COMPLETE STREETS
"Complete Streets" supports a fundamental part of our mission focused on bicycle safety and thorough access for pedestrians, bicyclists, and bus riders of all ages and abilities in Marin. We accomplish these ends by participating with cities, towns, the County of Marin and regional entities to ensure that all road projects are designed with "Complete Streets" principles in mind. "Complete Streets" include facilities (sidewalks, bike lanes, etc.) that allow for safe walking, biking and wheelchair access along roadways.
Our Complete Streets efforts are consistent with Caltrans Directive 64, which states that the California Department of Transportation, "fully considers the needs of non-motorized travelers (including pedestrians, bicyclists and persons with disabilities) in all programming, planning, maintenance, construction, operations and project development activities and products. This includes incorporation of the best available standards in all of the Department’s practices. The Department adopts the best practice concepts in the US DOT Policy Statement on Integrating Bicycling and Walking into Transportation Infrastructure."
An Overview of MCBC Complete Streets Efforts
MCBC has undertaken a comprehensive effort to ensure that all roads within Marin County have complete streets elements included in them whenever possible. Part of this effort includes obtaining Capital Improvement Projects (CIP) data from each municipality, examining each road project, and determining if bicycle and pedestrian facilities can be included. We enter projects found in local Bicycle and Pedestrian Master Plans into our database. All of these projects, once entered, are tracked over time. When complete streets elements are not in the project, MCBC requests them. As a project progresses, MCBC works to ensure that those with bicycle and pedestrian projects retain them all the way through construction. We periodically meet with local Department of Public Works Directors and City/Town Council Members to keep the process moving along.
Recently, MCBC developed, in conjunction with a volunteer, a way to see all projects in our database within a pseudo-GIS (Geographic Information System) program. We are now able to see where projects begin and end on a map, as well as their proximity to one another. This is helpful in determining gaps in the system, and will allow us to better suggest projects that will help to complete the bicycle and pedestrian network here in Marin County.
MCBC has been participating in the following projects with Complete Streets elements within them since the Summer of 2008:
- Mill Valley – Miller Avenue Precise Plan proposal (ongoing), including meetings with the Miller Avenue Streetscape Taskforce related to cycle tracks, bike lanes, pedestrian improvements, and intersection designs
- Fairfax – Center Boulevard construction, with suggestions from MCBC on improvements to the original plan which included bike lanes, improved sidewalks, bike racks and intersection treatments (completed)
- Novato – Redwood Blvd. bike lanes (ongoing) and upgrades to bicycle transportation network
- San Rafael – Hwy 580-101 interchange project review (ongoing), Northgate Mall redevelopment review (now moving into construction phase), Northgate One shopping complex bicycle facilities proposal, West End of 4 th Street (completed) including sharrows and bike racks
- San Anselmo – Improvements to the Hub, including new bike lanes
- Larkspur – Intersection improvements at Magnolia Avenue, Doherty Drive, and Bon Air Road
County of Marin
- Tam Valley unincorporated area – new bike lanes along Almonte Avenue (completed); Sir Francis Drake Boulevard – wide shoulders included in draft EIR (ongoing)
- Caltrans - a new crosswalk that will serve both bicyclists and pedestrians along Shoreline Highway (approved for construction in February 2009)
- Transportation Authority of Marin – pathway along the HOV gap closure project paralleling Lincoln Avenue (under construction now)
Additionally, the following Complete Streets policies have been recently adopted:
- Novato – September 2007
- Marin Countywide Plan – November 2007
- Fairfax – February 2008
- San Anselmo – March 2008
- Corte Madera – September 2008
- Mill Valley – April 2009
As the remaining Bicycle and Pedestrian Master Plans are adopted (San Rafael and Ross), MCBC is seeking to have complete streets policies adopted simultaneously. We are working to have Complete Streets policies adopted in Sausalito and Tiburon now that their Bicycle and Pedestrian plans have been adopted.
MCBC has started to look beyond the Bicycle and Pedestrian Master Plans towards the General Plans for each municipality, working to insert Complete Streets language and policy into each General Plan is it comes up for its legally mandated update. Currently, the following municipalities are beginning the update process to their General Plans:
- Corte Madera (Complete Streets language submitted, December 2008)
- San Rafael (Complete Streets language submitted, November 2008)
- Fairfax (Complete Streets language included in draft circulation element – summer 2008)
