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22 Planning May 2005 informal, private use of the right-oF-way. This is the case along Florida's AlA, where plans to add a bike lane have met stiff opposition. . In response, many communities have begun to create complete streets where it is easiest-at a location where a wide travel lane can be nar- rowed or where traffic volume allows a four-lane road to be converted to two lanes with the addition of a centet turn lane and bike lanes. Fear of high costs is an equally great ob- stacle. Most complete streets policies don't come with special funding artached, and project budgets are sometimes set before bicycle and pedestrian facilities are considered. Street policies commonly cite" disproportionate cost" -de- fined by the U.S. DOT as 20 percent of the project budget-as a reason for exemption. Experienced officials say the issue of cost can be overblown. Jeff Morales, former director of Caltrans, has said that integrating access for bicyclists, pedestrians, and disabled people right from the start actually minimizes costs. Bridges offer a dramatic example. Provid- ing enough room for cyclists and pedestrians during initial construction is far more effec- tive than widening a bridge later. Learning eurve .wo fundamental challenges to instituting a omplete streets policy are a mind-set that is geared to following manuals and a lack of train- ing. Until very recently, few schools offered either undergraduate Ot graduate courses on bicycle and pedestrian planning, and even fewer courses on planning for multiple users. Keith Knapp, assistant professor of engi- neering and professional development at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, travels the country offering continuing education classes to engineers and planners. "I've talked for hours about the needs of bicyclists and pedes- trians," he says, "only to have 80 percent of the students say at the end of the class that they don't plan to consider them." Knapp attributes the students' resistance to PLANNING PRACTICE Complete streets mean more pleltsant neighborhoods .fOr etleryOlle, .from children to seniors. Right, State Street in Santa Barbara, Califlmi'1.; far right. Comalis, Oregon. the direction engineers get from their state transportation department directors and to engineers' typical reliance on standard traffic manuals. They fear that unconventional solu- tions will lead to unintended consequences, he says. The manuals themselves are inadequate, in Knapp's view. The two manuals most com- monly used-MSHTO's Green Book and the Highway Capacity Manual, published by the Transportation Research Board-are geared to rural construction and new roads that maximize traffic volume. Knapp is looking fotward to two forthcom- ing volumes that will take an integrated ap- proach to designing for diverse users: an urban street design handbook from the Institute of Transportation Engineers, and urban arterial design guidelines being developed by ITE and the Congress for the New Urbanism. Users, most notably bicyclists, are helping some state transportation departments to over- come the hurdles of implementing complete streets and urging other agencies to address the issue. In South Carolina, the League of Ameri- can Bicyclists and local bicycle advocates are Ie c sou J' (' (' s Advocates. Reach Barbara McCann at wVllww.bmccann.net. For more more on complete streets, go to \'{ww.completethestreets.net. America Bikes is at http://Vv'\vw.americabikes.org/ completestreets.asp. Get the Thunderhead Alliance report at www.thunderheadalliance.org. State and local. Oregon's "Bike Bill" is at vvww.odot.state.or.usftechserv/bikewalk/pIan_app! ..66514.htm. Fo.r information on the University of Wisconsin's continuing education courses, .0 to http://epd,,,'Ww.engr.wisc.edu. The Boulder Transportation Master Plan is at W\V'W. ci. bo ulder .co .us! publi cworks! depts! transportation! masterplan. Federal. For the U.S. DOT Design Guidance, "Accommodating Bicycle and Pedestrian Travel", see """v'W.fbwa.dot.gov/environmem!bikeped!design.htm. The U.S. Access Board is at Vv'\vw.access-board.gov. working with the state DOT to help implement its new policy, including training department personnel. Several local and state bicycle advocacy orga- nizations that are part of the narional Thunder- head Alliance are pushing for new policies and planning Complete the Streets campaigns in Washington, Colorado, and Illinois (where a complete streets bill has passed through a legis- lative committee). And Advocates representing a long list of national groups-from AARP to Smart Growth America-met in January to consider strategies for spreading the idea. Taking the next step Despite the challenges, a few communities are taking complete streets a step further. They are not simply adding a requirement to existing road plans or limiting themselves to rewriting their design manuals. They are reinventing their entire planning process to serve the needs of all road users. Boulder, Colorado, has been promoting al- ternative modes for decades. Its GO Boulder initiative encourages bicycling, walking, and transit, and its innovative Hop, Skip, and Jump bus lines have reinvigorated the city's transit system with colorful vehicles and fre- quent service. But until recently, planning and funding were handled separately for each mode. In 2003, Boulder eliminated the separate categories to create a multimodal corridor plan, so that every project considers every mode. "The change in the language and funding changed the dynamic," says Tracy Winfree, the city's director of public works for transpor- tation. 'The competition we had experienced before between modes disappeared." The new plan calls for converting 1 0 city arterials into multimodal corridors, with the