Date: Fri, 16 Aug 2002 22:57:21 -0700
The Kansas City, Missouri, City Council passed the BikeKC proposal
Thursday afternoon by a margin of 11 1/2 to 1/2.
We pretty much knew beforehand that there were enough votes on the
council to pass the measure. But we were very pleased and surprised
at the amount of support for BikeKC. Even the one councilwoman who
had a bad altercation with a bicyclist several years ago, and
throughout the committee hearings had been adamantly opposed to
bicyclists on the street, ended up voting for the BikeKC.
The home builders' association didn't even put up a fight. They gave
a short presentation in which they said they wanted to let the council
know that the proposal would raise housing prices a little (due to
increased right-of-way dedication). But the representative
specifically said the association was NOT opposing BikeKC.
The 1/2 vote against the proposal was from our "favorite" city
councilman, the fellow who chairs the committee that finally approved
BikeKC (after a year's delay because of this councilman's objections).
He ranted for quite some time, in two separate meetings that day,
about the terrible, mortal danger faced by bicyclists anywhere on any
city street, especially on arterial roads, argued forcefully that all
bicyclists should ride on "safe" off-road bike trails, waved around
lurid headlines (from Foresterite web pages, which he totally
misunderstood and misinterpreted) screaming BIKE LANES DANGEROUS FOR
BICYCLISTS, and handed out statistics showing that some number of
bicyclists were killed--yes, KILLED!--riding on arterials somewhere
(no effort to calculate accident *rate*, though, and no apparent
understanding of why that might be helpful to know).
After all that, when it came time for the roll call--which they zip
through in about 6 seconds flat--our councilcritter called out loud
and clear, "AYE", just like everybody else did.
A few seconds later he caught his mistake and hollered, "No, No, I
meant NAY! NAY! NAY!!"
Taking the average of the two separate votes given by his better and
worse natures, respectively, I must conclude that there was only 1/2
vote against.
Kansas City isn't exactly progressive. This is the first alternative
transportation proposal adopted here since the bus, and before that
(in the 1910s or so) the trolley.
But now we're well on the way to being a cool city.
Meet you there in about 40 years . . .
Kansas City Star article on the approval of BikeKC:
http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/news/3872600.htm
--Brent
posted by Brent Hugh at
Sunday, August 25, 2002 |
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