Kansas City Bicycle Log

Posts, email, and ideas related to bicycling and bicycle advocacy.



I post these mostly for my own convenience in being able to keep them archived and searchable, but if you get some use of them, more power to you!

Among other interesting items here is a fairly complete record of my involvement with the grassroots effort in support of the BikeKC initiative in the Summer of 2002.

You can find everything from press releases to letters to the city council to exhortations to other bicyclists to write letters to the editor. See what worked well and what caused us problems in the effort to pass BikeKC.

From my point of view, this was almost a picture-perfect grass-roots movement. The result was that BikeKC was passed on August 15th, 2002.

Now we have to work to make sure the plan becomes reality!

Most of that is in the 8/25/2002-8/31/2002 archive.

This page is powered by Blogger. Isn't yours?

RSS Feed

Sunday, August 25, 2002
 

As far as I understand it, our plan is pretty basic & simple. In the first phase, they are choosing a few wide streets (KC has a "boulevard" plan dating from about 1900, so certain streets are already purposefully wider) and turning those into bike routes or striping them for bike lanes. Then other routes are designated bike routes in later phases & the idea is that as they are rebuilt over the next 10-15 years, they will be built to better standards that will allow room for bike lanes (and sidewalks . . . ).

The most important part, though, is simply that all new developments, new roads, and new or rebuilt bridges will have enough right-of-way reserved, and be built to specifications, that will allow for bicycle & pedestrian facilities.

Kansas City is a strange sort of a city. They have gulped up huge tracts of land and at least 50% (maybe more) of the city is still agricultural in character. Then, on the other hand, there is a very densely populated, and often neglected and ugly urban core.

Of the "open land", some is under development at a fast rate right now, and so at a minimum, we're hoping that all the new developments will be built to better & more modern standards. Many (most?) of the new neighborhoods that have been built in Kansas City in the past 40 or 50 years have been built to just terrible standards--no sidewalks and narrow streets with no shoulder. I live in such a neighborhood, and it is really ugly and unpleasant to live in. But there are places in KC where they are building NEW neighborhoods just as ugly and unpleasant even as we speak . . .

Thanks for writing!

--Brent

At 03:46 PM 08/01/2002 -0700, you wrote:
Brent,

Our city went as far as to hire a consulting firm (specialist in urban
transportation planning) and virtually remapped our entire city for
autos/walkers/bikers. We had received federal money to offset our budget.
We has the support of the major and the city council. (This was about 4 or
5 years ago).

We had the money... the plan... and were excited to go... *but* ...the
biggest obstacle was the people not wanting to give up the road right of
way. (Sounds like one of your greatest obstacles). When voted upon... the
winning vote was... NO.

I wish the folks in KC a lot of luck!

hth
posted by Brent Hugh at Sunday, August 25, 2002 | permanently archived here

HOME