Why do city council candidates in rural Missouri support biking and walking?

Before this year's municipal elections, Rachel Ruhlen--founder of KA-Motion and a MoBikeFed Advisory Commission member--talked to city council candidates in a number of cities in her part of the state.  The result was an interesting and revealing series of articles about candidates' positions on bicycle  and pedestrian issues.

After the election, she wrote another series of articles talking about how attitudes towards bicycling and walking are changing in her part of Missouri, and why. 

KIrksville Daily Express bike/ped blogger Rachel Ruhlen bikes to vote

Do candidates walk or bike, and why?

Most of the candidates walk for fitness and leisure, perhaps with a wife or a dog. They like to walk on the trails and walking paths that their cities have built recently. For example, the loop of sidewalks and paths around the Kirksville public school campus, funded in part by Safe Routes to School, is an extremely popular place to walk and jog. None of the candidates walk for any other reason than fitness and leisure (such as for transportation), and few bicycle. One candidate bikes because walking is painful for him. He bikes for fitness and leisure. One candidate is an avid cyclist, biking every day that is warmer than 18F (!) and has ridden double centuries in the MS150. He bikes for fitness, leisure, and performance.

What I took from this survey is that people are getting the message about exercise. This reflects what I’ve seen biking around town: people walking for fitness and leisure, sometimes on roads that are really discouraging for pedestrians. People are not walking for transportation, which is a missed opportunity that we can change with infrastructure and programming, but they are walking.

Do candidates support bicycling and walking?

Unlike last year, this year’s candidates were unanimously in favor of biking and walking. However, some feared that the residents of their communities would not favor bike/ped projects. More than one said there were more important things to spend money on (“We’ve got bigger fish to fry”), like jobs. (One candidate did an unabashed about-face when I pointed out that companies look for livable communities that they can attract employees too—and livable means sidewalks.)

Incumbents had a better opinion of residents’ views on biking and walking. One cited a survey which found that residents wholeheartedly support parks and trails.

The mayor of Hannibal stood out in that he was proud of Hannibal’s 2 bike racks. Now, 2 bike racks is woefully inadequate but it is more than most communities have. Most cities are thinking only about sidewalks and maybe a bike lane. Bike racks haven’t occurred to city officials yet. So he was justified in his pride.

Why do small towns build trails and paths?

When I interviewed city candidates around northeast Missouri (in Kirksville, Hannibal, Moberly, Mexico, Marceline, and Brookfield) about bicycling and walking, I learned that bike/ped projects aren’t really up to the city council or mayor. When candidates become council members, they learn about grants for sidewalks and bike lanes without any upfront cost to the city. (The future cost of upkeep of the facilities does not seem to bother them.) They learn how popular these are with the residents. Then they support biking and walking!

If the impetus for biking and walking doesn’t come from the city council members, where does it come from? Several months ago I tried to find Kirksville’s answer to that question. Whose idea was it to apply for the GetActive Kirksville grant? Who approved city staff time for the application process? The idea originated with the Kirksville Area Community Health Initiative (KACHI). KACHI itself is an outgrowth of a Kirksville program to curb rising insurance costs by improving employee health. But Kirksville had several sidewalk grants predating KACHI, which suggests that the trend started farther back. There doesn’t seem to be one person everyone points to as the instigator of Kirksville’s bike/ped trend.

An example from Moberly

Moberly has an interesting story which might shed a little more light. Moberly City Hall was across the street from an unused railroad depot when a tornado hit the old station (or so I was told). Worried that the privately owned land might become unsightly, the Public Works Director looked for a solution. He came across a grant that would allow them to buy the land for the purpose of a trailhead if they had a master trail plan in place to connect all of Moberly with a network of trails and paths. They assembled the plan, got the grant, bought the land, and built the trailhead (about a decade ago). Then they started in on the rest of the plan. Moberly is already proud of its trail system, and the master trail plan isn’t even complete yet. 

Warsaw's Hanging Bridge connects trails on both sides of the river near downtown Warsaw

Moberly’s story is a great example of how a grant program did more than allow a town to be a bit more bike/ped friendly. The grant program inspired Moberly to conceive of a trail network. I suspect external forces in the form of available grants, many from MoDOT or federal programs, drove Kirksville’s bike/ped-friendlier trend.

Read more about progress in northeast Missouri in Ruhlen's articles:

• Why do small towns build trails and paths?
• Rural Missouri trends in bicycling and walking
• City Clerks

We've seen many rural towns across Missouri follow the same path that Ruhlen outlines for communities in northeast Missouri. Maryville has applied for and received a series of Safe Routes to School and Transportation Enhancements grants that has transformed the city--and its residents--in becoming friendlier for bicycling and walking.  Warsaw, MO, has capitalized on its riverfront and natural areas to build trails near town and is now working to better connect the town and its residents to the city's first-rate trail system. Nevada has launched a citywide effort to improve bicycleability and walkability.  These are just a few examples of the many towns statewide that are moving to become friendlier for bicycling and walking.

Major goals of MoBikeFed's Vision for Bicycling and Walking in Missouri are doubling the amount of bicycling and walking in Missouri while simultaneously cutting the injury rate in half, and building a world-class bicycle and pedestrian network throughout the state.  And that definitely includes rural communities!

MoBikeFed regularly communicates with municipal and elected officials from across Missouri, sharing success stories and best practices.  In addition, we've have been working to forge closer ties with the members of the Missouri Association of Councils of Government (MACOG), which is connected with all city and county governments across Missouri and is deeply involved with regional transportation planning in Missouri.