Helping Communities Thrive – Community-focused, Community-driven This session highlights the importance of community-focused transportation planning and showcases efforts underway to support rural communities, provide transportation alternatives for all users, and make urban connections. Emphasis is on people, places, and traveler experience, with a focus on communities and the critical connections supported by transportation. 

Rural Connect: Empowering Community Driven Solutions, Deb Nelson, NYSDOT
NYSDOT recognizes that rural communities face hurdles and barriers that are profoundly different from the state’s larger urban places. NYSDOT was recently awarded a Thriving Communities Grant to partner with and support five rural communities to develop Community Action Plans. By working with these five communities with varying geography, demographics, and community character, the NYSDOT team will develop skills, tools, and accomplishments that are scalable, replicable, and customizable. NYSDOT will also contribute $5 million in state funding to support Complete Streets as an outcome of the Community Action Plans developed in concert with our partner communities.

New Jersey DOT’s Complete Streets Policy implementation and integration, Eric Powers, NJDOT
NJDOT will provide a brief overview of the department’s  Complete Streets policy and discuss its development, acceptance, and ultimate integration. Examples will be shared which illustrate how the policy influences project initiation,  scoping, and construction. 

From Temporary Diversion to Permanent Connector, Stephanie Winkelhake, NYSDOT
As part of a project to transform the Cross Bronx Expressway, NYSDOT will construct a new detour roadway which will negate the need to divert traffic onto local streets and allow work to proceed faster and more efficiently, thus reducing the construction schedule by nearly two years. Once the bridge work is completed, the detour roadway will be reconfigured to become a multi-modal community connector that provides new bicycle, pedestrian, and bus lane access. It will also reconnect communities that have been separated for years since there was no pedestrian connection over the rail tracks and bus depot that lie beneath the project bridges, thus addressing concerns that have been voiced by community members for years. 

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