Speaking

Come join Burgess & Niple’s safety experts and planners for a half-mile complete street “Walk and Talk”. As we walk along the route, the tour will feature a “hands-on” assessment of the streets near the RP Funding Arena. In small group facilitated discussions, the tour leaders will ask you to consider the street from multiple user perspectives. For example, what is your perspective of this street? Would your perspective change if you were 8-years old or if you were 80-years old? What did the street designers get right and where is there room for improvement? The tour will feature stopping points along the route to assess context, safety and comfort for all residents. So, wear comfortable shoes, bring your sunglasses and let’s walk and talk!

To develop a successful safety plan and ultimately program, agencies need to consider and address several elements first. This includes leadership, agency culture, stakeholder collaboration, public support and buy-in, data collection and availability, and supporting policies. A lack of consensus and collaboration on these topics very early can set an agency up to fail in building a safety practice and later implementation efforts. Doing a baseline assessment can help an agency understand 1) where they are in respect to advancing safe system principles and elements 2) what challenges need to be addressed and 3) specific actions to take to overcome hurdles. With an assessment in place, agencies are better positioned to initiate a plan or continue a safety program. These can be done on a small budget, but have a significant impact on reducing severe crashes.