On Tuesday, February 28, Greater Mercer TMA and the American Heart Association sponsored a Complete Streets Workshop in Ocean County. The workshop featured panelists from the American Heart Association, AARP, AAA Northeast, NJDOT, Sustainable Jersey, FHWA, Bay Head and Brick Township. Presenters discussed how and why complete streets improve livability, community health, safety, and congestion, while furthering sustainability and creating greater equity. Bay Head’s Mayor showed how complete streets have improved walkability and bicycling conditions in his community and Brick Township’s planner showed how Safe Routes to School programming contributed to the addition of thousands of feet of new sidewalks in Brick. The American Heart Association talked about the link between the increase in chronic heart disease, and the lack of sufficient physical activity in communities where walking and bicycling is not safe. The workshop provided lots of information and resources to help anyone interested in implementing complete streets.
We are very excited about the great interest in implementing complete streets, and we wanted to share some of the resources available to those interested.
- Complete Streets Toolkit from AHA and Voices for Healthy kids http://voicesforhealthykids.org/complete-streets/
- AARP Livable communities resources, making streets safer for older adults http://www.aarp.org/livable-communities/archives/info-2014/complete-streets.html
- FHWA Residents Guide for Creating Safer Communities for Biking and Walking http://www.aarp.org/livable-communities/archives/info-2014/complete-streets.html
- NJDOT policy and implementation guides http://www.state.nj.us/transportation/eng/completestreets/resources.shtm
- New Jersey Complete Streets funding and other resources http://njbikeped.org/funding-2/
We hope you find these resources useful! Please let us know if you have any questions or would like us to assist you with complete streets actions.