Understanding complete streets at the ground level: a look into how a complete street project is defined and influenced within the Greater Golden Horseshoe

The Complete Streets movement has become popular throughout North America as street renewal projects have begun to re-prioritize road users within the public right-of-way (ROW). Although the concepts and overall objectives of a Complete Street are becoming increasingly recognized in the transportation-planning field, a level of ambiguity exists when defining such projects through the existing built infrastructure. This major research paper has collected and presented data gathered from local transportation planning experts through the means of telephone interviews and a focus group, to understand how a Complete Street can be defined at the project level, and what factors might influence this definition. The findings of this paper show that the definition of a Complete Street can be largely dependent on surrounding context, as well as various considerations taken during the Complete Street's planning process.