The Regional Transportation Commission of Washoe County (RTC) is in the process of developing a Complete Streets Master Plan to identify the RTC’s long range strategy for complete street treatments on regional roads in the Reno-Sparks Metropolitan Area. This plan will address safety, traffic flow, and connections for all modes of travel.
Complete Streets are streets made with everyone in mind. They are designed and operated to enable safe access for all users, and serve to comply with the Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA) for individuals with disabilities. Pedestrians, bicyclists, motorists, and transit riders of all ages and abilities must be able to safely move along and across a complete street. Complete Streets make it easy to cross the street, walk to shops, and bicycle to work. They allow busses to run on time and make it safe for people to walk to and from transit locations.
One type of Complete Streets project includes reducing a four-lane roadway to a three-lane configuration. In a three-lane configuration there is always one lane for driving and one lane for turning. That helps make driving safer with fewer crashes and frustrations. With these improvements, a three-lane road can typically handle a similar (or typically handle the same) amount of traffic as a four-lane road.
The development of the Complete Streets Master Plan includes review of existing plans and projects, analysis of existing conditions, development of project selection and prioritization criteria, identification of potential complete streets locations, and community outreach.
Project selection and prioritization will be based on the following criteria: 
- Bikeability score
- Walkability score
- Transit access
- Roadway characteristics and crash data
- Employment/population/public facilities
- Comments from community meeting
Community meetings were held in Sparks and Reno on September 29 and October 13, respectively, with about 55 people in attendance. The project team received about 130 comments from the community, and those comments were mapped in GIS. Draft recommendations are anticipated by the end of 2015. Public meetings will be held in February 2016 with the final report scheduled to be completed in March 2016. Visit www.rtcwashoe.com and click on Hot Topics for more information.
