The City of Bowling Green is looking at having a public forum to hear the community’s goals for the complete streets project.

City Council member Daniel Gordon said council passed a resolution last year that said the city “affirms the values of complete streets” and would work toward instituting them.

“The goal is to make the streets as safe and accessible for all users as possible,” Assistant Municipal Administrator Joe Fawcett said.

Kelly Wicks, an active advocate for public transportation in the community, said complete streets not only helps cars travel more safely, but “also safer for kids to get to school and citizens to ride their bike to places like the park and downtown.”

In Bowling Green specifically, plans are to involve bike lanes and multi-use pathways.

“Although we have a consensus to implement complete streets, we don’t have consensus on how to do it,” Gordon said.

Originally the Transportation and Safety committee wanted to create a map with priority streets, but later it was decided to hold a public forum and survey community members about what they think is best because “it doesn’t really do us any good when a couple people sit at a table and say what they think would be best,” he said.

The forum will allow Bowling Green residents to add input on which streets would be labeled as priorities.

Gordon mentioned increasing public health through exercise while getting from place to place, environmental sustainability because of less fossil fuels emission, and an increase traffic to local business.

Gordon’s goal is to “make sure Bowling Green is a truly livable city,” similar to the 700 other cities nationwide that have instituted complete streets. One of those towns Bowling Green is referencing closely is Piqua, Ohio.

“My hope is always that we get them done as soon as we possibly can because this is something that community members have called for decades,” Gordon said.