Complete Streets in Tucson: what now, what next?
Last month we were thrilled to receive the news that Tucson’s Complete Streets policy was ranked among the best in the nation by Smart Growth America’s National Complete Streets Coalition. The Coalition had been ranking policies annually to showcase and highlight robust policies that can help guide and inspire other communities doing their own Complete Streets work, and to track the progress of the Complete Streets movement nationally. Annual rankings took a hiatus due to the Covid-19 pandemic which meant two things for us: Tucson’s policy ranked in the top five among a larger-than-usual pool of policies that have been adopted in the past five years and we at LSA got to practice a lot of patience while waiting for this year’s report since the adoption of our Complete Streets policy back in February 2019!
But, what has happened in the four years since the Mayor & Council unanimously adopted the Complete Streets policy?
What progress has been made?
What has changed in the way of transportation project planning and design?
What still needs to happen?
We’re here to break it down for you with the hopes that you can celebrate the wins with us and join us in our advocacy efforts for work that’s still ahead to make Tucson’s streets complete.
First, the high notes:
City of Tucson Department of Transportation Mobility was quick to move forward with some of the implementation steps identified in the policy and notable progress has been made since 2019:
Complete Streets Program Manager: Shortly after the policy was adopted a program manager was hired, which demonstrated the City’s commitment to devote staff time to lead Tucson’s Complete Streets efforts and oversee policy implementation.
Complete Streets Coordinating Council (CSCC): The CSCC was envisioned in the policy as an implementation partner bringing accountability and community oversight to Complete Streets implementation. It was established a few months after the policy was adopted and held its initial meeting in the fall of 2019. The CSCC functions differently compared to the other City of Tucson boards, commissions, and committees in that it is facilitated by neutral, professional facilitators and follows a consensus-based decision-making model as an alternative to Robert’s Rules of Order. This is by design, following the structure that was laid out in the Complete Streets policy, to function as a body that follows best practices in collaborative decision making. Its membership is diverse both in terms of demographics and by including representation from key stakeholder groups such as school communities, people with disabilities, people who regularly travel other than by car, etc.
Complete Streets Design Guide: In 2021, the City of Tucson Department of Transportation and Mobility (DTM) finalized a Complete Streets Design Guide to provide design direction in a way that forwards the intent of the City's Complete Streets Policy. One of the key elements of the design guide is the newly established street typology system that takes into account not just the transportation aspect of the streets, but also the surrounding land use context around them. This is a positive departure from traditional street classification systems as it can facilitate designing and building more people-friendly streets by prioritizing certain design elements and setting target speeds better suited for multimodal travel.
Move Tucson: In 2021, DTM was also busy working on Move Tucson, the city’s transportation master plan, which includes a prioritized project list for transportation improvements. The CSCC was integral to the creation of Move Tucson and played a key role in developing an equity-focused project prioritization tool which assigns a multiplier to increase the rankings of projects located in areas with higher concentrations of “transportation-disadvantaged populations” (such as low-income people, people of color, households without vehicles, to name a few).
And now the not-so-high notes:
There hasn’t yet been any notable progress on some of the other important implementation steps identified in the policy. To name a few:
Revising existing relevant plans, policies, and procedures for consistency with the Complete Streets policy: This one is important because while new plans and guidelines may be adopted there are others in the books that are plainly in conflict with the vision of the Complete Streets policy. The infamous Major Streets & Routes Plan is an excellent example of this which poses barriers to implementing projects that embody a Complete Streets approach. We’re heartened that Tucson Mayor & Council recently gave direction to staff to tackle Major Streets & Routes. Nevertheless, there are many other internal City policies and procedures that need a thorough review, revision, and in some cases perhaps a complete overhaul.
Moving away from auto-centric tools and metrics: (Full disclosure, this one is a bit wonky unless you’re a transportation nerd!) The idea basically has to do with moving towards multimodal level of service analysis and multimodal/urban trip generation methods to replace the traditionally more auto-centric approaches used in engineering analyses routinely conducted for a variety of purposes —from anticipating the traffic impacts of a proposed development to evaluating the feasibility of a proposed road diet project. In a nutshell, the “old school” approaches tend to perpetuate car-centric roadway designs and prioritize the movement of cars over the movement of people.
Developing performance measures and performance targets: Tracking progress and evaluating outcomes on an ongoing basis are essential to understand where Complete Streets implementation stands. The policy recommends performance measurement in three key areas. The first has to do with tracking how well the City is doing in terms of internalizing a Complete Streets approach and making it a part of its day-to-day decision making. So, things like revising those internal policy documents we mentioned above or training staff to support their professional development and better equip them with Complete Streets best practices fall into this category. The second is about new Complete Streets investments, in other words building projects on the ground that improve multimodal mobility and accessibility. The third is focused on measuring community benefits such as traffic safety improvements, changes in travel behavior, environmental outcomes like changes in air quality or tree canopy coverage, etc.
Creating a community engagement plan: The policy called for creating a community engagement plan with a particular emphasis on engaging communities that have traditionally been underrepresented in city planning and decision-making processes and identifying specific strategies for overcoming barriers to engagement associated with race/ethnicity, income, age, disability, English language proficiency, vehicle access, and other factors linked to historic disenfranchisement. While the City has been adopting strategies aimed at more inclusive engagement in the implementation of transportation projects, we believe that a community engagement plan—or perhaps a community engagement guide—outlining overarching engagement timelines, practices, and decision-making processes can serve as a useful document.
In thinking—and writing—about Complete Streets implementation, we also cannot disregard the fact that we have a preventable crisis taking place on our roadways. We had 99 fatalities in Tucson last year and Tucson is now one of the deadliest cities in the nation for people biking. This tragic toll of lives lost is largely a byproduct of prioritizing speed over safety when designing our streets. We cannot transform our streets soon enough to prevent these senseless deaths. While we celebrate the progress, we must also acknowledge the urgency to change the status quo and ensure that the Complete Streets approach outlined in Tucson’s award-winning policy is translated into our streets, saving lives and providing safe, comfortable, and dignified mobility options for every Tucsonan.
