Complete streets are not the point, complete places are what we should strive for

This comes from the urbanists list (I am not on the streetsblog-net discussion list, I suppose I should be, but I can't even get through a day's email as it is):

John writes Re: [Streetsblog.net discussion] Revitalize SF's Market St. -- where to start?

There is a widespread problem today that's getting worse. Various specialists -- pedestrian specialists, bicycle specialists, traffic calmers and most often traffic engineers -- are redesigning our streets according to the preferences of their specialties, with the result that the experience of the street as an urban place or outdoor room is often worse than before they got there.

A "complete street" should be a beautiful street, where pedestrians want to be. But too often their beauty and spatial qualities are being badly undermined by people pushing the narrow agenda of their particular speciality, rather than the broad agenda of the urban designer.

My response:

I would say a complete "street" should be a beautiful "place". Or that complete places have beautiful streets.

Later this month, when I revise my DC centric transportation wish list for 2009, it will be built on the complete place as the key organizing idea, with a transit "second" policy (no longer "transit first" which was central to this year's list, and is based on the SF transit first mobility policy enshrined in their city charter, passed by referendum) as the second, with the proscriptions that follow based on these two precepts.

-- The revised revised People's Transportation Plan/2008 Transit-Transportation wish list

Note that I can't claim it will be a lot different, although it will be organized differently. It will differentiate between light rail and streetcars with regard to DC surface rail transit planning though. And have some bits and pieces. But the big point will that it will start with the foundation of complete places and shifting trips from single occupancy vehicles as the organizing framework ("transit second") and it will flow from there.

WRT complete places, check out the current e-newsletter, Placemaking in a Down Economy, from the Project for Public Spaces, including these gems:

How Your Community Can Thrive-- Even in Tough Times

New economic trends make a sense-of-place more important than ever.

A Smart Investment for Our Future

A wave of new transit projects bring major economic, social and environmental benefits

Leveraging Community Assets with Placemaking