Complete Streets: Road to Better Quality of Life

BRADENTON – At Tuesday's Work Session, Manatee County Commissioners were given an update report on the stated goal to be a Complete Street community.

Complete Streets are not defined as a roadway network but as a mobility strategy that provides public transit, pedestrians, cyclists and automobiles with access to neighborhoods, shops, parks and workplaces in both urban and rural areas.

They are made up of roads equipped with two-way bike lanes and wide multi-use sidewalks to service all travelers. They are endowed with landscaping and access to accommodating services and designed to be business friendly.

Manatee County has embraced the Complete Streets concept and is currently incorporating it into their Land Development Code (LDC). Many of the highways slated to be built will be of the Complete Street design. With the redevelopment of urban infill projects, Complete Street design presents opportunity, says Matthew West, AICP, Project Manager with Littlejohn, the Environmental Services and Engineering Company assisting with the rewrite of the county's LDC.

Littlejohn has also become a major player in the redesign of Manatee County's Urban Corridors, incorporating mixed-use residential and commercial attached dwellings and design guidelines.

Complete Street Projects present opportunity to redesign utility locations that are holstered together into a simpler accessible beneath the streets formula. Sewers, electrical services, landscape irrigation and water supply safely tucked away and maintained through access points.

West introduced Commissioners to Edgewater Drive in Orlando, where after finishing a Complete Street project, collisions dropped 40 percent, crash rates were cut in half and injuries fell by 71 percent–within the first year.

In addition, automobile traffic decreased by 12 percent, bicycle counts increased by 30 percent and pedestrian counts increased by 23 percent.

West presented BOCC members with a variety of projects that have benefited from adopting Complete Street projects with what West calls promoting a 'road diet.' Slowing down the traffic and traveling by cycle or by foot increases business for small shops and corner stores.

Currently 15th Street /301 Boulevard, in Manatee County is going through a revitalization that has Complete Streets design at its core. Hopes are to revitalize what was once an avenue of private business that slowly fell to blight resulting from urban sprawl.