The city of Peoria adopted a "Complete Streets" policy in 2015 to signal a shift towards deemphasizing the motor vehicles for which most modern roadways are designed.
Nearly six years later, making streets friendlier for all users remains a priority, but that change is happening incrementally, said Anthony Corso, a senior urban designer at Hanson Professional Services in Peoria.
"There's a necessity of different approaches, right, because we can't make it all a complete street overnight with a wand," Corso said.
Corso said the hearts of most cities are historically walkable, but the advent of the car led to a shift in philosophy towards a more suburbanized, auto-centric approach to urban design.
"There is kind of a movement across the country to slowly retrofit those to make them healthier and more accessible environments. But you kind of have to be strategic about it, because you don't have all those resources," Corso said.
Dr. Leslie McKnight, the Peoria City/County Health Department's community health policy and planning director, said the complete streets philosophy is also more equitable, particularly for people with disabilities.
"What if we had an environment where we can walk, we can bike? If I'm blind, I can still get where I need to go, if I'm in a wheelchair. So we also have that equity lens with Complete Streets as well," McKnight said.
McKnight said that requires a shift away from the traditional gray street traffic mindset of moving cars through an area as quickly as possible.
"How can we make sure we build in bike lanes? For people with physical challenges, are we intentional about the sidewalks being wide enough? The lighting systems, for people that may have sensory issues," she said. "So this is all about being inclusive, and making the streets available and accessible for all users, regardless of income, of age, of mobility, and mode of transportation."
Corso said slowing down traffic also has some proven economic benefits.
If you add bicycle facilities and you find neighborhood facing small scale retail, most of your locally-owned businesses are actually increased their sales significantly," Corso said.
He called Complete Streets a holistic approach to using lessons from the past to rebuild public spaces for the future.
"It's one of the most pragmatic tools available to communities to cities, from a transportation/equity perspective, because we have legacy issues, we have disinvestment, and even in historically walkable neighborhoods, we've lost a lot of those community amenities," he said.
Corso said that creates new barriers between people and jobs, food, medical care, and other resources they need in their day-to-day lives.
"This is an incremental way to start to solve that or start to move the needle on that issue by making it safe for all users in all modes to get around the city," he said.
Corso and McKnight are organizers of a Complete Streets Pop-Up Demonstration for the public in the 300 block of Main in downtown Peoria this Friday and Saturday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. That will include volunteers temporarily redesigning the street to include bike lanes, bike corrals, and parklets, among other things.
"The idea is that we've got, you know, line of sight to capital grant money from the state to redesign this, the city does," Corso said. "And so, you know, it's a huge opportunity to kind of inform that, but also get people excited and engaged in being involved in the design of their city, of the streets, that runs through their neighborhoods or through their downtown."
The hope is to get the community revved up and involved as Complete Streets gains momentum. The health department and city obtained a grant from the Illinois Department of Public Health to creating a Complete Streets design manual for the community, to be implemented as funding opportunities crop up.
"It's almost like a movement that we're experiencing right now. And the energy is building up. So we're just gonna keep moving that forward," McKnight said.
