The UCLA Complete Streets Initiative, led by the Lewis Center with support from the Luskin Center, recently hosted its annual Complete Streets Conference. Janette Sadik-Khan, Commissioner of the New York City Department of Transportation, gave a keynote lecture that culminated the day with inspiring stories from NYC. This year’s conference focused on Pathways to Implementation, in response to the growing number of cities that are beginning to implement Complete Streets projects and move toward institutionalization. The conference brought together 300 participants, which included researchers and practitioners leading the Complete Streets movement. The conference included panel discussions, breakout sessions, and dialogue with Commissioner Sadik-Khan.
This year’s conference focused on Pathways to Implementation in response to the number of cities that have implemented or are beginning to implement projects on the ground. Anastasia Loukaitou-Sideris, UCLA Luskin Associate Dean and Urban Planning Professor, detailed the results from a recently published report, Reclaiming the Right-of-Way: A Toolkit for Creating and Implementing Parklets. She highlighted the number of case studies and common practices found among them. The first panel discussion of the conference included representatives from the cities of Los Angeles, Pasadena, and Seattle, who discussed how their municipalities shifted pilot complete streets projects into municipal programs. The morning closed with presentations on transportation finance including a discussion of operation cost considerations, the leveraging of highway safety improvement program funding to build out a bicycle network, and how cap-and-trade revenues have the potential to bring a new funding source to local transportation options, including Complete Streets projects. Speakers also discussed their efforts to build into early stages of their projects plans for evaluating the outcomes of their Complete Streets efforts. They discussed the importance of documenting successes – as well as lessons learned – as a way to build future support for Complete Streets.
Following the networking lunch, three concurrent sessions were held, including: Engineering Complete Streets in Constrained Corridors, Empowering Community Members and Engaging with Elected Officials, and Safe, High-Performing Streets. These break-out sessions allowed for thoughtful discussion and debate between conference participants and speakers from practice and academia. UCLA Urban Planning alumnus Andrew Lee presented some of the practical engineering challenges and solutions in modifying San Francisco’s Market Street. Santa Monica Mayor and L.A. Metro Board Member Pam O’Connor’s reflected on strategies for communicating Complete Streets strategies to elected officials. The communication theme expanded into the Safe and High-Performing Streets panel as the presentations covered how safety is communicated and defined, in terms of collision and personal safety.
Presenters from the Safe and High-Performing Streets session (L-R) Peter Furth, Northeastern University, Wes Marshall, University of Colorado, and Menaka Mohan of the Prevention Institute.
The conference’s final panel of local, state, and federal officials discussed some of the challenges in implementing projects at the local level, and how state and federal policies are changing in response to the need for updated design standards and metrics, and for technical resources that incorporate housing and community development strategies.
In the penultimate presentation of the day, Lewis Center Director Brian Taylor remarked on the tangible progress in planning and policy since the first UCLA Complete Streets Conference:
“In the three short years that UCLA has hosted this event, the tone has shifted – dramatically. We began with critiques of current practices and sometimes plaintive calls for what could be, and we now have a rapidly growing number of successful projects.”
The Complete Streets Conference closed with a keynote presentation from New York City Transportation Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan. The Commissioner discussed how New York City has achieved transformational change in its streets over the last five years. She pointed out that if city leaders clearly articulate a vision and pursue it with constant public engagement, transformational change is possible. Key to the success of New York’s efforts was the city’s ability to implement big and lasting changes quickly and tangibly through small and low-cost efforts. “Change used to take years,” she said. “Now with paint, stones, and street furniture, we can change things overnight.”
She also remarked on the role of the media and public opinion polls in dispelling beliefs that can often stymie positive change:
“Pollsters got interested
[about the bike backlash] and interestingly they found 66% of New Yorkers supported the bike lanes and 72% of New Yorkers wanted bike share. So remember this, the headlines do not always translate into the opinion of actual people… they can actually be miles apart.”After Commissioner Sadik-Khan’s remarks, UCLA Urban Planning’s Distinguished Professor Emeritus Martin Wachs led an armchair discussion with the Commissioner on how these monumental changes occurred and some of the challenges she faced along the way. In her conversation with Wachs, Sadik-Khan’s recipe for change included the breaking down of silos, using data to drive decisions, and never being afraid to make decisions which can change the landscape of the city.