New Jersey

Complete Streets Summit

October 21, 2013#NJBikePed #STChat

The mission of Strong Towns is to support a model for growth that allows America's towns

to become financially strong and resilient.

Complete Streets is a rational response to irrational thinking.

The second oldest profession?

Traffic EngineeringA relatively new profession

Trial and Error

Forgiving Design

• Widen lanes

• Flatten hills

• Smooth Curves

• Increase shoulders

• Add clear zone

The “standard”

Complete Streets is a rational response to irrational thinking.

Complete Streets accommodatepedestrians within an auto-

dominated environment.

Everything has it’s place….

Resolve conflict with priority

What are the values we apply?

Engineer’s Approach

• Traffic Speed

• Traffic Volume

• Safety

• Cost

Public’s Approach

• Safety

• Cost

• Traffic Volume

• Traffic Speed

Engineers will gladly build Complete Streets….

….because they can keep their value system.

Are we building a street or a road?

ROADS v. STREETSWhy is this so important?

Building Roads

Diminishing Returns

Reduced Travel Time Growth

Negative ROI

Negative ROI

High Return Investments

$1,136,500

$803,200

High Return Investments

Highway Oriented $0.6 million/acre

Traditional Pattern $1.1 million/acre

It is not enough to accommodatepedestrians within an auto-

dominated environment.

It is not enough to accommodatepedestrians within an auto-

dominated environment.

Productive Places accommodateautomobiles within an

environment dominated by people.

People create value

Shared Space

Shared Space

Productive Places – places scaled to

humans – cost less to build and have

greater financial returns than those

built strictly for automobiles.

Safe Routes to School

$200 million

Schools on un-Safe Routes

$9 billion

Now Available…

www.StrongTowns.org

www.StrongTowns.net

Deal Stopper

Swiss Firetrap?

Where are you more likely to die from a fire?

The fire fatality rate in the U.S. is 5x that of Switzerland.The U.S. approach emphasizes response time and suppression while the Swiss

approach emphasizes prevention.

A tragic irony

Our wide streets allow us to quickly respond to the collisions caused by our wide streets.