What would you give to live on a “complete street”?
The city of Kingston is considering that question, as part of a holistic effort to revitalize its historic neighborhoods in Midtown, the Rondout and the Stockade district, seeing complete streets as a foundation for economic well-being at a time when sprawl is becoming  too expensive to continue.
The Common Council adopted a resolution in November endorsing the principles of  creating “complete streets” in general terms, as part of the city”™s desire to foster smart growth. The resolution cited it as going back to the future, noting that the city, the first capital of New York state, laid its street out long before the invention of the automobile.
Complete street is a planning doctrine gaining favor among urban planners nationally as a way of improving the safety and quality of life and in many cases the economy of cities now splintered by roads that serve the needs of motor vehicles instead of the people and businesses along those streets.
But there is opportunity inherent in creating a complete street. Â “We have these great street assets in Kingston and at a time of rising costs and diminishing budgets we must productively use the assets we have,” said planner David Gilmour, of Gilmour Planning, who is working with the city under a joint program with Cornell Cooperative Extension”™s Healthy Kingston for Kids project.
“Kingston is an old and historic city and they are like every municipality challenged in these fiscal times to make ends meet,” Gilmour said.” And it involves productively using capital assets they have.”
Infrastructure such as water mains and sewers, services such as police, fire and sanitation, and maintenance of thoroughfares are all part of smart-growth tenets favoring complete streets
He said the complete street committee is a logical partner with the Healthy Kid”™s project because complete streets have lesser amounts of traffic that could hit children, but whose absence also means cleaner air and less asthma and other respiratory ailments.
But he said the effort goes beyond healthy kids as part of a long-term strategy to bring people and commerce back to Broadway and to the city in general. “A large portion, a significant part of Kingston”™s  economic base is  related to culture and tourism,” Gilmour said.
Complete street features such as bike lanes, pedestrian walkways, buses and more amenities such as kiosks and pocket parks make touring the city easier more enjoyable. But such long-term goals can get started with simple improvements, such as consistent and informative signs to let visitors know of attractions lie and how far off they are. “A visitor uptown at the Stockade wants to know how far the Rondout is, and how to get there,” Gilmour said. The sign aspect of complete streets is something that can be implemented quickly and with little funding.
Partnerships are another aspect of the project. The Ulster County Transportation Council has released draft plans for rehabilitation of a key intersection in the heart of Kingston, where Albany Avenue and Broadway connect in an awkward interchange with Interstate 587.
County and city planners are considering a proposal to transform the intersection into a traffic roundabout, providing better traffic flow in a far more attractive setting that can incorporate complete street planning principles such a pocket parks, benches and street trees to encourage pedestrian and bicycle traffic.
