Bicycling and walking statistics from the Kansas City area

MARC recently surveyed KC area residents with these results, reported in Sun News of the Northland and in MARC's summary report.:

57 percent said they have sidewalks in their neighborhoods, but 55 percent said they can not use them to walk from their houses to a nearby school, park or shopping area.

Main reasons given that prevent people from going for walks are (in order of importance) lack of good sidewalks, lack of connected sidewalks, and concern about crime & personal safety.

86 percent said signs are needed to identify bicycle routes and 67 percent said they would like to see dedicated bike lanes in their areas.

Nearly three-fourths (74%) of those surveyed thought it was a "good" idea to develop dedicated lanes for bikes along city streets in the Kansas City area.

82% of those surveyed thought it was "very" or "somewhat important" for cities and counties in the Kansas City area to develop a connected system of walking and biking trails.

44% were dissatisfied with the number of bike lanes & trails in their area, while only 28% were satisfied or very satisfied.

48% were dissatisfied with bike parking at destinations they visit and only 19% were satisfied.

67% of those surveyed indicated that they would be “very” or “somewhat supportive” of having a portion of their local taxes used to provide more trail opportunities and to create connections between existing walking and biking trails in the Kansas City area.

71 percent said they have not gone bicycling in their area in the past year. Of those who have, 70 percent said they rode on city streets that do not have posted routes or lanes.

Fifty percent of those surveyed, said they are aware of rules governing the way they should ride a bike on city streets compared to the way they would ride on improved recreational trails.

95.6% of people said that when driving, they give bike riders the extra space needed on a street; only 4.4% do not.

MARC's charts and graphs summary of the data (PDF file, 3.5mb) is particularly revealing.