Olathe, KS, bike facilities need citizen support now

Dale Crawford (Dcraw7076@aol.com) is working on design of the new bicycle-friendly overpass at 127th and I-35 in Olathe, Kansas (see the MoBikeFed Bicycle News & comments for more details about the overpass). Crawford writes that much of 127th street will have bike lanes. Due to the way funding and design proceeded, the overpass itself will have wide curb lanes rather than separate bike lanes. Crawford is pretty satisfied with design of the overpass itself, and with the bike lanes on other sections of 127th Street.

But he is pushing for a re-design of the transition section leading up to the overpass to make it work better for bicycles. This section was designed before the grant was received that provided the extra funds to make the overpass bicycle-friendly. So it is going to take some work and some money to re-design this transition section to make it work better for bicycles. Crawford writes:

I can use some citizen help on getting "full" AASHTO accommodation through the transition zones. Granted they will be better than any other bridge I'm aware of in Johnson County, but the rest of the transition zones can be better.

I also need Olathe voices stepping up to push for a full intermodal transportation network study. We had it 2002 budget but it got cut during budget reductions after the 2003 budgets were approved assuming the study was going to happen with 2002 money. This study would improve the initial design criteria for major project so we don't have to shoehorn in bike facilities in the middle of the process.


Please email Dale Crawford to find out what you can do to help. You can also find contact information for Olathe City Officials on the Olathe web site.

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