There is a fascinating irony about the way that humans go about constructing streets: Boulevard after boulevard is paved not for people, but for their cars, trucks, and buses. Our vehicle-centric transit worldview is so deeply ingrained that in the English language one of the many synonyms for the word road is “drive.” Though designing roads for automobiles seems intuitive, creating our thoroughfares for vehicles instead of people has a number of negative ramifications, including noise pollution and unhealthy restraints on casual physical activity. While adapting streets to be more human-centric is a daunting challenge in many parts of the United States, Rhode Island is uniquely positioned to reimagine how its streets can serve its citizens.
In recent years, policymakers have proposed a number of solutions to remedy vehicle-centric streets. One of the largest and most radical overhaul proposals has come from Barcelona. Five years ago, the Spanish city began to pursue a novel redesign of city blocks called superilles, or superblocks, which essentially creates clusters of streets where the speed limit is extremely low and cars can park curbside. The superblock design has already shown promise in other Spanish cities for its ability to substantially reduce pollution and boost economies.
While publications around the globe lauded Barcelona’s nearly citywide superblock implementation plan, it is unlikely that even major American cities could raise the necessary funds or political capital to embark on a comparable project: The projections to reconfigure Barcelona’s grid hover at 58 million USD. Perhaps most significantly, this design can really only be applied in the urban core, leaving rural areas out in the cold.
Superblocks, then, may be relegated to the dreams of American urban planners. However, a middle ground between the status quo and the superblocks of Barcelona exists: a person-centric design aptly called Complete Streets. The premise behind Complete Streets is simple: reduce the amount of roadway dedicated to vehicles by reducing lanes in size or number, and use this increased space to create dedicated bike lanes and wider sidewalks and develop an atmosphere that welcomes both vehicles and pedestrians.
Complete Streets could be introduced in Rhode Island with extraordinary success. The state is one of few compact enough that adapting major passages to create protected bike lanes or sidewalks could actually aid in bicycle-based daily commutes. Additionally, while pedestrian and cyclist-friendly design practices are limited to large cities in many other states, Rhode Island can reasonably implement the policy without leaving rural areas behind.
Though there has been a recent push to implement Complete Streets in the Ocean State, the movement has largely been isolated to individually identified roads or intersections that need improvement. However, the potential to expand the initiative is nearly unparalleled—and the impacts would be huge. “A lot of the people taking shorter trips opt for a car because it’s perceived to be easier, more convenient, and safer, and we want to make people more inclined to, when they are going a mile or two, walk or bike,” said C.J. Opperthauser, Training Manager at GrowSmart RI, one of several organizations working to advance the policy in the state.
Getting people to walk and bike more isn’t easy, but complete street initiatives hold great promises of improving public health and safety. Cyclists in much of Providence are given the laughable courtesy of “sharrows,” the double arrows and bicycle symbol on roads that tell motorists pushing 30 miles per hour to share their lanes with bikers going 12. In certain regions of the state, such as the more sparsely populated Washington County, cyclists often have no choice but to get on highways where the speed limit is 50 miles per hour. This oversight has had deadly consequences: A cyclist on Route 1 was struck and killed in 2016. Evidence shows that small adjustments to bike lanes can decrease the risk of accidents, and bike lanes are truly in demand: About half of Americans say they’d be interested commuting via bicycle but are concerned for their safety. With a new bike-share operating in Providence, it is clear that there is both a demand and a need to expand bicycle lanes. Redesigning vehicle-centered streets offers a way to improve transportation systems while also nudging individuals to make healthier choices.
In addition to implementing more designated bike lanes, Complete Streets also ensure that pedestrians feel welcome on the street. There is a clear and dire need for more pedestrian spaces: Though 79 percent of youth in Rhode Island have access to sidewalks or walking paths, only 20.3 percent of Ocean State high school students achieve the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s recommended one daily hour of moderate-to-vigorous intensity physical activity. Nearly one-third of parents in a CDC survey cited traffic dangers as a reason why their children could not walk to school, and traffic concerns play a large role in a diminished perception of neighborhood safety. Complete Streets can also encourage activity among adults—another dire need in the state. In 2016, 24.4 percent of adults in Rhode Island reported doing no leisure-time physical activity. Expanding space for leisure exercise for adults and children alike should be a statewide public health priority. With Complete Streets policies that create sidewalks for the 21 percent of children who don’t have access to them, separate sidewalks from the road, and narrow streets so that they are easier to cross, Rhode Island can make walking a more available form of transportation.
Finally, Complete Streets also have substantial environmental health benefits. Better-designed streets reduce emissions by swapping vehicle traffic for bike traffic. By encouraging Rhode Islanders to plant trees in sidewalks or bike lane barriers, human-friendly streets can provide a local cooling effect, cleaner air, and a better urban environment. With transportation holding the distinction of the state’s greatest greenhouse gas contributor, air pollution from vehicles was found to be the cause of asthma exacerbation in 15 percent of children. That Complete Streets could help alleviate this burden is a great victory. Similarly, the effects of heat are often more apparent in urban areas dominated by automobiles. Thus, by targeting these dense city blocks, Complete Streets provide a method to cool the urban core and improve outcomes during heat waves.
From creating bike lanes to expanding sidewalks, a sharp expansion of Complete Streets in Rhode Island seems like both a clear choice to make and an easy policy to implement, especially given the widespread benefits of human-centric streets. Moving forward, it is essential that the implementation of more Complete Streets is both geographically comprehensive and socioeconomically inclusive. The ability to safely walk or bike down a street is a right, not a privilege extended only to those who can pay for it. Over a quarter of the state’s population of one million lives outside of the densely populated Providence and Kent counties, and there’s a stark lack of access to alternative transportation for those in more rural counties. Expanding access to bike lanes and sidewalks in Washington County in particular could help cyclists avoid the busy Route 1 shoulder, and make biking a much safer option.
Beyond just creating more welcoming, safer, and more social streets, policymakers must also incentivize taking advantage of the policy changes. One strategy is to promote the subsidized JUMP bike program, which has scattered bikes across the city. Since the subsidy offers transportation at a more affordable price point than even RIPTA’s reduced fare, promoting the program would incentivize use of bike lanes. This would give those who rely on low-cost transport an opportunity to be more physically active without forcing them to choose biking all the time. After all, having multiple affordable transit options is not a bad thing, so long as the road is designed to accommodate them.
With a unique opportunity to improve physical activity rates, decrease environmental pollution, and make a transit system built for the future, Rhode Island should build on its successes and establish Complete Streets, which serve all residents. The myriad public health and environmental benefits of Complete Streets point policymakers in a clear direction: It’s time that they stop spinning their wheels and cover the state with Complete Streets.
Photo: Location of Chinatown was once near Westminster Street
