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.

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Sunday, August 25, 2002
 
Councilwoman Nace,

I am very pleased to hear that you support BikeKC and I appreciate your detailed response to my letter.


I do hope that you and the other council members will use their influence to make certain that BikeKC gets out of committee without having important parts of it cut. I keep hearing rumors (and I do hope they are just that, but I keep hearing them from different sources) that some developers want the BikeKC provisions for extra right-of-way in future developments watered down or removed.


By way of contrast, I also hear that other developers feel walking and biking facilities are vital to keep the KC area competitive with other metropolitan areas, which will have walking and biking facilities whether we do or not. I think the developers who realize the importance of pedestrian and bicycle facilities have a better vision of what Kansas City can and should be, and what, in the long run, will be most important and valuable to us as a community.

In my opinion, the provisions for future planning are the most important part of BikeKC. Poor planning over the last 50 years or so is one reason so many of our neighborhoods are unfriendly to walking and bicycling and unpleasant to live in.

On the other hand, the boulevard system is an example of good planning--many of the BikeKC routes on existing streets are built on these boulevards, planned by the far-sighted George Kessler over 100 years ago.

I think BikeKC, with its plan for good, well-designed roads in new developments, gives us a chance to be far-sighted and leave a legacy for those who live 100 years hence, similar to what the boulevard plan has given to us.

People like to live where they can bike and walk, and they don't like to live where they can't.

--Dr. Brent Hugh
Kansas City taxpayer
posted by Brent Hugh at Sunday, August 25, 2002 | permanently archived here

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