Kansas City MO set to roll out ambitious new citywide bicycle plan under development for more than a year | The Kansas City Star

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Some of the city’s bike-related growing pains could be addressed by the new bike plan, which the city planning department has been working on for more than a year.

The plan will recommend more than 600 miles of new paths, says Joe Blankenship, a planner with the city planning and development department. Blankenship says many of those paths will be protected — separated from traffic with barriers such as planters, posts, green space or parked cars.

He adds that the recommended lanes will be located on major roads, not just side streets, so that more people can get where they need to go without relying on a car. The goal is to add lanes that are both useful and safe.

“They inherently attract riders who are interested in cycling but concerned with safety,” he says.

Protected bike lanes have become popular in bike-friendly Midwestern cities such as Indianapolis. In 2013, that city completed its Indianapolis Cultural Trail, an eight-mile path around the downtown area. . . .

Kansas City doesn’t have a budget set aside for bike projects, Blankenship says. But recommendations in the new bike plan could potentially be funded by the city’s 1-cent sales tax for capital improvements, federal grants and public/private partnerships like the one that made the Indiana Cultural Trail possible.

He adds that many bike lanes can be added at a low cost when streets are resurfaced and repainted. And protected lanes can be less expensive when parked cars are the barrier.

The public works department is completing work on Kansas City’s first parking protected bike lanes along Armour Boulevard from Broadway to The Paseo. The new lanes run between the sidewalk and cars parked along Armour, a key east-west connector in midtown.

Read more here: https://www.kansascity.com/news/local/article214778355.html#storylink=cpy

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Kansas City MO set to roll out ambitious new citywide bicycle plan under development for more than a year | The Kansas City Star