By Eric Murphy
Many local community groups have ideas for simple infrastructure upgrades that would improve street safety in their neighborhoods — but without official sign-off from departments of transportation, those ideas may never get a chance to be tested. Some DOTs have created official permitting processes for short-term “quick-build” demonstration projects, where these local groups can test their ideas for safer streets with temporary materials while adhering to official design standards.
Quick-build projects — like pop-up bike lanes, improved pedestrian crossings, and temporary traffic circles — can be done on the cheap and demonstrate the potential for permanent changes to improve street safety. They can also help DOTs build or strengthen relationships with local governments, agencies, and community groups that want to make their streets safer.
In Nashville, the city’s department of transportation recently launched a program to review and permit quick-build projects, partnering with the Tennessee Department of Transportation when those projects are proposed for state-owned roads. There is an official guidebook that addresses design guidelines, data collection, and equity, and outlines the permit process for local groups, building on a tradition of TDOT active community partnerships. Other cities large and small like Atlanta, GA, and Burlington, VT, have launched similar programs.
Earlier this year, Smart Growth America reported on the success of a previous quick-build project in Nashville undertaken as part of their Complete Streets Leadership Academy. That project involved making space for pedestrians on the street with a new walkway painted by a local artist that invited more residents to walk and signaled vehicles in the area to slow down. It also added a pedestrian refuge in the middle of a long crosswalk and updated signage. State DOTs can be key partners for these short-term demonstration projects. Buy-in at the state level has helped other quick-builds in Tennessee happen even faster.
Across the country, most pedestrian deaths in cities happen on state-owned arterial streets, and SGA noted that the most successful quick-build projects in their Complete Streets Leadership Academy “resulted from strong leadership and clear intent from state DOT decision makers to redefine what a successful street looks like.”
TDOT was also able to forge connections with community partners through quick-builds. In other projects that TDOT collaborated on through the Leadership Academy, “engagement throughout the quick-build demonstration built confidence among community members in TDOT’s plan for permanent change.”
These community partners and neighborhood groups have untapped potential for innovation and additional capacity to test solutions for safer streets that DOTs can put to good use without breaking the bank. It may take persistence to surmount the challenges of collaboration—or even an external facilitator in the case of some tough but productive conversations and relationships with community partners—but SGA found that a willingness to work together, persist in the face of obstacles, and a shared commitment to changing the status quo from all parties resulted in the most successful projects.
Collaborating on these short-term infrastructure upgrades can apply the extra capacity of community partners and neighborhood groups, strengthen collaborative relationships, and quickly and cheaply test new ways to make streets safer.
Photo Credit: Mathias Reding via Pexels, unmodified. License.