Hillsborough County Complete Streets Guide

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1 INTRODUCTION Hillsborough County designs roads using a concept called “Complete Streets.” Complete Streets are roadways that are designed and operated to provide safe, accessible, and healthy travel for all users of the roadway system. A Complete Street is defined by the National Complete Streets Coalition and Smart Growth America as a street where the entire right-of-way is planned, designed, and operated for all modes of transportation and all users regardless of age or ability. Complete Streets address the needs of people and the transport of goods. Pedestrians, bicyclists, transit riders and motorists of all ages and abilities

must be able to safely move along and across a Complete Street. Complete Streets make it easy to walk to shops, catch the bus, bike to work, and enjoy many other healthy activities. There is no singular design prescription for Complete Streets – each one is unique and

responds to its community context. Complete Street features may include sidewalks, bike lanes (or other innovative bicycle facilities or slow lanes), special bus lanes, comfortable and accessible public transportation stops, frequent and safe crossing opportunities, median refuges, accessible pedestrian signals, landscaped curb extensions, bioswales, roundabouts, on-street parking, and secure bicycle parking. A Complete Street in a suburban area may look different than a Complete Street in the urban core, but both are designed with the same principle in mind; that is to balance safety and convenience for everyone using the road. Complete Street features closely link the community context, i.e., land use, to the roadway network. To make this connection, the Hillsborough County Comprehensive Plan includes a Context Based Classification system for all County-owned collector and arterial streets in the unincorporated areas of Hillsborough County. This Context Based Classification of roadways links the County’s roadway network to its land use plan. It accomplishes this by acting as a bridge between Future Land Use, Livable Communities, and Transportation policies in the Comprehensive Plan. It allows street design to prioritize the type of users utilizing a roadway based on existing and planned development patterns. For more information, the Context Based Classification Technical Memo is provided in Appendix A. Context Based Classification is different from functional classification. Functional classification defines the role a roadway plays in serving the flow of vehicular traffic through the network. Roadways are assigned to one of several possible functional classifications within a hierarchy, according to the character of travel service each roadway provides. Complete Streets continues to recognize functional classification but also considers the context classification of the street as part of the total picture. For example, the relationship between functional classification and access needs may be less consistent in more urban

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