Kansas Cyclist - Kansas Bicycle Guide and Reference

The Missouri Bicycle Federation and Let’s Go KC are asking for your help in some upcoming bicycle advocacy efforts:

• Hwy 45 Bike/Ped Access: MoDOT is building a new highway through Parkville, Missouri (just north of Kansas City). Guess what? Their plans for accommodating bicycling and walking are inadequate, plus they forgot to include any funding for them. Send email to MoDOT.

• Paseo Bridge Bike/Ped Access: MoDOT is building a new quarter billion dollar bridge in the heart of Kansas City. It could provide the first safe bicycle/pedestrian crossing of the Missouri River near downtown Kansas City. Advocacy groups have been working on this for years and now it’s going to move or die forever in the next month or so. Send email to MoDOT or attend the groundbreaking ceremony and show your support for this vital link.

• Bicycling License Plate: Many other states have ‘Share the Road with Bicycles’ license plates. Why not Missouri, too? In 1 minute you can show your support. Express your interest in Missouri Bicycling License Plates.

Learn more from MoBikeFed: Hwy 45–Stop MoDOT from building another road without good bike/ped accommodations, Bicycle to the Paseo Bridge Groundbreaking April 18th

Learn more from Let’s Go KC: Paseo Bridge Groundbreaking, Take Action! - Paseo Bridge and Route 45

It looks like Missouri’s “Complete Streets” bill is dead.

Despite being passed by the Missouri House by a vote of 139-9, and being poised to pass the Senate Transportation Committee this week, the bill, which would have required the Department of Transportation “to provide full consideration for bicyclists, pedestrians, disabled persons, and transit users in its plans, programs, and projects”, stalled when MoDOT Director Pete Rahn voiced opposition to the measure.

Although MoDOT’s research group had returned a fiscal note indicating the impact of the bill on MoDOT’s budget would be $0, Rahn apparently became concerned that the bill would require MoDOT to pay more attention to the needs and safety of bicyclists and pedestrians than it wishes to. The agency could face real consequences for failure to safely accommodate for pedestrians, bicyclists, and people with disabilities, where now it faces none.

Rahn subsequently met with the bill’s sponsor, Representative Mike Sutherland, and personally promised that MoDOT would implement internal policy changes to make the Complete Streets bill unnecessary.

Sutherland then then stated that he will monitor the situation and can re-introduce the needed legislation if progress as promised does not materialize.

This is a discouraging development, especially after the original version of the bill had been watered down to appease MoDOT concerns.

For more detailed information read the Missouri Bicycle Federation’s coverage of the issue: MoDOT halts Complete Streets bill; promises to implement it via internal policy

Washington, DC was the site of the 2008 National Bike Summit, which took place March 4-6, sponsored by the League of American Bicyclists.

Bicycle advocates, industry leaders, and retailers from around the nation gathered for two-and-a-half days of workshops, training, and meetings with members of Congress and their staff in an effort to forge a new national consensus on the value of getting more people riding bikes more often.

Many of the states in the nation were represented at the summit. There was no official delegation from Kansas (the nascent KanBikeWalk organization being still in the “launch” phase). Regionally, delegations from Iowa and Missouri attended.

For more information, refer to coverage of the summit from the Missouri Bicycle Federation and the Iowa Bicycle Coalition. Further afield, BikePortland provided comprehensive coverage of the event. You can also view summit photos at Flickr (photo above courtesy of BikePortland).

Yield to Life is a new public-education campaign that aims to promote positive attitudes toward cyclists and replace any hostility that exists between motorists and cyclists with understanding, respect, and appreciation for all life on the road.

Yield to Life was founded by professional cyclist David Zabriskie. Here’s why he’s behind this effort:

As a professional cyclist I have ridden my bike all over the world, but, sadly, each of the three times that I have been hit by a car has been in the United States; the worst of the accidents was in 2003.

I had just flown back to Salt Lake after my most successful season to date when, on May 23, I was in Millcreek Canyon in Salt Lake City. I was enjoying one of my favorite rides when I was hit by an SUV on the way down. The SUV made a left hand turn directly into me. I flew through the air and landed on the ground, unable to move the left side of my body. After spending a week in the hospital, I left with pins in my wrist and my leg, and some cadaver bone in my knee. The doctors did not think I would ride again.

It took a lot of hard work and determination to come back from my injuries. I often wonder what I could have accomplished had I not had such a devastating set back. I also wonder what went through the driver’s mind when she hit me. If she had only thought of me as life, a living, breathing person, rather than an obstacle in her way. Did she ever consider the prolonged agony she was creating by her reckless attitude and wrongful acts? If she had just waited a split second for my safe passage, I would have not been reduced to a wheelchair for months, and then in need of a walker and painful rehabilitation to even walk again, let alone ride a bike.

Ultimately, I was able to overcome my accident; but there are many riders who are not as fortunate. As I hear of the countless other cyclists who have been badly injured and, worse yet, killed by motorists, it sometimes seems as if we are viewed merely as nuisances who don’t deserve consideration on the road.

It is my mission to humanize and personalize cyclists to help motorists to always be aware that we are “life” and that we deserve a safe space on the road. I love to ride my bike as do my fellow cyclists, but we should not have to place out lives at risk everyday for that enjoyment.

Yield to Life is a non-profit organization devoted to creating a safer environment for cyclists and, by so doing, encouraging more people to ride for their own health, the good of the environment and the well being of society.

By making cycling safer and promoting the activity as a responsible means of transportation and a healthy means of recreation, Yield to Life can contribute to tackling some of today’s major concerns—from such issues as pollution and global warming to obesity and diabetes. In this way, Yield to Life can play a role in increasing the quality of life not only for cyclists, but for everyone—for our generation and those to come.

