St Louis Complete Streets bill coming to vote Friday

Friday, June 11th, 2010, the St Louis Board of Aldermen will vote on a bill to create a Complete Streets policy for the city.

How you can help

Best thing you can do to help support Complete Streets in St Louis is to write the St Louis alderman and ask them to support the bill.  Sample message:

Please support the Complete Streets bill, Board Bill 7 sponsored by Alderman Cohn. 

The full list of Board of Aldermen and a link to send each an email message is here.

Details about the St Louis Complete Streets proposal

See the full text of the St Louis complete Streets proposal here.

According to the West End Word article:

“This has already been adopted at the federal level as part of their funding requirements,” said 24th Ward Alderman Shane Cohn, the bill’s main sponsor. “It’s incumbent and imperative on us to get with the program.”

While the bill has received wide support and had 17 co-sponsors, some of the aldermen had concerns about implementing the policy citywide. . . . 

John Kohler of the city’s Board of Public Service helped write the bill and described it as something that simply formalizes a process that has already been established within the BPS; when reviewing transportation or streetscape projects, the board members already consider how the plans address pedestrian needs and access to public transportation, Kohler said.

But there’s not yet any official checklist used by BPS or the St. Louis Development Corporation, another city organization that oversees public development projects. The passage of Cohn’s bill would help create such a list, though, Kohler said. . . . 

Bike and pedestrian advocacy group Trailnet has been working on creating this bill for more than two years, even before Cohn was elected to the Board of Aldermen. When Cohn was elected, Trailnet approached him to introduce the bill, said Phil Valko, active living program manager for Trailnet.

Valko said that several other cities across the country have adopted the Complete Streets philosophy, most notably Seattle and Chicago; closer to home, Ferguson and DeSoto, Mo., have also adopted the program. Cities that switch to Complete Streets often face a couple of challenges, most notably in changing the mindsets of city employees, Valko said.

Creating Complete Streets policies at the city, state, and national levels is an important part of MoBikeFed's Vision of Bicycling and Walking in Missouri.