future.
Transportation for America and the National Complete Streets Coalition released this statement regarding the principles for infrastructure released today by the House majority of the Transportation & Infrastructure Committee:
The new transportation policy framework released today by the House majority and Chairman Peter DeFazio could finally represent a long-awaited step toward aligning the billions we spend on transportation with the outcomes people care about: fixing crumbling infrastructure, prioritizing saving people’s lives on our roadways, and connecting people to jobs and daily necessities. For the last 40 years, lawmakers have largely focused on pouring more money into a broken federal program that fails to hold states accountable for maintaining our infrastructure, produces more congestion, makes safety secondary, and fails to affordably and efficiently connect us to the things we need. It’s high time to stop spending billions on a broken system, and these principles would be a transformative guide as Congress crafts a transportation law to serve the country’s greatest needs.
These structural changes to core formula programs are the highest priority, particularly:
1. Fix it first. For decades, presidents, governors, and members of Congress have decried our crumbling infrastructure with increasingly dire warnings. However, funding has gone to fund expansions that we can’t pay for rather than focusing on repair needs. Taking a fix it first approach will deliver on the age-old promise to fix what is crumbling.
2. Safety over speed through Complete Streets. Since the beginning of the highway program, the priority has been to move vehicles quickly, creating unnecessary danger on roads in cities and towns, especially for those outside of a vehicle. Implementing Complete Streets policies is an essential tool in prioritizing the safe movement of all road users, and stemming the current increase in non-motorized deaths. A forthcoming bill that focuses on Complete Streets and other safety improvements within the transportation formula funds would be a huge step in the right direction.
3. Access to jobs and services. The point of transportation is to get people where they need to go. Since the dawn of the modern highway era, we have used vehicle speed as a poor proxy for access to jobs and important services like healthcare, education, public services, and grocery stores. The way we build roads and design communities to achieve high vehicle speed often requires longer trips and makes shorter walking or bicycling trips unsafe, unpleasant, or impossible. Having transportation agencies consider how well the system connects people to the things they need whether they travel by car, transit, bike or foot would be a game changer.
We are also happy to see a focus on retrofitting vulnerable infrastructure to prepare for inevitable natural disasters, funding public transportation and getting transit projects done more quickly, and putting real funding into the country’s passenger rail network. These changes, along with proposals to address safety and access for all users, would have a very positive impact on providing economic opportunity to more people and reducing greenhouse gas emissions from the transportation sector.
As the proposal moves from an outline to full legislative draft, we will watch with interest to see how the House Transportation & Infrastructure Committee chooses to craft the program to fund projects of regional and national significance to support community investments. We are also interested to learn whether the committee believes a 80/20 split between highways and transit is still warranted considering that nearly a third of the program is paid for with general funds instead of user fees.
As long-time advocates for structural reform to the transportation program, we’re cautiously optimistic that the House majority can translate this framework into policies that are tied to clear outcomes and will leave the status quo behind.
