Complete Streets in FHWA

A Complete Street is safe, and feels safe, for all users. FHWA is focused on supporting transportation agencies to plan, develop and operate equitable streets and networks that prioritize safety, comfort, and connectivity to destinations for all people who use the street network.

MAKE COMPLETE STREETS THE DEFAULT APPROACH

Make funding and designing Complete Streets the easiest option.

Make Complete Streets the Default Approach

PLAN AND ANALYZE COMPLETE STREETS

Integrate safety for all road users into planning and data analysis. 

Plan and Analyze Complete Streets

IMPLEMENT COMPLETE STREETS IMPROVEMENTS

Design, construct, operate and maintain streets that are safe for all road users. 

Implement Complete Streets Improvements

SPOTLIGHT

map of the United States with an inset closeup
It’s been over 33 years since the ADA was signed. Many barriers still remain for pedestrians with disabilities. See what each State DOT is doing to remove barriers in their public rights-of-way. Complete Streets are Accessible Streets.

Image credit: BTS
Interactive State DOT ADA Transition Plan and Inventory Map
Complete Streets Transportation Pooled Fund (TPF) Study slide
The Complete Streets (CS) pooled fund will be established to conduct research on innovative strategies to design and implement safe and accessible streets through a CS approach.
Image credit: FHWA
Complete Streets Transportation Pooled Fund (TPF) Study – TPF 1626
Safe System Roadway Design Hierarchy slide
Safe System Roadway Design Hierarchy is a tool that characterizes engineering and infrastructure-based countermeasures and strategies relative to their alignment with the Safe System Approach (SSA), toward the goal of eliminating traffic-related fatalities and serious injuries. The purpose of the hierarchy is to help transportation agencies and practitioners identify and prioritize countermeasures and strategies when developing transportation projects.
Image credit: FHWA
Safe System Roadway Design Hierarchy
Design Decision Documentation and Mitigation Strategies for Design Exceptions book cover
Design Decision Documentation and Mitigation Strategies for Design Exceptions inform transportation practitioners, especially planners, and designers, about FHWA’s 10 controlling criteria, their impacts on safety and operations, the inter-relationships with other controlling criteria, and potential mitigation strategies for design exceptions.
Image credit: FHWA
Design Decision Documentation and Mitigation Strategies for Design Exceptions
Complete Streets Rural Town Center Trifold image
Complete Streets Rural Town Center Trifold - Use this trifold to reveal how Complete Streets provides people living in and using rural town centers with safer multimodal access to essential destinations for all road users.
Image credit: FHWA
Complete Streets Rural Town Center Trifold
Summary Report slide
USDOT published the Improving Road Safety for All Users on Federal-Aid Projects Request for Information (RFI) in the Federal Register (88 FR 7510) to better understand how transportation agencies, stakeholders, and advocates alike could better work together to improve road safety for all users and achieve the goal of zero fatalities. This report summarizes the 1,030 individual RFI responses from 125 unique respondents and is organized by the six categories of questions.
Image credit: FHWA
Summary Report on Request for Information (RFI): Improving Road Safety For All Users on Federal-Aid Projects
Implementing the Proven Safety Countermeasures in Work Zones Informational Guide cover
The purpose of this guide is to provide information to State and local agencies on work zone fatalities in the U.S. and the application of Safe System Approach principles to work zone planning, design, operations, and management. This includes describing work zone applications of FHWA’s Proven Safety Countermeasures (PSCs), a collection of countermeasures and strategies effective in reducing roadway fatalities and serious injuries on U.S. highways and streets.
Image credit: FHWA
Implementing the Proven Safety Countermeasures in Work Zones Informational Guide

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