NOVEMBER ACTIONS
DESIGN STREETS FOR ACTIVE TRANSPORTATION
deadline December 7
Bike/pedestrian paths, bike lanes, and greenspace should be an accepted part of community road design and not exceptions that require special approval. The DOT is requesting comments on a proposal to liberalize design requirements for urban and suburban arterial roads with speeds under 50 mph so that adding these features to make "complete streets" will no longer require costly exemptions. Studies show that the criteria DOT proposes to eliminate do not increase safety.
COMMENT LETTER RE: FHWA Docket No. FHWA-2015-0020
As health professionals we endorse the FWHA's proposal to update design criteria for highways with speeds under 50 mph to conform with current knowledge about design, safety, and health. These roads are not freeways, but main streets of urban and suburban communities whose residents suffer from diseases related to air pollution and physical inactivity such as obesity, diabetes, asthma, cardiovascular disease, and cancer.
Complete street design elements such as narrower or curved streets to slow traffic, bike and pedestrian paths, and landscaped greenways can improve these major public health problems (American Public Health Association, 2009), increase community resiliency to climate impacts such as extreme heat (Zanobetti, 2012), and improve public safety by decreasing collisions between motor vehicles, cyclists, and pedestrians ( Swift, 2006; National Complete Streets Coalition, 2014).
Requiring formal exemptions to employ these healthy design features makes their adoption costly, difficult, and sometimes impossible for the communities which need them the most (Transportation for America, 2015). Research shows that the design criteria FWHA proposes to drop do not increase safety on urban and suburban streets and may even contribute to accidents (NCHRP, 2014). We therefore strongly support FWHA's proposal to increase design flexibility for local roadways by eliminating irrelevant engineering requirements.
REFERENCES are located below Entry Form.
deadline December 7
Bike/pedestrian paths, bike lanes, and greenspace should be an accepted part of community road design and not exceptions that require special approval. The DOT is requesting comments on a proposal to liberalize design requirements for urban and suburban arterial roads with speeds under 50 mph so that adding these features to make "complete streets" will no longer require costly exemptions. Studies show that the criteria DOT proposes to eliminate do not increase safety.
COMMENT LETTER RE: FHWA Docket No. FHWA-2015-0020
As health professionals we endorse the FWHA's proposal to update design criteria for highways with speeds under 50 mph to conform with current knowledge about design, safety, and health. These roads are not freeways, but main streets of urban and suburban communities whose residents suffer from diseases related to air pollution and physical inactivity such as obesity, diabetes, asthma, cardiovascular disease, and cancer.
Complete street design elements such as narrower or curved streets to slow traffic, bike and pedestrian paths, and landscaped greenways can improve these major public health problems (American Public Health Association, 2009), increase community resiliency to climate impacts such as extreme heat (Zanobetti, 2012), and improve public safety by decreasing collisions between motor vehicles, cyclists, and pedestrians ( Swift, 2006; National Complete Streets Coalition, 2014).
Requiring formal exemptions to employ these healthy design features makes their adoption costly, difficult, and sometimes impossible for the communities which need them the most (Transportation for America, 2015). Research shows that the design criteria FWHA proposes to drop do not increase safety on urban and suburban streets and may even contribute to accidents (NCHRP, 2014). We therefore strongly support FWHA's proposal to increase design flexibility for local roadways by eliminating irrelevant engineering requirements.
REFERENCES are located below Entry Form.
REFERENCES
APHA. At the Intersection of Public Health and Transportation: Promoting Healthy Transportation Policy. https://www.apha.org/~/media/files/pdf/topics/transport/at_the_intersection.ashx 2009, accessed online 11/17/15.
National Complete Streets Coalition. Dangerous by Design, 2014.
http://www.smartgrowthamerica.org/documents/dangerous-by-design-2014/dangerous-by-design-2014.pdf accessed online 11/17/15
National Cooperative Highway Research Program. Evaluation of the 13 Controlling Criteria for Geometric Design. Report 783. National Transportation Research Board of the National Academies. Washington, DC 2014. http://onlinepubs.trb.org/onlinepubs/nchrp/nchrp_rpt_783.pdf accessed online 11/20/15
Swift, P et al. Residential Street Typology and Injury Accident Frequency. Originally presented at the Congress for the New Urbanism, Denver, Co., June, 1997 Additional data added in 2002 and 2006. https://www.cnu.org/sites/default/files/swift_painter_goldstein_study.pdf
Transportation for America. USDOT proposes to remove restrictive design guidelines that make safer streets more difficult to build. http://www.smartgrowthamerica.org/2015/10/08/usdot-proposes-to-remove-restrictive-design-guidelines-that-make-safer-streets-more-difficult-to-build/
Zanobetti, A. Summer temperature variability and long-term survival among elderly people with chronic disease
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2012 Apr 24; 109(17): 6608–6613.
Published online 2012 Apr 9. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1113070109
APHA. At the Intersection of Public Health and Transportation: Promoting Healthy Transportation Policy. https://www.apha.org/~/media/files/pdf/topics/transport/at_the_intersection.ashx 2009, accessed online 11/17/15.
National Complete Streets Coalition. Dangerous by Design, 2014.
http://www.smartgrowthamerica.org/documents/dangerous-by-design-2014/dangerous-by-design-2014.pdf accessed online 11/17/15
National Cooperative Highway Research Program. Evaluation of the 13 Controlling Criteria for Geometric Design. Report 783. National Transportation Research Board of the National Academies. Washington, DC 2014. http://onlinepubs.trb.org/onlinepubs/nchrp/nchrp_rpt_783.pdf accessed online 11/20/15
Swift, P et al. Residential Street Typology and Injury Accident Frequency. Originally presented at the Congress for the New Urbanism, Denver, Co., June, 1997 Additional data added in 2002 and 2006. https://www.cnu.org/sites/default/files/swift_painter_goldstein_study.pdf
Transportation for America. USDOT proposes to remove restrictive design guidelines that make safer streets more difficult to build. http://www.smartgrowthamerica.org/2015/10/08/usdot-proposes-to-remove-restrictive-design-guidelines-that-make-safer-streets-more-difficult-to-build/
Zanobetti, A. Summer temperature variability and long-term survival among elderly people with chronic disease
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2012 Apr 24; 109(17): 6608–6613.
Published online 2012 Apr 9. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1113070109
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