T4America Blog

News, press releases and other updates

Posts Tagged "complete streets"

Safety over speed week: The U.S. builds death traps, not streets

We took a look at one busy road outside of Orlando where a dozen people have been struck and killed by drivers in recent years. The mix of high-speed traffic with people walking, biking, and taking transit is a dangerous combination; in the event of a crash, people die. The Complete Streets Act of 2019 would go a long way to give local government more resources to redesign these dangerous streets so everyone can travel along them safely.

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On National Walking Day, too many Americans are still having to endure unsafe streets

While we missed recognizing National Walking Day last week while the Complete Streets conference was happening in Nashville, we wanted to come back this week and revisit a post from 2012 looking at what’s actually keeping more people from walking in many of our metro areas.

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TIGER grants focus on rural areas, recognize the value of complete streets, and ignore transit

Just a month after the Trump administration proposed a budget that would eliminate the competitive TIGER grant program entirely next year, the US Department of Transportation announced the winners of this year’s awards. This year’s winners show a clear shift in priorities — this round is decidedly rural or small town in nature and nearly devoid of transit projects. However, the winners also show that this administration recognizes how smaller-scale complete streets projects bring tremendous value to local communities.

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Join us for the only national conference about arts, culture and safer street design

Smart Growth America’s arts and culture team and National Complete Streets Coalition, now in partnership with the Urban Land Institute, invite you to the only national conference focused on the intersection of arts, culture, and building safer, complete streets.

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Help show just how dangerous our streets can be for people walking

This fall, our colleagues at the National Complete Streets Coalition will release Dangerous by Design 2016, a report that will again rank the nation’s most dangerous places to walk using the Pedestrian Danger Index. This year’s report will dive deep into how income, race, and place play an outsized role in how likely people are to be killed while walking. And they’re looking for your help when it comes to illustrating just how bad it can be out there.

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Webinar wrap: How MPOs are prioritizing public health to build prosperous regions

Last week, we had a discussion detailing how public health professionals are working with regional transportation planners to plan, fund, and support building more state of the art active transportation projects — accompanying the release of Measuring What We Value: Prioritizing Public Health to Build Prosperous Regions.

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Metropolitan planning for healthier, safer, more prosperous regions

How can the planning agencies in metro areas strengthen the local economy, improve public health outcomes for all of their residents, promote social equity and better protect the environment? Join us for the story of how a handful of metro areas have found smart, data-driven ways to better conceive, select and build the transportation projects to better meet those regional goals.

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Feds get out of the way of communities that want to design safer, more complete streets

Two encouraging moves made by the Federal Highways Administration in the last week clear the way for states, metro areas and local communities to use their federal dollars to design safer, more complete streets.

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Find out who made the “Best Complete Streets Policies of 2015” list tomorrow (4/12)

More than 80 communities passed Complete Streets policies in 2015, and these policies are some of the strongest and most effective ever passed. Which policies stood out as the best? Find out tomorrow when Smart Growth America’s National Complete Streets Coalition unveils the annual ranking of the best Complete Streets policies in the nation.

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2,100 letters delivered to FHWA in support of easing restrictive street design regulations

Earlier this week, with our partners at the National Complete Streets Coalition, we delivered nearly 2,100 letters to FHWA supporting their proposal to ease the onerous federal design standards that make it needlessly difficult for local communities to build safer, more complete streets.

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How MPOs can save money and improve safety by adopting complete streets policies

As we continue to unpack the helpful material contained in our Innovative MPO guidebook, our fifth webinar in the series coming up on December 3rd will take a closer look at how metropolitan areas (MPOs) can actually reduce costs and improve safety for their residents by adopting complete streets policies and using those policies to help select projects.

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With conference underway, how do the House and Senate bills stack up?

While the multi-year transportation bills passed by the House last week and the Senate back in July are fairly similar, there are still some notable differences between the two. With the conference committee getting underway to reconcile the bills, it’s worth looking at the similarities and differences.

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USDOT proposes to remove restrictive design guidelines that make safer streets more difficult to build

The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) took an encouraging and surprising step, proposing to ease federally-mandated design standards on many roads, making it dramatically easier for cities and communities of all sizes to design and build complete streets that are safer for everyone.

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Join us on Thursday for an inside look at transportation reauthorization in Congress

The current federal transportation bill will expire on July 31, 2015, with the nation’s transportation fund reaching insolvency near the same time. Join us Thursday for a public conversation about what’s likely to happen in Washington and what it all means for your community.

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Governor Cuomo signs Complete Streets legislation as New York Times surveys pedestrian safety in Orlando

NY Governor Andrew Cuomo’s decision to sign complete streets legislation is a step forward for pedestrian safety, though a Times report out of Orlando yesterday illustrates how much further we have to go. The status-quo for most people on foot or on bike around the country is woefully unsafe and insufficient, though perhaps nowhere more so than in Florida.

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New York Complete Streets clears legislature, awaits Governor Cuomo’s signature

Complete streets legislation passed both the New York State Senate and Assembly unanimously this week and awaits Governor Andrew Cuomo’s signature. Once the legislation becomes law as expected, New York State will follow in the footsteps of hundreds of other states and municipalities that have already started prioritizing the needs of all users on their […]

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Seniors and transit report generates widespread coverage and discussion

Last week, we released Aging in Place, Stuck without Options, documenting the more than 15.5 million Americans 65 years and older who, by 2015,  will live in places with poor or non-existent public transportation. The report ranked metro areas according to the percentage of seniors projected to face poor transit access, and asked: How do […]

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Coastal Alabama advocates make Complete Streets in Mobile a reality

With the echo of the latest pedestrian fatality figures still ringing, a city in the deep South became the latest, albeit unlikely, place to adopt a Complete Streets policy. To paraphrase the song: if it can happen there, it can happen anywhere. When people think of “infrastructure,” images of roadways and grids tend to come […]

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Complete Streets bill introduced in House, policies gaining in popularity across the country

Yesterday’s release of the bipartisan Safe and Complete Streets Act of 2011 is an affirmative step toward ensuring the safety and convenience of America’s streets for everyone. H.R. 1780, sponsored by Representatives Matsui of California and LaTourette of Ohio, would require state transportation officials to consider the needs of pedestrians, bicyclists, transit riders and people with disabilities, as well as motorists.

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Once a critic, now a supporter, Ohio Rep. helps make complete streets bill bipartisan

Rep. Steve LaTourette (R-OH) probably learned the hard way earlier this year that safe, accessible streets for bikers, walkers and all users don’t tend to have any party affiliation, and he is to be commended for proving his support for complete streets by signing onto the House complete streets bill last week, becoming its first Republican cosponsor.

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