The United States spends more than $200 billion each year on roads and highways, with nearly half of that money used for maintenance. Our roads need upkeep - smooth roads improve quality of life, reduce vehicle damage and associated maintenance costs, and can even reduce pollution. But with transportation being the largest source of US greenhouse gas emissions, advancing our climate goals demands not just maintaining, but improving, our transportation system. Simply maintaining the status quo road network reflects a commitment to unacceptable pollution, safety, equity, and economic outcomes.

Repaving roads offers a tremendous opportunity to build what transportation practitioners commonly call "complete streets:" streets that make it safe, comfortable, and efficient for people to walk, roll, and take public transit. Including climate-forward street redesigns in maintenance programs will ensure that public road maintenance dollars not only smooth out potholes and cracks but buy us a better future.

Coordinating complete streets investments with routine maintenance is sound policy

Our streets tend to work well for drivers, but they do not give people the freedom to move without a car. This needlessly increases traffic by forcing people to drive - even for trips where they would have preferred to walk, bike, or ride the bus. More driving also means more money spent on fuel and vehicle maintenance as well as more pollution.

Status quo street design decisions have had serious negative consequences on the environment and public health. The transportation system accounts for nearly a third of US greenhouse gas emissions (most of which comes from cars and trucks) and pollution from cars increases rates of diseases like asthma and cancer, with poorer people and people of color bearing the steepest costs. America is also facing a traffic safety crisis, with motor vehicle crashes killing more than 40,000 Americans in 2023. Redesigning streets to prioritize the safety and convenience of all travelers (including those walking or riding bikes) helps solve each of these problems.

Routine road maintenance (or "resurfacing") projects are the most cost-efficient opportunity for transportation departments to implement complete streets, ensuring that taxpayer dollars are leveraged to achieve their highest and best purpose. According to the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), pairing complete streets projects with routine resurfacing can reduce project costs by more than 50 percent compared to doing the projects individually and can reduce future maintenance costs.

California is the latest state to formalize a commitment to complete streets

California's Senate Bill (SB) 960 provides a promising blueprint for how states can put these ideas into practice. Caltrans, the state's transportation department, has had a complete streets policy since 2008 and has taken incremental steps towards implementation. Yet, as the California Bicycle Coalition (CalBike) has recently documented, the department has nonetheless been falling well short of delivering on its commitments. Analyzing ten key California transportation funding programs, NRDC research published in 2023 found that less than one fifth of the budget went to programs that reduce vehicle-miles traveled (VMT). Incorporating complete streets elements into routine maintenance projects transforms those projects into public health, climate, and safety investments.

Signed in September 2024 by Governor Gavin Newsom, SB 960 aims to ramp up complete streets implementation in the nation's most populous state. The bill - authored by State Senator Scott Weiner and sponsored by CalBike, SPUR, and Streets for All - requires Caltrans to write targets for complete streets implementation into the State Highway Operation and Protection Program (SHOPP).

The SHOPP is a massive program, accounting for more than $5 billion of California's annual transportation budget (more than the entire transportation budget of most state transportation departments). The 2024 SHOPP includes more than 600 projects, with 200 of those projects involving roadways used by people walking and biking. CalBike analyzed these projects and found that while there was an identified need for $1 billion in complete streets upgrades, Caltrans budgeted less than $240 million for this work. The goal of SB 960 is to provide the guidance and accountability necessary to ensure that Caltrans follows through on its complete streets goals.

Critically, SB 960 gives Caltrans a mandate to drive progress on complete streets without sacrificing the flexibility necessary to respond to emergency maintenance needs as they arise. Rather than requiring complete streets elements in every single project, the bill sets program-wide targets for the SHOPP, preserving Caltrans' flexibility to fast-track maintenance projects when necessary. Furthermore, as Caltrans builds its complete street design practice, the department will also grow the industry's institutional capacity to deliver complete streets project on schedule and on budget throughout the state.

Fully realizing a complete streets approach requires action at the local, state, and federal levels

SB 960 is a promising model for states interested in leveraging transportation spending to reduce traffic deaths and air pollution while ensuring that public dollars are spent to achieve their highest and best purpose, but action is required beyond the state level. Cities and counties across the country have implemented their own policies and passed their own laws tying complete streets to road maintenance. In Los Angeles, the voter-approved Measure HLA requires the city to implement its Mobility Plan 2035 (which includes bicycle, pedestrian, and transit enhancements) whenever a street is repaved. Cambridge, Massachusetts has a Cycling Safety Ordinance requiring any street repaving to trigger implementation of the Cambridge Bicycle Plan. Howard County, Maryland has a complete streets policy that does not explicitly tie implementation to maintenance, but that calls out maintenance projects as opportunities to build complete streets.

The federal government is a major funder of transportation projects, contributing about a quarter of the money used on roads and highways. States cannot afford to lose federal funding, which gives the FHWA significant leverage to advance complete streets implementation. Congress has already taken promising, if modest, steps in this direction, most notably through the Vulnerable Road Users Safety Special Rule. This rule compels states with a high percentage of pedestrian and cyclist fatalities to use a certain percentage of Highway Safety Improvement Program funding on projects that improve safety for people traveling by foot or bike. This promising rule applies basic management best practices by tying real spending decisions to transportation system outcomes, but only applies to one relatively small pot of federal money. Legislators would be wise to introduce more performance-based spending rules generally (and more complete streets incentives specifically) in the next transportation reauthorization bill to ensure that states spend federal dollars efficiently to advance national goals.

We cannot afford to continue spending hundreds of billions of dollars to preserve in amber a road network that has us stuck in traffic and breathing polluted air. By ensuring that routine maintenance projects include complete streets elements, we can build a transportation system that protects people and the planet.

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