10th anniversary post: What is a complete street?

Edgewood Road SW near the new library is not a complete street, 
but a 10-foot side "trail" and daytime bus service help

Ten years ago, I explored the concept of complete streets, with profiles of three eastside streets "currently suited only to those physically fit and bold of spirit" that I thought could use a bit of complete streets treatment. In the years since, Cedar Rapids has added numerous sidewalks around town, as well as bike lanes and trails, converted most one-way streets back to two-way, and made important zoning reforms. On the other hand, we're turning Mt. Vernon Road into a highway, reserving important land adjacent to downtown for unproductive uses, and everywhere doubling down on car-dependence.

Later in 2014, the city adopted both a Complete Streets Policy and a comprehensive plan, Envision CR, which included complete streets. Envision CR, revised in 2023, defines complete streets as "streets that serve a variety of functions and potentials" (p. 127), with features like separated bike lanes, sidewalks, crosswalks, street furniture, and better drainage, all supported by "special" lighting graphics and landscaping. It identified as ongoing tasks "sign and mark streets for bicyclists" and "retrofit high priority corridors with sidewalks and pedestrian amenities" consistent with the city's Complete Streets Policy (p. 128).

The three incomplete streets I pulled off the top of my head in 2014 have since seen varying impacts of complete streets ideas.

(1) A Avenue NE (small impact).

Turn right to enter I-380: 800 block of A Avenue NE
(Google Earth screenshot, 2021)

Back in the day this was a residential/commercial street. According to the 1953 Polk's Directory, more than 300 people then lived along A Avenue between Coe College and 1st Street downtown. There were also numerous commercial establishments, including a grocery store at 717, a barber shop (708), a bar (800), a restaurant (713), a vet (801), and two cleaners (719 & 835). Imagine the activity on that street at any time of the day seventy years ago, and ponder what has been lost to the interstate highway and medical district expansion.

Today A Avenue's principal purpose now is to provide auto access to St. Luke's Hospital, I-380 entrance at 8th Street, and Quaker Oats. Its four lanes carry 5000 cars a day below 7th Street. In 2021 there was no count above 7th Street, but in 2017 the count was 7600 at the entrance to the interstate, then back down to 5800 in front of St. Luke's Hospital.

Aerial view of the same area
(Google Earth screenshot, 2021)

I'd chosen A to examine, because it's the one of the few available connections between the Mound View neighborhood (including Coe College) and downtown; really the only alternative is high-traffic 1st Avenue. In 2014 I was torn between narrowing A and shifting through car traffic onto 1st, or doing the opposite. Nothing as radical as either of those has been attempted, but there have been two small improvements: the intersection at 10th has been changed from traffic signals to a three-way stop, and brick crosswalks have been added across 12th a.k.a. Coe Road. 

newish crosswalks, A Ave and Coe Road NE
(St. Luke's Hospital in background)

Back then, I said biking was "do-able, but scary, particularly near the interstate," and that walking was complicated at every intersection. That is still true.

I'm probably more in favor now than I was then of closing the interstate altogether. A Avenue shows the damage to urban form brought by an intracity highway and an auto-oriented medical district, and how difficult it is to repair that once done.

(2) 10th Street E (moderate impact).

300 block of 10th Street, heading towards Mercy Hospital
(Google Earth screenshot from 2021)
(Note the gentleman on the sidewalk, unimpressed by the bike lane)

This should be called the Medical Mile, as its nine blocks are bookended by St. Luke's and Mercy Hospitals. Numerous medical offices are located along the way, as well as a lovely historic Firestone Tire establishment...

Firestone Complete Auto Care, 205 10th St SE

..., two churches, and McKinley Middle School (slated for closure, I'm not sure how soon).

Ten years ago, 10th Street was four lanes wide; in 2020 it got a road diet, and is now three lanes with bike lanes on each side. Average daily traffic counts (2021) peak at 10,700 at 3rd Avenue, about 10 percent higher than in 2017.

