Thank you to WALKSacramento and the Partnership for Active Communities for sharing their story. 
 
 Sacramento, California, has a strong history of advocacy for bringing about better infrastructure to allow for greater pedestrian and cyclist safety and for cleaner air.  Parent groups have long urged local schools to encourage their children to walk or bike to school, county officials have pushed for master pedestrian safety plans, the Transportation Air Quality Collaborative was formed to increase community voice on transit challenges, and dozens of area activists have been involved in improving the pedestrian and cyclist environments.   While their separate work streams were advancing at the local level, it became clear that by bringing these groups together to form a single coalition there may be a greater chance of addressing both climate change and physical activity/obesity prevention by leveraging their common goals.  The Partnership for Active Communities was funded to bring together these and other organizations to push for the development of new infrastructure that allows for more exercise and healthier living. 
 
As the Partnership, directed by WALKSacramento, began to work with city and county planners and schools to achieve their goals of increased physical activity and healthier living, the partners began to voice another goal as well.  If a bicycle and pedestrian-friendly infrastructure were developed, more children and residents could walk or ride to school and work, creating a more active and healthy community. But the community also felt that this same infrastructure would reduce traffic and vehicle emissions, leading to cleaner air and a more sustainable environment.  This concept or strategy they embraced, to pursue these two goals, is referred to as "complete streets," where streets and throughways are designed so that all users can access and move through an area safely and with ease.
 
Eventually, the Partnership's focus on complete streets developed in to a new coalition.  In 2007 the Complete Streets Committee under the Partnership began supporting active participation from both community members and city and county planners in the implementation of the complete streets strategy.  Since then, the various organizations that came together under a common name have seen enormous success. Pedestrian and bicycle lanes throughout the city and county are now commonplace in infrastructure planning.  The coalition has seen a number of its members, including WALKSacramento, receive awards from the Sacramento Area Council of Governments for their work in pushing for the inclusion of raised sidewalks, easier access to street crossings, and separated bike lanes in all city planning. 
 
The Partnership cites the use of their Complete Streets Communication Plan as a major source of their success.  This communication plan was developed as the framework for the Complete Streets Coalition and outlined the specific targets the plan needed to reach. Community members and leaders, traffic engineers, and elected officials were brought together under this framework to be a voice in the coalition.  The entire plan can be found in the resource section below and is also highlighted on the national Complete Streets website. 
 
The Partnership for Active Communities has become an excellent model for bringing together a multitude of organizations to leverage their common voice to address both climate change and physical activity environments, effectively finding a common solution with multiple benefits.  

You can find out more about the Partnership for Active Communities by contacting Anne Geraghty, the executive director of WALKSacramento by emailing her:  ageraghty@walksacramento.org.  See below for tools and resources that may assist you such work.