Complete Streets: Could it happen here?

This post was written by John Bennett

October 17, 2007

Via the always informative, Streetsblog, comes great news today, at least for residents of Illinois:

“In near-unanimous votes, the Illinois House and Senate have overridden a gubernatorial veto to adopt a statewide complete streets law.

The new law requires the Illinois Department of Transportation to include safe bicycling and walking facilities in all projects in urbanized areas, and is a victory for the movement to create complete streets that serve the needs of all road users. It is effective immediately for project planning and required in construction beginning August 2008.”

How does that compare with our state’s policy? According to a document prepared by Georgia Bikes! (emphasis mine):

“The Georgia Department of Transportation’s current policy is that they will automatically incorporate bicycling and walking features in new, widening, and reconstruction projects when such are identified in a locally adopted plan.”

Our local bikeway plan is now at least seven years old. Is it time to modify it to correspond with planned GDOT projects?

It’s fun to imagine what Savannah would be like if a Complete Streets mandate were applied to all road projects and not just those funded by the GDOT. It’s even more fun to imagine what Savannah would be like had a Complete Streets mandate been in place for the last 25 years. I have to think it would be a whole lot easier to ride a bike from the west side of the Truman Parkway to the new Target store and that there would be less traffic congestion as a result. Where else could the Complete Streets philosophy be applied to good result in Savannah? Where would you like to walk or ride, but currently can’t because of inadequate facilities?

Posted in Government, Planning, Transportation