Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Tactical Urbanism topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
Strong Towns tells county: try small, quick, community-led changes to make streets safer
Summary
Strong Towns presenters urged the work group to prioritize low-cost, quickly deployable interventions — cones, paint, delineators and temporary lane narrowing — tested locally to slow traffic and build support before larger capital projects.
Strong Towns representatives presented case studies and urged the work group to prioritize "the next smallest thing" over waiting for large, expensive engineering projects. Edward Erfurt (Strong Towns) described a four-step public-investment approach — observe, pick the next smallest intervention, do it, observe and repeat — and reviewed crash-analysis findings from San Antonio, Meridian (Idaho), Rochester (New York) and Medicine Hat (Canada).
"What we're really good at Strong Towns is about helping communities think differently," Erfurt said, and he urged testing low-cost materials available from public-works yards or hardware stores to quickly improve crosswalk visibility and driver behavior. He recounted a Portland example where neighbors used chalk paint and cones to create a temporary crosswalk over 80 minutes; within days the city and state engineers engaged on a permanent solution. Erfurt emphasized that tactical, temporary interventions can be documented and measured to support future capital work.
Strong Towns also described crash-analysis studios that identified multiple contributing factors and a mix of immediate (0 to low-cost) and long-term policy recommendations. The presenters offered to share a two-page worksheet and public-investment process materials with the work group and encouraged block-level engagement using crossing guards, volunteers and safe-passage coordinators to observe conditions at peak arrival and dismissal times.
