After about two years of working toward it, Spokane’s City Council passed a Complete Streets ordinance last night after nearly three hours of public comment and council deliberations.
A complete street is a road designed to be safe for drivers, bicyclists, transit riders, and pedestrians of all ages and abilities. The program will ensure those people are planned for in construction projects. It doesn’t mean every street will have a bike lane or sidewalks, but increase the chance of items like those being put in.
Members of the public that testified said they want complete streets for everything from encouraging exercise to increasing wheelchair access. 39 people spoke in favor of complete streets and six against. The main concern of those who were against it is that they don’t want to pay more taxes to support this kind of program, even though that’s not where funding would come from for complete streets. Most likely, it would mean that one or two less construction projects will be completed per year, and that money used for complete streets items.