Tennessee endorses NACTO Urban Street Design Guide

New York — In early June, the Tennessee State Department of Transportation (TDOT) became the sixth state DOT to officially endorse NACTO’s Urban Street Design Guide, a blueprint for designing safe, sustainable and multi-modal urban streets. The endorsement, which follows similar actions by Washington, Massachusetts, California, Utah, and Minnesota, represents the first by a southern state DOT.

“To reach our goal of having the best multimodal transportation system in the nation, we must expand the options we offer our users and create a shared vision with our local partners,” said TDOT Commissioner John Schroer. “The Urban Street Design Guide is a valuable resource that offers cost effective solutions and improvements that Tennessee communities can embrace and implement.”

Tennessee’s support brings NACTO’s endorsement campaign to a close, with official endorsement by six states, nearly 40 large and mid-sized cities, as well as the Urban Land Institute and Association of Pedestrian and Bicycle Professionals. The campaign was launched by Janette Sadik-Khan, then-NACTO President and NYC Transportation Commissioner, at the NACTO Designing Cities Conference in October 2013 in Phoenix, Arizona.

“NACTO Guides have quickly become a national playbook for innovative street design, embraced by state and local governments serving more than a quarter of the nation’s population. These six states and 37 cities are just the start of this as tens of thousands of developers, planning groups and academic institutions across the country integrate these guides into the design of 21st-century streets,” said Sadik-Khan, NACTO Chair.

NACTO President Ed Reiskin praised Tennessee DOT’s endorsement, but encouraged more states to join them. “The endorsement of the NACTO Guide by six State DOTs is a huge step forward, but for the country to achieve its carbon emissions reduction goals and create better communities, we need all 50 states to be using and implementing this document.”

“The Tennessee DOT endorsement of the Urban Street Design Guide is part of an exciting movement among states,” said Linda Bailey, NACTO’s Executive Director. “As an organization of city transportation leaders, NACTO needs the partnership of states so we can make the improvements on our streets that city residents are demanding. I look forward to continuing to work with Tennessee and other states to build economically vital, safe and inviting streets going forward.”

NACTO will continue to work with city and state DOTs to provide educational programming and training on the Urban Street Design Guide and Urban Bikeway Design Guide, encouraging DOTs to endorse a vision for safe, sustainable, and economically vibrant streets and cities.