Smart Streets

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Pete Buttigieg
Former U.S. Secretary of Transportation |

Idea Category: Infrastructure

Problem

South Bend’s thriving downtown began a transformation in the 1960s and 1970s which brought widened one-way, fast moving streets that rewarded the motorists and devalued the downtown, moving people and markets to the suburbs.

Solution

Mayor Pete Buttigieg has helped lead the Smart Streets initiative, an effort to improve the role of streets within South Bend, Indiana. The initiative centers on the economic development goal of creating a sense of place and supporting a vibrant and walkable downtown. The public design-build process was innovative as it brought divergent segments of the population together to achieve rapid consensus, allowing design and engineering work to start the first project phases within a year of the first public input sessions.