Road Conversions: A Tool for Complete Streets

Traverse Area District Library Sept. 20, 2011 5:30-7:30

Intr o du ctio n: How do you provide effective, efficient and pleasant access to people, goods and services for all users within limited public rights of way? Communities face these questions when building and retrofitting their transportation infrastructure. Road conversions, or road diets, are one tool that can be used to improve the transportation network. By removing and narrowing travel lanes, communities are able to add bicycle lanes, sidewalks and green buffers along corridors; at the same time they are likely to achieve a more efficient system and increase safety for all roadway users. Traverse City is looking at their own corridors for future improvements -- Garfield Avenue and 8th Street are anticipated to begin in the near future and road conversions may be a good tool for portions of these corridors.

The pur pose of this public f or um is t o incr eas e familiarity with r oad conv ersi ons and how they can be used as a tool t o achiev e com plet e s treets s o t hat citiz ens, planners and local trans port ation offi cials m ay be bett er prepared t o engage on thes e iss ues.

Agen da: 5:30 6:00 6:20 6:40 7:00 7:30 Arrival, greetings and introductions William Clark: introduction to road conversions Andy Kilpatrick: the challenges, lessons learned and opportunities discovered applying road conversions Follow-up questions Wrap-up with time left for 1-1 discussion. Meeting closed.

Biogra phie s: William Clark, Bicycle and Pedestrian Planner for URS Corporation in North Carolina and now in Traverse City. (Currently spends the majority of his time biking his two kids wherever they want to go.) Andy Kilpatrick, Transportation Engineer, City of Lansing. The City of Lansing passed the state's first complete streets ordinance and has also begun a robust road conversion application.

Convened by:

Co nn e cte d Co mmu nities: C om plet e Str eets C o alition

Follow-up at: www.thegrandvision.org/complete-streets-Coalition

"Paradise is something we create in our own communities"

~ Todd Litman, executive director of the Victoria Transport Policy Institute