Pitch Weekly slams Kansas City's inaction on bicycle accommodations

A Pitch Weekly article today slams Kansas City, Missouri, for its inaction on the long-delayed and many-times-modified BikeKC initiative:

Kansas City bicyclists take the lane, by laflaneuse, http://flickr.com/photos/memyi_us/196459665/

Public Works information officer Dennis Gagnon confirms that the city is so far behind on the Bike KC initiative that no new lanes have been constructed using the program's funds. The plan did lead to a new city ordinance that mandates bike lanes for all new roads. This has led to a hodgepodge of short lanes such as those lining Zona Rosa on Barry Road. The idea is that these scattered bike lanes will someday connect to create corridors for commuting bicyclists.

The only problem? The city has no idea where the new lanes are.

"Regretfully, after numerous inquiries in the various departments that are involved in street issues, it appears that this statistic does not exist," Gagnon wrote by e-mail, when the Pitch requested a map of the city's bike lanes. "Since it has not been required internally by engineers and planners, the data for it has not been captured or compiled." . . .

The good news, however:

Last week, the city finally posted a help-wanted ad on its Web site for a bike and pedestrian coordinator. The Mid-America Regional Council, which granted the Bike KC funding, has been requesting a coordinator since 2002, according to Aaron Bartlett, MARC's bike and pedestrian planner. "I've recommended they have a person like that because it is a full-time job," Bartlett says. "One person is a huge improvement because things need to be coordinated. And right now, you have many different people trying to piecemeal it together."

Incidentally, a coalition of bicycle and pedestrian advocates, including the Kansas City officers of MoBikeFed, played a key role in putting pressure on KCMO to get BikeKC moving again and make the move to hire this new bicycle/pedestrian coordinator.

And while Kansas City has been fiddling, St. Louis has been building miles of real, good, bicycle routes in the center of the city--see the Bike St. Louis map here--and the St. Louis region passed a small tax that raises millions each year to build a comprehensive trail network. Columbia has received a $22 million pilot grant that will revolutionize the city for bicycle and pedestrian transportation. Springfield is working to build the most miles of trail per capita of any city in the U.S. and recently received Honorable Mention in the LAB's Bicycle Friendly Cities program. And St. Joseph's Parkway is ever-expanding.