Home Street Home Interactive Exhibit
Home Street Home is an interactive educational exhibit that explores our streets and public spaces as places where we travel, shop, play, and engage with our communities. Good streets are places that support living well: places that make us safer, healthier, and more productive, places with people and activities that make our lives more interesting, places that help us get to work, school, services, and all of the opportunities that improve our quality of life.
The Home Street Home exhibit is designed to be accessible and interesting to a wide audience including child-friendly activities. It includes five "stations" each with a separate theme and activity. (See images and descriptions of each station, below; click each image to view it larger.) The exhibit is scalable and configurable so that it can easily be adapted to different locations and purposes.
Station 1: What are Complete Streets?
The exhibit begins with an invitation for people to think about their favorite streets and what makes them special. Often the world of transportation infrastructure can be intimidating, confusing, and filled with jargon. Too often, conversations about priorities for our public spaces focus on specific infrastructure solutions without the context of broader community priorities. This display invites participants to develop a fresh perspective on their built environment by exploring why the places they love make them feel safe, comfortable, and connected.
Station 2: Complete Streets Benefits
Our well-being depends on meeting basic community needs - the ability to feel safe and be safe in our streets and public spaces, the capacity to live healthy, happy lives, and access to jobs, services, and education that can expand opportunity. This display explores why Complete Streets Matter, going beyond transportation to think about how our streets support a multitude of important outcomes. A data-driven trivia board grounds this discussion with research about the impact of Complete Streets on areas of safety, health, economy, environment, equity, livability, and accessibility.
Station 3: Streets for Everyone
Every street balances activities and transportation choices differently based on the surrounding environment and needs of the community. This display shows how some well-known streets prioritize space and encourages participants to think about how streets in their own communities serve the needs of different users. Participants can interact with the display to recreate and experiment with streets they know, exploring how these streets could better serve a diverse mix of users and activities. This activity is useful for highlighting how common street configurations may serve many users poorly, while at the same time illustrating the capacity of existing streets to support a more complete mix of functions.
Station 4: Traffic Calming Toolbox
Traffic speed has a major impact on the safety and comfort of people walking and biking. Slowing down cars, or "traffic calming," is one of the best ways to make a street more inviting and functional for all ages, abilities, and types of transportation. This display illustrates some of the many traffic calming strategies that not only slow car traffic but also enhance the street in other ways. An interactive exercise encourages participants to use tools from their Traffic Calming Toolbox to calm traffic on a sample neighborhood street. Engaging for all ages, this activity helps participants be creative and encourages people to be proactive about changes to the built environment in their communities. The message is clear: streets and public spaces can be better, and everyone has the ability to make them better.
Station 5: Take Back Your Streets
Everyone deserves streets that are safe and inviting, and that provide choices for people to get around. From block parties to neighborhood cleanups to speaking up at City Hall, there are lots of ways that people can be proactive to make streets in their community better. This display helps translate the ideas explored in the Home Street Home exhibit into action. Practical, meaningful actions are outlined to help people support complete streets where they live, including pop-up events and demonstrations, neighborhood preservation activities, do-it-yourself improvements, and strategies for advocacy.
Exhibit Layout Options
Home Street Home can be laid out in a variety of configurations, individual boards can be used on their own, or the boards can be used on a table top.
1. What are Complete Streets?
2. Complete Streets benefits
3. Streets for Everyone
4. Traffic Calming Toolbox
5. Take Back Your Streets
Borrowing Home Street Home
The exhibit can be borrowed for use in your community meeting, classroom, or other educational events. There are transport and logistical issues to consider, and we can talk through those with anyone interested in using the exhibit. We try to make Home Street Home accessible to BikeWalkKC community partners and other nonprofit groups. There may be fees required for special requests or extended loan periods.
The Exhibit Request Form has more information about using Home Street Home.
About the Home Street Home exhibit
Home Street Home was developed by BikeWalkKC with support from the Health Forward Foundation. It was designed by Banjo Creative, printed by Mpress, and fabricated by Square One Studio.
Contact planning@bikewalkkc.org with questions or to request additional information.