Missouri Bicycle News Article

According to a Columbia Missourian article, Columbia is soon to create a "Bicycle Boulevard". Is this the first Bicycle Boulevard created in Missouri?

In another effort by GetAbout Columbia to make the city more bicycle-friendly, the first “bike boulevard” will likely be created this summer on Windsor Street.

Pending approval from residents, the bike boulevard will run through Benton-Stephens neighborhood, from College Avenue to Ann Street, Program Manager Ted Curtis of GetAbout Columbia said.

“Essentially, a bike boulevard is a residential street that’s parallel to a main street and gets some through traffic,” Curtis said. “You divert the through traffic to other streets and make the street friendly for bikes to use.”

The goal is that cars and bikes share the road, without strict dividing lines. Traffic from Windsor would be moved to Walnut Street, which runs parallel to it, so that cars on Windsor will be mostly slower, local traffic.

This is the first purpose-designed Bicycle Boulevard I know about in Missouri.

However . . . St. Louis has a number of streets that for historical reasons have developed in a way similar to the bicycle boulevard concept--streets that you can ride through on a bicycle, or walk through, but you can't drive through with an automobile.

And at the SpringBike meeting last week I heard that Springfield may be planning to turn Holland Avenue into a Bicycle Boulevard.

So the race is on--which Missouri city will have the first proper Bicycle Boulevard?

Related:

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