What are Complete Streets and why should you care?
“Complete Streets” is a term used to describe streets where you feel comfortable as a driver, a walker, a bicyclist or a transit user. They are designed, operated and maintained to enable safe, convenient access for users of all ages and abilities regardless of their mode of transportation. A rural complete street may look different from an urban complete street, but they both satisfy the same needs of their users across multimode transportation.
Some of the top benefits to Complete Streets are:
- Empowering the mobility of the aging, disabled and economically challenged
- Supporting better health by creating streets that encourage walking and bicycling
- Attracting millennials who desire transportation options
- Increasing property values
- Increasing tourism
- Promoting economic growth.
Why do Complete Streets work? A town or city’s road design and maintenance can accommodate all forms of mobility creating neighborhoods in which people can easily visit, shop, work and play. The main street is no longer simply a drive-through or a temporary stop at a traffic light. An interstate highway is an example of a road where the main objective is to drive through; however, a municipal downtown street should be designed to serve a broader purpose enabling commerce, supporting community involvement, and allowing those who don’t drive to reach essential services. The distances involved can be short enough where walking or biking is viable and the planning and design would look to encourage them.
A majority of the states in the USA have adopted Complete Streets as their guiding approach to street design, management and maintenance. So far, New Hampshire has not. With the support of Bike Walk Alliance of NH (BWANH) and other organizations, some brave and innovative municipalities have adopted Complete Streets including Concord, Portsmouth, Keene, Dover, Lebanon, Swanzey, Troy and Hinsdale. Additional communities are in the process of creating such policies including Harrisville, Jaffrey, Walpole, and Winchester. However, without a statewide policy Complete Streets will not be implemented across all towns nor on the interconnecting state roads.
BWANH believes that adopting a Complete Streets policy for NH would have the most impact over the long term in producing a more balanced transportation network, encouraging walking and biking, and resulting in our towns and rural areas reaching their economic potential. Citizens would lead more productive and healthy lives. BWANH’s prime policy focus, therefore, has been a Complete Streets policy adopted by the state and put into practice at the state and municipal level.
BWANH has made key progress in achieving this statewide policy goal. As well as supporting the towns, BWANH led the effort to create a Complete Streets Coalition in 2015 which resulted in a study committee on Complete Streets. This has led to new legislation being proposed and hopefully implemented soon.
