News

Heartland Healthy Neighborhoods, a coalition of Topeka and Shawnee County citizens and organizations, will host a Complete Streets Pep Rally (.pdf) on Wednesday, June 24, at 6:30 p.m. at Landon Middle School.

The rally culminates two days of community meetings lead by Michael Moule and Dom Nozzi, workshop instructors for the National Complete Streets Coalition, whom Heartland Healthy Neighborhoods brought to town. Monday afternoon, elected officials of the Shawnee County, the City of Topeka, and local school boards attended a special presentation from Moule on the many benefits of complete streets, including safety improvements, active lifestyle encouragement, and reduction of pollution. The Topeka Capital-Journal has the full scoop.

Today, Moule and Nozzi are conducting a day-long workshop with City and County planners and engineers in a “Laying the Foundations for Complete Streets” workshop. The invited decision-makers will walk away with a better understanding of complete streets policies and what could be expected in the Topeka area if adopted as a matter of course.

Perhaps most exciting, though, is this tomorrow’s public Complete Streets Pep Rally. “The pep rally will give the public an opportunity to see how easy the complete street design is to incorporate.  It is an exciting time for Topeka/Shawnee County,” said Jim Ogle, co-chair of Complete Streets Topeka.

The Topeka City Council recently passed a special sales tax for street maintenance, making this a prime opportunity to change policy.

Read the Heartland Healthy Neighborhoods press release (.doc) for more information.