Olathe moves forward with on-road bicycle accommodations at Lone Elm

From Laurie Chipman of the Greater Kansas City Bicycle Federation:

Thanks to all of you attended the Olathe city council meeting last night. Those in attendance were the president and vice-president of JCBC, Martha Blackman, Vic Scheffe, Glenn Newman, Cris Siebenlist, Maggie McCoy, Marietta Strano, Carol Hatcher, Doug Polson. I hope I didn't forget anyone.

Wayne Touhig, JCBC prez, and I spoke about why Olathe should apply for federal enhancement money to finance on-road bicycle lanes on Lone Elm Rd. We gave them letters from JCBC and the Greater Kansas City Bicycle Federation that supported our position.

The council discussed the issue for about 30 minutes. The decision was to have Dale Crawford apply for enhancements. The proposal will be reviewed next Tuesday, Nov. 2, by the council. It must be to KDOT by Friday, Nov. 5. A decision should be made by May 2005. The general consensus was that this proposal has a good chance to be approved for federal money for on-road bicycle lanes.

However, the Olathe council is not completely sold on this idea because they left themselves an "out" in the case that they change their minds about proceeding with bicycle lanes. Stay tuned.

The Lone Elm bicycle accommodations have been the subject of previous MOBikeFed Advocacy Alerts.