Franklin County doesn't want to make bike/ped friendly communities, loses funding to communities that do | County | emissourian.com

Headlines are quick hits from media outlets from Missouri and around the world. Follow the headline link for the full story. The source of this headline says:

Franklin County could lose 2 percent of its transportation funding if new project scoring criteria is approved by the East-West Gateway Council of Governments (EWGW) next month.

Franklin County Highway Administrator Ron Williams said the new scoring is part of a federal 2045 master plan, which will give priority to larger projects with extra features not normally included in Franklin County projects.

“I think this is a bad plan for us out here,” Williams said. “The scoring used to be based on performance criteria, now it’s about getting more bang for their buck.”

Williams added simple road preservation projects would now have to take on more options like adding sidewalks, trails and lighting. Traffic flow, public transit, multimodal and alternative forms of transportation would also be key factors.

“We (county) don’t have sidewalks and public transit that connects with anything,” Williams said. “How do we compete? We just want to overlay roads to preserve them. We don’t want to put in sidewalks.”

MoBikeFed comment: The problem is that there are plenty of communities--including a BUNCH in Franklin County, that in fact do want to create walkable and bicycleable spaces and streets.

So the relatively few locations that don't want to work for walkable and bicycleable communities rightly lose out on funding to those that do.

They will soon lose out even further, as people gravitate from unfriendly, unwalkable, unbicycleable communities towards the many communities that now already exist in Missouri, that are working hard to become more healthy and livable.

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