Kirkwood City Council Member Maggie Duwe Selected For Champions Institute

From the City of Kirkwood:

October 7, 2020

The City of Kirkwood is proud to announce that Council-member Maggie Duwe has been selected to join an inaugural cohort of 21 local elected officials in a new initiative designed to equip them to effectively advocate for and support safer and more complete streets.

Over the course of six months, these leaders will receive comprehensive training to help them become champions for promoting activity-friendly routes to everyday destinations in their communities.

Complete Streets are a vital solution for stemming the rising tide of pedestrian havoc on American streets, which has been getting worse during the COVID-19 crisis. Nationally, driving has decreased 17 percent in the first six months of 2020, but the roadway fatality rate increased by 20 percent. Fewer people are driving but more people are being killed.

Why is this? For one, as the roadways have emptied, speeding has increased by a great amount—a logical outcome when roads are designed primarily for speed, which has deadly consequences. Communities of all sizes urgently need to find ways to prioritize people when it comes to designing and building streets in order to give everyone an option for staying active and healthy while getting where they need to go safely and conveniently each day.

The 21 leaders selected, represent 14 different states and places of almost every size. Over a 6 month period they will learn how Complete Streets can help their communities address multiple crises at the same time, among other vital lessons. Safer streets that anyone can use provide more space for socially distanced and affordable transportation options during and after the COVID-19 pandemic. They can help us reduce emissions and fight climate change by making it possible for more people to walk, bike, or take transit. They can save thousands of lives each year by reducing the growing number of people who are struck and killed while walking on dangerous roads. And they can help us create more equitable public spaces by ensuring that people of all ages and abilities can access our streets.

These participants will become champions for developing and advocating for equitable and effective Complete Streets policies that will make safer street design the rule instead of the exception. In a community that’s already passed a Complete Streets policy, these local leaders will be able to focus on making sure it’s actually implemented—and potentially strengthening the local policy if needed.

This press release was produced by the City of Kirkwood .The views expressed here are the author’s own.