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10/30/2019 08:08 AMA new policy promises to provide a literal roadmap for future development in town. The town adopted the complete streets policy at the Oct. 23 Board of Selectmen (BOS) meeting.
“It’s a way for the town to look at infrastructure and how that infrastructure gets supported,” said First Selectman Christine Goupil (D).
The plan would look at items such as future road design that promotes accommodation for pedestrians, cars, and bikes. Those accommodations would mean things like making sure the roads near the downtown or other popular destinations are well-maintained and supported. The goals of the policy are listed as making roads safer, improving public healthy by providing more opportunities for biking and walking while reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and to adopt cost saving measures with the existing infrastructure around the town.
The town recently competed a corridor study for Route 81 as well as an earlier study on Route 1. The studies called for improvements to the roads such as updated sidewalks, more crosswalks, and increased signage.
The recommended best practices contained in the complete streets policy advocates for similar upgrades. Recommendation include designated bike lanes and “share the roads” signs, bus shelters, installing crosswalks, and aesthetic improvements like landscaping and creating refuge islands where appropriate.
In an email, Goupil said, “It’s also about investment in a community” and “the alternative is a system of roads that isolates neighborhoods from each other.”
Goupil said that a complete streets policy would save money in the long term versus having to try to retrofit roads in the future.
The “type of improvements made under a complete streets policy often benefit a larger cross-section of users and have other benefits aside from simple accommodation of motorized transportation. Reductions of vehicular traffic, enhanced biofiltration, and improved public health have significant economic and environment benefits, which can offset the cost of more extensive capital improvements,” the policy states.
Goupil suggested that by having a policy in place, it would help the town capture grants down the road.
The town looked at polices from the towns of Portland, West Hartford, and Stratford as reference points for Clinton’s policy.
The Town Plan of Conservation and Development that the town adopted in 2014 endorsed the concept of a complete streets policy. The policy the BOS adopted states the policy “shall be applicable to the planning and design of all new transportation and complete streets improvements…”