De Soto, KS, reaffirms bicycle ban on 83rd Street

The ban on bicycling on 83rd Street in De Soto, Kansas, was put in place by the city council several years ago.

About one year ago, the city council reconsidered the ban and decided to wait until a current construction project was complete before removing the ban.

Despite the promises to remove the ban when the construction was complete, last December, when the construction project was complete, the city reconsidered and decided to retain the ban.

Now the issue has come up again on the DeSoto City Council agenda for July 15th, 2010.

A committee recommendation was to lower the speed limit on 83rd Street so that it meets current engineering recommendations and simultaneously remove the bicycle ban.  The recommendation was to enforce single file riding only for bicyclists.

The City Council decided to reject these recommendations and leave both the bicycle ban on 83rd Street and the current speed limit in place.  The vote against changing the speed limit was 3-2.

The discussion about 83rd Street starts at 18:36 and goes through 40:00 in the video of the De Soto City Council Meeting.

For those wondering about the similarities and differences between the De Soto, KS ban and the currently proposed St Charles County, MO, bicycle ban:

  • The St Charles County ban would be much more extensive.
  • The De Soto ban is on one street only, which is a city street.  The proposed St Charles County ban is proposed to apply to several state highways.
  • The road ownership (city vs state) is the reason that De Soto has moved forward with their ban while MoDOT is blocking the St Charles County ban: De Soto has ultimate control over their own streets whereas MoDOT--not St Charles County--has ultimate control over the state highways.

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