The City Walkable - New complete Streets Guidelines Customized for Central Florida

The Winter Park Health Foundation engaged Smart Growth America to help the Central Florida region identify and address barriers hindering local decision-makers’ ability to build Complete Streets. Complete Streets are roadways that are safe and comfortable for all users – people walking, bicycling, and taking transit, people driving and truck drivers making deliveries. This includes impactful elements of development and transportation design:
  1. Orient buildings to the street 
  2. Reduce parking minimums 
  3. Cluster development and mix the land uses 
  4. Don’t allow traffic fears to block economic development 
  5. Design roadways to be safe for all users 

Smart Growth America spent 9 months talking with cities and orgs all over Central Florida and came up with this report.

Florida DOT is rewriting its rules and offering training to be more supportive of Complete Streets. Local advocates of Complete Streets were encouraged in the report to quickly adopt local changes based on the new FDOT stance and to get city and county employees and elected officials trained immediately.




There are 10 elements of a comprehensive Complete Streets policy:
  1. Includes a vision for how and why the community wants to complete its streets
  2. Specifies that ‘all users’ includes pedestrians, bicyclists and transit passengers of all ages and abilities, as well as trucks, buses and automobiles.
  3. Applies to both new and retrofit projects, including design, planning, maintenance, and operations, for the entire right of way.
  4. Makes any exceptions specific and sets a clear procedure that requires high-level approval of exceptions.
  5. Encourages street connectivity and aims to create a comprehensive, integrated, connected network for all modes.
  6. Is adoptable by all agencies to cover all roads.
  7. Directs the use of the latest and best design criteria and guidelines while recognizing the need for flexibility in balancing user needs.
  8. Directs that Complete Streets solutions will complement the context of the community.
  9. Establishes performance standards with measurable outcomes.
  10. Includes specific next steps for implementation of the policy 

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