“Streets for Everyone”: Intermodal Equity and Complete Streets

Abstract

Prytherch highlights the growing social movement to challenge automobile-centric roadway design and reclaim the public street. After a century in which laws and design helped define the automobile age, advocates of so-called "Complete Streets" have used state and local policies to ensure streets are designed for “all users of all ages and abilities.” The chapter analyzes the broad principles of complete streets, and policy elements intended to ensure streets are designed for diverse users, intermodal design is the rule (and not the exception), and the decision-making process is more interdisciplinary and transparent. Prytherch analyzes how complete streets policies, whether model statutes/ordinances or those policies adopted by local communities, constitute a major rethinking of how roadways are planned, designed, and maintained. While leaving intact legal “Rules of the Road,” the vision and strategies of complete streets represent a significant shift toward mobility rights and justice on the American street.