Complete Streets policy updates
A Complete Streets approach provides many community benefits. A new promotional video from MnDOT showcases how Complete Streets help improve safety, advance transportation equity, strengthen local economies and support healthy, climate-resilient communities.
This new communication resource offers an engaging way to introduce the importance of Complete Streets and what MnDOT is doing to build safe streets across Minnesota.
Active Transportation Advisory Committee Seeking Members
MnDOT is seeking local members for the newly formed Active Transportation Advisory Committee. The Committee will launch in fall 2023 and help guide new state active transportation funding, programming, and implementation policies.
The Committee will be composed of 18 community members and 11 direct appointments from state agencies. This legislatively authorized committee will advise and make recommendations to the Commissioner of Transportation and the MnDOT Active Transportation Coordinator to direct this new program, funding, and resources. Members will serve 4-year terms and are expected to attend bi-monthly or quarterly meetings. Apply at the Secretary of State website.
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Complete Streets Research & Report Updates
Designing Pedestrian Safety Features for Year-Round Maintenance
Pedestrian safety is a priority for MnDOT, including in winter. A new MnDOT research report offers recommendations on Designing Pedestrian Safety Features for Year-Round Maintenance. Safety features in the pedestrian-roadway interface—such as walkways, curb ramps and refuge islands in medians—need to be sufficiently maintained. The design of these features, however, has generally not considered winter maintenance needs.
Researchers identified ways to improve year-round maintainability of pedestrian areas, including working with maintenance professionals on designs, ensuring adequate snow storage areas and clarifying responsibilities between agencies and property owners. Specific suggestions for features such as curb ramps, speed bumps, median islands and crosswalks entailed using more durable materials; having adequate drainage; and providing guidelines for shapes, dimensions and sizes.
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Best Complete Streets Policies
Since the beginning of the Complete Streets movement in the early 2000s, more than 1,700 Complete Streets policies have been adopted in jurisdictions of all sizes and contexts across the United States. A new national report from Smart Growth America scores the top-ranked Complete Streets policies passed from 2019 to 2022 and highlights best practices and good policy frameworks. Scores are based on the organization’s Complete Streets policy framework, which focuses on the process and implementation to effectively create changes in projects.
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Funding for Complete Streets
The U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) is accepting applications for the new Reconnecting Communities and Neighborhoods Grant Program. The streamlined program, which combines two different programs created in President Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and Inflation Reduction Act, will increase opportunity for communities that seek funding for projects that address harm from past infrastructure planning decisions, accelerate equitable community revitalization, and improve access to everyday destinations.
Building or improving Complete Streets is an eligible project type under the Capital Construction category of the new RCN program. Funds for the Fiscal Year (FY) 2023 RCN Program will be awarded on a competitive basis for projects that advance community-centered connection transportation projects, with a priority for projects that benefit disadvantaged communities by improving access to daily needs; fostering equitable development and restoration; and removing, retrofitting, or mitigating transportation facilities that create barriers to community connectivity. Applications must be submitted via Valid Evalv, an online proposal submission system used by USDOT, by September 28, 2023.
More information
Visit the Complete Streets website for more information and resources.
Contact
Nissa Tupper, Transportation and Public Health Planning Director, nissa.tupper@state.mn.us
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