Smarter Streets: What the US Can Learn From Australia's Innovative Road Design
"Discover how the Complete Streets approach in the US and Australia's SmartRoads are shaping the future of urban planning and creating safer, more inclusive cities."
For decades, road management prioritized vehicle movement and minimizing congestion. But now, there's growing recognition of the multiple roles streets play in society, including road safety, fair access, community spaces, and accommodating various road users, such as pedestrians and cyclists. The Complete Streets movement in the United States and SmartRoads network operations planning in Australia represent this shift in how we design and manage our roads.
This article examines the progress of the Complete Streets approach in the United States and introduces the SmartRoads management framework developed in Victoria, Australia. The SmartRoads system classifies roads based on a multimodal Road User Hierarchy, identifies network issues using multimodal level of service (LOS) measurements, and compares potential operational or design solutions using Network Fit Assessment software.
Although created around the same time, these two approaches differ significantly. Yet, by learning from each other, both the United States and Australia can substantially improve how they manage and design their roads.
Defining the Smart Goal Framework
The SMART acronym stands for specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound — the five criteria experts recommend for effective goal setting. When applied to infrastructure policy, these criteria can help distinguish between vague aspirations and actionable targets. For instance, a road-design initiative that specifies emissions-reduction percentages and completion timelines is more likely to deliver measurable outcomes than one framed as an open-ended commitment. This framework is widely used across education, business, and public-sector planning to keep projects accountable.
Conventional Road Design Practice
Traditional road design in many countries has long prioritized vehicle throughput and capacity expansion, often following engineering standards that date back decades. While these methods have delivered extensive highway networks, they frequently overlook multimodal access, pedestrian safety, and environmental impact. The result is an approach that can lock in car dependency and make retrofitting for sustainability more costly over time. More recent frameworks aim to balance mobility with livability, though adoption remains uneven across jurisdictions.
Origins of the SMART Framework
The SMART goal framework was formalized to help organizations translate broad objectives into concrete, trackable commitments. By requiring that goals be specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and time-bound, the framework provides a structured approach to planning and evaluation. It has since been applied across sectors — from corporate strategy to public policy — as a way of increasing accountability. Its emphasis on measurability makes it particularly relevant for long-term infrastructure projects where progress must be demonstrated over multi-year timelines.
Complete Streets and SmartRoads: A Shared Vision for Urban Spaces
Both Australia and the United States have recently shifted their approaches to road planning and traffic management. Traditionally, road design and traffic management emphasized efficient movement for motorized vehicles, often at the expense of pedestrians, cyclists, and public transport. However, the mid-2000s marked a turning point in how road space was conceived and managed.
- Complete Streets: Focuses on safety, equity, and vulnerable road users, aiming to improve road safety and consider all road users. Walking and cycling are core modes, with transit considered to some extent.
- SmartRoads: Emphasizes multimodal movement and congestion management, reducing conflict between modes. It includes walking, cycling, public transport, freight, and private vehicles.
Current Product and Technology Landscape
Smart, the automotive brand, has evolved its product lineup to reflect broader shifts toward electrification and compact urban mobility. The company's latest models emphasize efficient design for city driving, aligning with global trends toward smaller-footprint vehicles. This direction mirrors the urban planning principle that streets designed for lighter, more efficient vehicles can reduce congestion and emissions simultaneously. As cities explore road-design innovations, vehicle-platform choices like these become part of the broader conversation about sustainable transport systems.
Challenges and Criticisms
Innovative road-design proposals often face pushback from stakeholders accustomed to conventional infrastructure investments. Critics may point to high upfront costs, disruption during construction, or uncertainty about whether new approaches will deliver promised benefits at scale. Some pilot projects have struggled to demonstrate clear returns on investment within typical budget cycles, making political support difficult to sustain. These tensions highlight the difficulty of shifting established systems, even when long-term gains appear promising.
Comparing Infrastructure Approaches
Different countries have adopted varying strategies for integrating sustainability into road design, shaped by geography, governance, and funding models. What works in one context may not transfer directly to another, particularly when comparing nations with different population densities and land-use patterns. Cross-national comparisons are useful for identifying transferable principles, but successful adoption typically requires local adaptation rather than wholesale replication. The most effective approaches tend to combine proven engineering with flexible policy frameworks that can evolve over time.
Learning from Each Other: A Path Forward
The SmartRoads and Complete Streets approaches developed concurrently in Victoria and the United States, addressing the challenge of better managing road networks. Although originating from similar needs, the outcomes differ significantly. The institutional, historical, and cultural settings contribute to these differences, highlighting a valuable opportunity to improve practices in both regions.
Bringing It Together
Experts increasingly emphasize the need for integrated planning that connects road design with broader climate and equity goals. No single intervention is likely to transform urban mobility on its own; rather, a portfolio of complementary strategies tends to produce the most durable results. The challenge lies in coordinating across agencies and aligning short-term investments with long-term sustainability targets. Progress in this space will likely depend on sustained political commitment as much as on technical innovation.
Looking Ahead
Emerging trends in road design point toward greater integration of smart sensors, adaptive traffic management, and materials that reduce lifecycle emissions. As autonomous and electric vehicles become more common, street layouts may need to evolve to accommodate different speed profiles and charging infrastructure. Pilot programs in several regions are testing modular road designs that can be adjusted as technology and usage patterns change. These developments suggest a future in which roads are treated as dynamic assets rather than static installations.
Systemic Barriers to Change
Shifting from conventional road design to more innovative approaches requires overcoming institutional inertia, fragmented funding streams, and sometimes conflicting regulatory requirements. Federal, state, and local agencies may have overlapping jurisdictions that complicate decision-making. Public engagement processes, while essential, can also slow implementation if not carefully managed. Addressing these systemic challenges is as important as any technical design improvement.
What It Means for Communities
For residents, the benefits of innovative road design are most visible in everyday experiences — shorter commutes, safer crossings, and more pleasant public spaces. Communities that have adopted complete-street designs often report improved pedestrian activity and local business vitality. Conversely, poorly executed projects can erode public trust and make future initiatives harder to advance. Centering community input throughout the design process remains one of the most reliable ways to ensure that infrastructure investments deliver real quality-of-life gains.