It’s a laudable goal, and one every cyclist should support.

Thanks to Bradly at Bicycle Frenzy for the heads-up on this.

February 26th was Missouri Bicycle Day in Jefferson City, organized by the Missouri Bicycle Federation.

Dozens of Missouri bicyclists, walkers, runners, and trail users visited the capitol to talk with their legislators and express their support for legislation to make Missouri communities safer and more inviting for walking and bicycling. Citizens spoke in support of the Safe Streets bill (HB2205) and the Complete Streets bill (HB2206).

MoBikeFed also presented awards to Governor Matt Blunt, Lt. Governor Peter D. Kinder, Attorney General Jay Nixon, Department of Natural Resources Director Doyle Childers, Speaker Rod Jetton, Representative Mike Sutherland, Representative Shannon Cooper, Representative J.C. Kuessner, Representative T.D. El Amin, Senator Charlie Shields, Senator Bill Stouffer, Senator Joan Bray, Senator Kevin Engler, and Senator Wayne Goode (retired).

Additional information: MoBikeFed’s summary (Missouri Bicycle Day at the Capitol a big success), Kansas City infoZine (Missouri Bicycle Federation Honors Missouri Attorney General Jay Nixon), Jefferson City News Tribune (Bicycle Day at the Capitol), photo gallery.

According to the League of American Bicyclists, Lawrence, Kansas is a bronze level Bicycle Friendly Community and “is a leader in encouraging cycling and educational efforts to improve the safety of the activity,” and “The city stands out among cities in Kansas and the Plains region for its high level of bicycle use. According to the 2000 census, 1.3 percent of Lawrence’s population regularly bikes to work—almost three times the national average.”

But what do residents think?

In a post on the Media & the Environment blog (a collective effort of students and professors at the University of Kansas), Denzyl quotes Michael Hajdu, a member of the Lawrence Bicycle Advisory Committee:

“In America, the leading cause of death is lethargy and bad dietary habits. Americans are obese and diabetic and what we should be doing is looking at healthier living. Cycling is free. All people have to do is get out their cars and start riding their bikes.”

That’s all well and good if you have a bicycle friendly city, something that Lawrence is not. Cycling along 23rd Street, the pedestrian and bicycle trails end abruptly at different intervals. It occurs along many other streets and often there just aren’t any trails at all. It’s a situation that Dr Hajdu knows all too well.

“I found that being on the (Lawrence Bicycle Advisory) committee, that we are fighting an insurmountable battle because the entire society is so entrenched in the belief that cars are the only way to get around. And the city is limited in putting any effort into changing things.”

If its citizens are this discouraged, does Lawrence’s status as a Bicycle Friendly Community really mean anything?

Other Bicycle Friendly Communities in the region include Shawnee, Kansas, South Sioux City, Nebraska, and Boulder, Denver, Fort Collins and Longmont in Colorado.

How do these compare to Lawrence?

The St. Louis Regional Bicycle Federation is a bicycle advocacy group that serves the St. Louis area. They have produced a series of Public Service Announcements that are currently running on local stations. The spots aim to promote bicycling as a viable transportation alternative.

Very nicely done!

Cedar Falls, Iowa is looking at ways to enhance bicycling as transportation and to make the city more friendly to bicycle commuters.

Bob Morgan, a member of the committee studying the proposal, said that use of bicycles as practical transportation could grow. “Bicycling can do more for the city. It can reduce traffic. Bicycles don’t send noxious fumes into the air, they doesn’t pollute.”

The committee has asked the City Council to look at a comprehensive plan for bicycle transportation, including things such as bike lanes on new or reconstructed roads. It also asked the council to look at pilot projects to start this year and to plan for long-term adaptations to make streets more hospitable as bikeways.

Bike corridors would include more places to park bicycles, designated bicycle routes, bike lanes and separated facilities. In addition, an important part of a plan would be to educate cyclists and drivers to safely coexist. Statistics show commuting by bicycle is safer than by car, but that is not the perception.

In addition, the committee hopes that Cedar Falls can incorporate on-street bike facilities on the roads connecting Cedar Falls to nearby Waterloo, making bicycle transportation a practical alternative for commuters between the two communities.

Source: WCFCourier.com

The Missouri Bicycle Federation has released a document called A Vision for Active Transportation in Missouri (PDF). A post on their site describes the document and provides a summary:

The vision encapsulates much of what MoBikeFed members have been telling us and what the MoBikeFed board has been working for over the years into a single document. The vision lists concrete, measurable things we want to accomplish in Missouri in the next 5-10 years.

On February 26th, this detailed and ambitious vision will be part of the material presented at Bicycle Day at the Capitol, where bicycling advocates visit with state representatives and senators in Jefferson City to ask them to help make a more bicycleable and walkable Missouri.

Coincidentally, KCBike.info has published a copy of the Kansas City Bikeways (PDF) plan from 1980, a very interesting historical document detailing KC’s plans for a network of bikeways that would cover the entire city. It’s amazing (and discouraging) how little things have changed in 30 years…

America Bikes is a national group that advocates for federal transportation funding for bicycling. They have some interesting bicycling statistics for all of the states in the nation.

Here is their data for Kansas and neighboring states:

Where:

• Number = Estimated number of adults riding bicycles at least once a month in the summertime
• Funding = Transportation Enhancements funds since 1992
• Projects = Number of bicycle/pedestrian projects since 1992, including multi-use paths and walkways

Even though the number of Kansas cyclists compares favorably to other states in the region, its share of federal funding, and the number of projects built, falls woefully short.