Draft MTP/SCS Comments Received - sacog

should also recognize the many other benefits of Complete Streets such as
improving community health and safety, energy efficiency, travel mobility, and air
quality.
We believe this is best accomplished through a stand-alone policy under the policy
category of Land Use and Environmental Sustainability to address ways to greatly
expand Complete Streets in the SACOG region. An expanded policy should
recognize the many co-benefits of making streets safe and desirable for all
travel modes. We recommend the Complete Streets policy include these
specific strategies:
Establish a definition for what would qualify any street to be a complete
street (using multi-modal level of service estimates),
Develop a goal for what proportion of a jurisdiction’s surface streets
should ultimately qualify as Complete Streets (we believe this proportion
should be near 100%),
Establish a timetable by when local jurisdictions and the region will
achieve specified proportions of making all streets complete (perhaps 50% of
potential streets complete by 2025 and 100% by 2035),
Develop and promote a template for local jurisdictions to use in
considering how to make any surface street into a Complete Street, either
during construction or as part of maintenance and rehabilitation,
Offer incentives, both technical and financial, to encourage local
jurisdictions to upgrade their surface streets into Complete Streets, and
Review and comment on transportation project designs to enhance their
complete-street qualifications.
1. The MTP/SCS 2035 should invest in planning and implementing continuous
and direct bike networks between key destinations to promote local circulation
within Community Types that have greater land-use densities. Because of higher
densities, the Center, Corridor, and Established Community Types have the greatest
potentials for substantial increases in bike mode share.
Much of Policy 29 (in Chapter 6) encompasses strategies to invest in connectivity for
local and regional circulation. We recommend that an additional strategy be
adopted to support Policy 29 that aims to define how a bike network for local
circulation can qualify as safe, comfortable, continuous, and direct for
potential bike riders of all ages and abilities.
Bike networks are safe and desirable for riders of all ages and capabilities (from
school children to grandparents) when they consist of bikeways that have low traffic
volumes and speeds and are continuous and direct between key destinations. Such
networks can be comprised of combinations of Class I paths, Class II lanes, and
Class III routes but they also have special protection for bicyclists when crossing
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