Tennessee Becomes 6th State to Adopt Urban Street Design Guidelines

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The Tennessee State Department of Transportation (TDOT) became the sixth state and the first in the south to adopt the National Association of City Transportation Officials (NACTO) Urban Street Design Guide, in June of 2014. According to a Streetsblog NYC article, NACTO’s Guide is the gold standard for Urban Street Design.

The Urban Street Design Guide encourages healthy living by highlighting alternative transportation modes. It provides guidance on best practices for designing:

• streets
• intersections
• street design elements
• intersection design elements
• interim design strategies
• design controls

Because Tennessee has a growing Latino population, Latino children living here will hopefully see the result of streets designed with health in mind. Other states who have already embraced the guidelines include: Washington, Massachusetts, California, Utah and Minnesota. Still, leaders from NACTO are encouraging all states and communities to adopt the healthy guidelines.

About 40 cities and professional organizations like the 32,000 member Urban Land Institute and the Association of Pedestrian and Bicycle Professionals have also adopted the guidelines. Predominantly Latino cities like Brownsville, TX , and El Paso, TX  are among those who have enacted resolutions to adopt NACTO’s guidelines.

In a NACTO blog, TDOT Commissioner John Schroer said:  “The Urban Street Design Guide is a valuable resource that offers cost effective solutions and improvements that Tennessee communities can embrace and implement.”

Access NACTO’s Urban Street Design Guide and Urban Bikeway Design Guide here.