400 block of 10th Street SE: bike lanes are nice,
but the trees could use a bit of trimming

I'd chosen 10th Street because along most of its length it forms the border between the MedQuarter and the Wellington Heights neighborhood. So, how easily it is crossed is at least as important as how easily it can be traveled by non-car modes. Narrowing the car portion of the street helps, as do the crossing treatments at 3rd Avenue, but the traffic lights at 4th and 5th Avenues still seem to take forever. 

Needs some place to walk to: 4th Avenue and 10th Street, 2019

It may be that what can be done to complete 10th Street has been done, and we now need to look at what's around it. Physicians Clinic of Iowa (202 10th) and Mercy Hospital (701 10th) are massive campuses that are hard to get around/through, and the same may well come to be true of whatever replaces McKinley Middle School (620 10th). The intersection at 8th Avenue, which borders the Oak Hill Jackson neighborhood, is being converted into a roundabout, with the jury out on the pedestrian-friendliness of its design. 

Constructing roundabout at 10th St and 8th Av
(McKinley Middle School in background)

Depending on how the roundabout turns out (ha ha!), a traditional intersection with four-way stops (and no slip lanes) might have been preferable for non-car travelers.

(3) 32nd Street NE (no impact).

There's a sidewalk, but crossing I-380 is rough:
grocery shopping from the Overlook 380 apts
(Google Earth screenshot)

32nd Street is a two-lane, roughly two-mile-long east-west street that runs through the Kenwood neighborhood. It connects 1st Avenue, which is running northeast-southwest at this point, to Center Point Road, which runs north-south. We're getting into suburban traffic patterns at this remove from the core: 29th Street does the same thing in pretty much the same way, but the next closest east-west connection is not until Collins Road. I'd included it on my 2014 list because it's such an artery, passing along the way several apartment buildings, Collins Aerospace, a large Hy-Vee grocery store, the Cedar River Trail, and an entrance to I-380, before it becomes Glass Road and continues on westward. Average daily traffic counts (2021) on 32nd range from 8100 near 1st Avenue to 9300 near the highway; in 2017 the peak was 13,900 near the highway.

In 2014 I complained of high traffic speeds, difficult cycling, and (relayed from Niles Ross) incomplete sidewalks that where they did exist were in poor condition. I imagined, in order to complete the street, "more and smoother sidewalks; calming car traffic with four-way stops at C Av, Eastern Av, and Prairie Dr; sharrow signs, since I don't think the street is wide enough for bike lanes; relaxed zoning in order to allow small commercial development along the street; and a bus line that runs back and forth along 32nd/Glass from 1st to Edgewood." That list has five things on it! which said a lot about the street's needs.

Ten years later, not much has changed on 32nd Street. The sidewalks on the 1st Avenue end are still chopped up, though there are multiple markings suggesting repairs are imminent. 

32nd Street sidewalk, with purposeful markings

Those sidewalks still terminate at F Avenue (north side of the street) and G Avenue (south side of the street. The car traffic still doesn't stop, there are still no bike markings (not even the dreaded sharrow), and bus service is still at the ends of the street rather than along it. I don't remember what commercial development I thought possible back then, but a widely-praised little restaurant, Loosies, has popped up between Oakland and Center Point Roads.

Loosies, 1611 32nd St NE

🌞

As the city presented Envision CR to the public ten years ago, veteran reporter Dale Keuter said he'd seen plenty of plans end up in the "dust heap" (Smith 2014). It's too early to say that's where the complete streets policy is headed. Progress is of necessity going to be gradual, and would-be destinations like the casino, the MedQuarter, and the greenway are always going to get more attention. But as an exceptionally car-dependent city in the 21st century, which has both seen its share of weather disasters and wants to attract young talent, we can't afford to put the day-to-day lives of residents on the back burner.

SEE ALSO: Jane E. Brody, “Keeping Older Pedestrians Safe,” New York Times, 5 January 2015

Spencer Gardner, "Strength Test #6: Can Children Safely Walk or Bike in Your Town?" Strong Towns, 5 April 2017

Sean Hayford Oleary, "If We Want a Shift to Walking, We Need to Prioritize Dignity," Strong Towns, 28 July 2023

ORIGINAL POST: "What is a Complete Street?" 13 August 2014