KCMO mayor to announce Platinum Level Bicycle Friendly City goal

At a press conference on Wednesday, May 14th, Kansas City, Missouri, Mayor Mark Funkhouser is set to announce Kansas City's goal: to become a Platinum-level Bicycle Friendly Community.

Bicyclists are invited to join the press conference at 10AM, Ilus Davis Park (9th and Locust), Kansas City, Missouri.

KC Star Columnist Mike Hendricks wrote:

In the midst of Bike Week, as they call it now, I wasn’t exactly bumping into hordes of cycling commuters along my 17-mile route to the word factory downtown. . . .

Which suggested two possibilities. One, most bike commuters are early risers and were already at work before I’d brushed my teeth. After all, nearly 1,000 bikers reportedly signed up for this week’s Car-free Commuter Challenge.

Or possibility No. 2: My lonely ride was further proof that this town has a long way to go before becoming the cycling paradise Mark Funkhouser will outline at a news conference this morning.

His goal, a mayoral aide says, is for Kansas City to become by 2020 a “platinum-level” bicycle-friendly community, as defined by the League of American Bicyclists.

Platinum is the best. Only Portland, Ore., and Davis, Calif., are that bike-friendly now. . . .

“ . . . I think that we can get there,” says the ever-optimistic Deb Ridgway, who last July became Kansas City’s first-ever bike-pedestrian coordinator.

Ridgway is hopeful because city government is finally on the verge of fulfilling parts of the Bike KC plan approved back in 2002 and then seemingly forgotten. . . .

But according to Ridgway, 30 miles of the plan’s bike routes should be finished this year. Key to that is switching the sewer grates to a style less likely to swallow bike tires.

A citywide trails plan is set for completion this month. And plans are to install 100 bike racks around town.

Achieve that and a few other things, Ridgway says, and KC might reach the bronze status that Shawnee and Lawrence achieved by making their cities more accommodating to cyclists.

“My hope is, we can become a bike-friendly region,” she says.

Getting Missouri communities on track for Bicycle Friendly City status is one of the most important goals in MoBikeFed's Vision of Active Transportation in Missouri.

A Bicycle Friendly Community Reception and Workshop will be held May 21-22, 2008--why not send some representatives from your community to get them started?