On February 5th in Kansas City, Missouri, the City Planning Commission met to discuss the new development code that regulates planning, zoning, parking, and other aspects of development in the city. One of the topics scheduled to be discussed was bicycle parking — long-term and short-term, and whether to include bicycles, pedestrians and transit in traffic analysis that is routine for motorized vehicles.
Let’s Go KC, an advocacy group that promotes transportation choice in the Kansas City region, invited members of the local cycling community to attend the meeting to show their support. Their blog reports that:
More than a dozen supporters of a livable Kansas City showed up at City Hall to advocate for the new development code. Despite opposition from big developers like Hunt Midwest and McBride & Sons, the City Plan Commission approved the addition bicycle parking for new apartment and condo buildings.
The Commission also approved a provision to include pedestrians, transit, and bicycles in the traffic studies that developers do to analyze the impact that new development will have on traffic. This is a huge step towards creating a full integrated transportation system that includes all modes.
The next step is the City Council and hearings before their Planning and Zoning Committee.
Visit the Let’s Go KC web site for detailed discussions of the proposed development code and the related issues. Eric and Noah have additional coverage of the meeting.
Did the Plan Commission approve a bike-parking requirement only for new apartment and condo buildings, or also for the public and commercial buildings as described in the page at kcbike.info/parking/ ? And is the bike requirement scaled according to the size of the facility or by the amount of car parking?
Here’s the word I got from Paul Mohr, who’s been in the lead on this issue:
“The bike parking requirements have yet to be formally approved by the Commission. The Commission’s approval may occur on 2/19/08. That said, assuming no more changes are made by the Commission, then we can expect the Commission to approve bicycle parking for new apartment and condominium projects. In addition, bike parking would be required at most new commercial projects (e.g., offices, retails stores, restaurants, manufacturing facilities). The development code only addresses private development; publicly-owned facilities are not subject to the code’s requirements and the city’s Bike/Ped Coordinator would hopefully address bike parking at those facilities. The bike parking requirements are scaled to the size of the facility based, in most cases, on the size of the facility. In some cases, another metric is used, such as the number of employees or number of cars in a parking garage (or, in the case of hospitals, the number of patient beds). Note that after the Commission approves the bike parking requirements, the City Council must still approve the requirements.”