Complete Streets is a national movement to ensure transportation planners and engineers consistently design and operate the entire roadway with all users in mind—including bicyclists, public transportation vehicles and riders, and pedestrians of all ages and abilities.

The California Bicycle Coalition, working in partnership with a variety of transportation, environmental and health advocacy organizations, has taken the lead to establish Complete Streets statewide in California.

What are "complete" streets?

Complete streets are designed and operated to enable safe access for all users. Pedestrians, bicyclists, motorists and transit riders of all ages and abilities must be able to safely move along and across a complete street.

Creating complete streets means transportation agencies must change their orientation toward building primarily for cars. Instituting a complete streets policy ensures that transportation agencies routinely design and operate the entire right of way to enable safe access for all users. Places with complete streets policies are making sure that their streets and roads work for drivers, transit users, pedestrians, and bicyclists, as well as for older people, children, and people with disabilities.

What it takes to make a street "complete" varies depending on many factors, so there's no single definition. However, ingredients may include sidewalks, bike lanes (or wide paved shoulders), special bus lanes, comfortable and accessible transit stops, frequent crossing opportunities, median islands, accessible pedestrian signals, curb extensions, and more. A complete street in a rural area will look quite different from a complete street in a highly urban area. But both are designed to balance safety and convenience for everyone using the road.

(adapted from Complete Streets FAQ, National Complete Streets Coalition)

Complete Streets in California

In September 2008, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed into law Assembly Bill 1358, the Complete Streets Act, co-sponsored by the California Bicycle Coalition and AARP California. As of 2011, the law will require cities and counties, when updating the part of a local general plan that addresses roadways and traffic flows, to ensure that those plans account for the needs of all roadway users.

At the same time, the California Department of Transportation unveiled a revised version of Deputy Directive 64, an internal policy document that now explicitly embraces Complete Streets as the policy covering all phases of state highway projects, from planning to construction to maintenance and repair.

As the result, California became the second—and by far the largest—state to implement Complete Streets policies covering every public street, road and highway. CBC is currently providing the Governor's Office of Planning & Research with suggested provisions specific to the Complete Streets Act for inclusion in the draft climate change supplement to OPR's general plan update guidelines.

Although focused broadly on climate change and not limited to transportation or AB 1358, the supplement, due to be completed early next year, is seen as the earliest opportunity to begin giving cities and counties guidance on the Complete Streets Act. More comprehensive guidelines specific to the act will be developed over the next several years.

CBC continues to work with local bicycle advocacy organizations, air quality management agencies and other Complete Streets allies to ensure that guidelines implemented for AB 1358 serve as a national model.

Learn more about Complete Streets

• Read the full text of Assembly Bill 1358, as chaptered on Sept. 30, 2008
• Read the final Assembly floor analysis of AB 1358 (8/27/08)
• Read AB 1358 fact sheet
• Read the full text of Caltrans Deputy Directive 64, Revision 1
• Learn about the nationwide Complete Streets movement at www.completethestreets.org
• Complete Streets in the news:
  • San Francisco Moves to Meet Its Complete Streets Obligations, SF.Streetsblog.org, Sept. 11, 2009
  • Living Green: 'Complete streets' make for better living, Tracy (CA) Press, Aug. 25, 2009
  • $388 Million Streetscape Measure Could Deliver Complete Streets—or Not, SF.Streetsblog.org, June 16, 2009
  • Letter: 'Complete streets' good for our health, Chico (CA) Enterprise-Record, Sept. 4, 2009