The primary election approaches. As your district candidate explains the importance of sign planting efforts, consider asking him or her to explain the importance of complete streets.
Consider your vote with reference to the answer ... or the absence of one.
Complete Streets Are a Bargain, by Laura Searfoss (at Sustainable Cities Collective)
... As a recent analysis by Smart Growth America’s National Complete Streets Coalition demonstrates, using a Complete Streets approach is one of the best transportation investments a community can make.
Examining before and after data from 37 projects redesigned with Complete Streets goals, this study found:
Streets were safer: Automobile collisions declined in 70 percent of projects, and injuries declined in 56 percent of projects.
This safety has financial value: Each collision that a safer street helps to avoid represents avoided costs from emergency room visits, hospital charges, rehabilitation, and doctor visits, as well as the cost of property damage. Within our sample, Complete Streets improvements collectively averted $18.1 million in total collision costs in just one year.
Complete Streets encouraged multi-modal travel: The projects nearly always resulted in more biking, walking, and transit trips.
They are remarkably affordable: The average cost of a Complete Streets project was just $2.1 million—far less than the $9 million average cost of projects in state transportation improvement plans. And 97 percent of Complete Streets projects cost less per mile than construction of an average high-cost arterial.
They play an important role in economic development: These findings suggest that Complete Streets projects were supportive of higher employment, new businesses, and property values. Several projects saw significant private investment since their completion.
No comments:
Post a Comment