Vision
- The City of Huntsville has an adopted and implemented Complete Streets Policy.
- New and reconfigured streets are designed and constructed in accordance with the Complete Streets policy, wherever feasible.
About
A complete street is a road that is designed with all users in mind, a street that moves people, not just cars. There is no one kind of complete street; it is less a type, and more of an approach. The idea is to get as much as we can out of the streets we build by looking at:
- Where they go to, and where they pass through
- What places they connect
- Who uses them
- How they are developed
A Complete Streets approach would help ensure that flow is safe, steady and efficient. However, some streets serve as much as “places” as they do paths. In these cases, a Complete Streets approach would help ensure that all modes are safely accommodated, and that the environment along the street is attractive and inviting.
Huntsville recently won a prestigious Complete Streets grant, wherein national experts came to our city to help develop policies and best practices for building and retrofitting Huntsville’s future street network. In the coming years, our streets will work even better to move cars, bikes, pedestrians, transit… and whatever other new modes the future might bring!
The criteria for selecting potential Complete Streets infrastructure are:
- Low to moderate traffic. Current daily traffic counts show there won’t be a huge disruption during construction of new infrastructure.
- Excess capacity. Corridors that are “too wide” for their current daily traffic counts, so these corridors can afford to go on a “road diet.”
- Destinations along a corridor. A Complete Street should be one that has places for pedestrians, cyclists and transit riders to go.
Actions
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Convene an internal City work group that will meet at least yearly – ideally during budget planning – to identify and prioritize potential candidate segments for Complete Streets re/configuration.
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Reconfigure Clinton Ave. from the VBC to Butler Green to improve bicycle and pedestrian accommodations.
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Develop plans and an implementation schedule for a Holmes Avenue treatment from Lincoln St. (Downtown) to Explorer Boulevard.(in CRP).
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Discourage “double frontage” lots, so that connector streets are not walled off with back yard fences.
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Update street typologies to provide refined options for street designations that allow for more sensitivity to use and context.
Last modified: November 1st, 2018 at 2:27 pm
