This year’s Complete Streets Leadership Academy will work with the Alabama Department of Transportation (ALDOT) and the communities of Moody, Oneonta, and Springville. In support of the  Active People, Healthy Nation^SM initiative, the program will bring together ALDOT, local staff from each community, and regional partners to address transportation safety concerns and needs to make their communities more activity-friendly.

Smart Growth America’s highly successful Complete Streets Leadership Academy (CSLA) has led to street design changes, stronger relationships, and systemic changes in states including Alaska, California, Connecticut, Kentucky, Maryland, and Tennessee. Now in its fourth year, the work in Alabama will demonstrate how quick builds can be used by small towns and rural communities in collaboration with regional and state partners.

Pedestrian fatalities remain stubbornly high across the U.S., with only marginal improvements since the COVID-19 pandemic. In SGA’s 2024 Dangerous by Design, Alabama was the 15th most dangerous state for pedestrians. The communities selected to participate in this year’s CSLA have something in common with many places across the U.S. experiencing road safety concerns—a state-owned highway bisecting a community, making it harder to create active, healthy, and economically thriving places. The purpose of communities implementing quick-build demonstrations through the CSLA is to identify timely, feasible ways to achieve a shared vision of success for these roads and the surrounding areas.

“We know that the Complete Streets Leadership Academy model works. We have seen it bring together communities, build partnerships, and kickstart systemic changes to bring about more of the changes needed to make sure more people end up safely home at the end of the day,” said Heidi Simon, Director of Thriving Communities at Smart Growth America. “This year’s cohort will demonstrate that all this and more is possible for smaller communities as well.”

Participants in the program will take part in virtual sessions with national experts, learn from peers across the state, and engage in activities designed to advance the implementation of community-specific quick-build demonstrations. The communities will partner with ALDOT, Smart Growth America, and technical experts to design, implement, and measure the effectiveness of their quick-build projects, helping identify strategies for long-term change that sustainably improve transportation safety across the state, build state and local capacity, and foster collaboration at both the state and local levels.

The Complete Streets Leadership Academy is made possible by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) (Cooperative Agreement CDC-RFA-PW-24-0080). Its contents are solely the responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official views of CDC. The program is part of the CDC’s Active People, Healthy Nation^SM Initiative that is working to help 27 million Americans become more physically active by 2027.