Rochester's Complete Streets Makeover

Is there an intersection or trouble spot in your daily travels that doesn’t feel safe to bike or walk?
Nominate it for a
Complete Street Makeover.

Submit your nomination by
Saturday, August 31, 2024.

Reconnect Rochester and our team of partners believe streets are for people (not just cars). No one understands what it’s like to use our streets better than those who walk, bike, roll and ride along them everyday.

We need your help identifying the intersections and trouble spots in Monroe County that could be redesigned to make them safer for everyone.

If you’d rather fill out a hard copy, CLICK HERE to print a submission form and mail it to:

Reconnect Rochester
Hungerford Complex
1115 East Main St., Box #61
Rochester, NY 14609

Oprima aquí para acceder al Formulario de Nominación para la Remodelación de Calles Completas en español.

Complete Streets Makeover Winner

From the public nominations received, our Steering Committee will select a location for a Complete Streets Makeover based on established judging criteria. Selection factors include crash safety data of incidents at the location, potential for design improvements, proximity to kids, and evidence of community support for change. 

Note: To be considered for the Makeover project, a location must be a neighborhood intersection on a local street within the city of Rochester (streets NOT identified in red/blue as a major arterial/collector road on this map)

Please note that previous winners are not eligible.

The Complete Streets Makeover Winner receives:

  • a community workshop to hear resident and stakeholder input
  • a professional street redesign that will make it safer for those walking and biking, created by the engineering team at Stantec  
  • an on-street installation of temporary design improvements, including equipment, and street painting supplies 
  • speed data collection as evidence of the project’s impact, and
  • ongoing guidance and support of neighborhood follow-up advocacy to make the changes permanent. 

To get a sense for the project, watch this short film about our Complete Streets Makeover project at the intersection of Arnett Blvd. and Warwick Ave. in 2023.

Design Rendering Winner

The Steering Committee will also select a Design Rendering Winner. While the Complete Streets Makeover Winner must be a neighborhood intersection composed of smaller local streets, the Design Rendering Eligibility can be any location or type of roadway within Monroe County. 

The winning location will receive a conceptual drawing by the engineering team at Stantec to show possible street design improvements that would make it safer for those walking and biking. Neighborhood/town residents can use the illustration as a starting point for further community conversation, and a tool to advocate for improvements.

What is a ‘Complete Street’?

A complete street allows everyone—regardless of age, ability or mode of transportation—to safely access that street. It is a street shared by pedestrians, bicyclists, transit riders and motorists. All complete streets are not the same. As Smart Growth America explains: 

“There is no singular design prescription for Complete Streets; each one is unique and responds to its community context. A complete street may include: sidewalks, bike lanes (or wide paved shoulders), special bus lanes, comfortable and accessible public transportation stops, frequent and safer crossing opportunities, median islands, accessible pedestrian signals, curb extensions, narrower travel lanes, roundabouts, and more. A Complete Street in a rural area will look quite different from a Complete Street in a highly urban area, but both are designed to balance safety and convenience for everyone using the road.”

Our goal with the Complete Streets Makeover is to bring attention to complete street design as one critical factor in creating streets that are safe for everyone.

Photos on the left show a street designed exclusively for cars; photos on the right show a “complete street” designed for people.

Learn More

Visit Complete Streets Makeover program page to learn more about why we do this, the process components, and short films about our past projects.

Program Partners

Reconnect Rochester
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