Kansas City Missouri River crossings evaluated for bike/ped friendliness

An evaluation of Kansas City area Missouri River bridges by MoBikeFed Executive Director Brent Hugh comes to this stark conclusion:

No facility currently serves the "average" pedestrian or bicyclist--children, families, inexperienced bicyclists, trail users, or those with disabilities.

The Heart of American Bridge accommodates very experienced on-road bicyclists in the northbound direction, but the southbound direction has no accommodation and is very, very difficult.

The Chouteau Bridge itself is very bicycle friendly but the streets accessing the bridge and extremely busy and unfriendly for walking or bicycling.

No bridge in the entire metro area even pretends to accommodate pedestrians.

The evaluation includes a description and detailed photographs of most Missouri River bridges in the area that are open to bicyclists:

# Broadway Bridge (Hwy 169)
# ASB Bridge (railroad)
# Heart of America Bridge (Hwy 9)
# Paseo Bridge (I-29/I-35)
# Chouteau Trafficway Bridge

With no current Missouri River bridge in the area offering bicycle/pedestrian access, it becomes more imperative that the Paseo Bridge project, currently in the planning stages, accommodate bicycle and pedestrian access in some fashion.

MoDOT needs to hear from bicyclists from across the state who support a safe river crossing in the Kansas City area.

Those wishing to weigh in with MoDOT can do so in less than one minute using the online form provided by the Greater Kansas City Bicycle Federation.