Wenatchee Selected to Participate in Street Transformation Academy

The city of Wenatchee has been selected as one of three Washington cities to participate in the first ever Complete Streets Leadership Academy through the National Complete Streets Coalition program. The academy is a series of workshops that will teach skills like proven safety countermeasures, inclusive community engagement and how to evaluate the success of projects.

"A practical component we're building up to across this program is a temporary on the ground demonstration project," said Heather Zaccaro, program manager. "This will be a chance for the participants from Wenatchee and the other two cities to test out new approaches to designing their streets in a way that allow all people to share the streets safely regardless of how they travel or get around."

The Wenatchee city staff will be joined by representatives from Chelan Douglas Health District, Washington State Department of Transportation and the Chelan Douglas Transportation Council for the academy. The other cities selected were Arlington and Airway Heights.

"Wenatchee is of the three communities on the leadership academy, is really the leaders of Complete Streets," said Zaccaro. "Wenatchee has made a lot of progress so far with their complete streets ordinance, but this program is going to be an opportunity to really move the needle further. I think it's a really good chance to advance the safety and health of street design throughout the state."

Wenatchee adopted a Complete Streets policy in 2016 and has received a perfect score from the National Complete Streets Coalition.

The National Complete Streets Coalition is a program of Smart Growth America.