What can Missouri cities do to improve bicycling and walking? Perspectives from two cities

What can cities do to improve bicycling and walking?  What are the first steps they can take, how can they build support of residents, city staff, and elected officials?  How can they overcome obstacles and objections?  How can they find funding and make effective plans?

Missouri Municipal League Conference Session on Bicycling, Walking, and Trails

Today MoBikeFed was very pleased to be part of a presentation at the 2015 Missouri Municipal League Conference, alongside representatives of Warsaw and Lee's Summit, talking with city and county officials from across Missouri about these issues.

The presentations give a variety of viewpoints about how Missouri cities have integrated bicycling, walking, and trails to make better and more vibrant cities:

• Making your City Better for Bicycling and Walking: How and Why. Brent Hugh, Executive Director, Missouri Bicycle & Pedestrian Federation (more info/links here)
• Warsaw: Connecting lake, downtown, levee trails, harbor and the city for bicycling and walking. Randy Pogue, City Administrator, Warsaw, Missouri
• Lee's Summit: Activism for a Healthier Community.  Dr Edwin Kraemer, M.D.
• Lee's Summit: Livable Streets Lee's Summit. Michael Park, PT, PTOE, City Traffic Engineer, Lee's Summit

Highlights from the presentations

Some of the highlights of the presentations:

Brent Hugh, MoBikeFed Executive Director, talked about 12 ways cities can supercharge their bicycle and pedestrian friendliness.  The presentation is based on the recommendations on our Vision for Missouri Cities & Counties page. Some points:

• Have a bicycle, pedestrian, and trails plan
• Start applying for Bicycle Friendly Community and Walking Friendly Community designations
• Adopt a Complete Streets Policy
• Adopt an anti-harassment ordinance to help protect cyclists, pedestrians, and people with disabilities

Randy Pogue, City Adminstrator of Warsaw, Missouri--population 2200--talked about how the city made a plan to make downtown Warsaw, the riverfront and harbor area, and the city's parks and recreation facilities connected by bicycling and walking, how the city has been able to execute that plan, and the difference it has made to the city and to the city's riverfront area.

Dr. Edwin Kraemer of Lee's Summit talked about his work as a citizen to encourage Lee's Summit to adopt and implement a Complete Streets policy--taking it from idea to policy to implementation.

Michael Park of Lee's Summit talked about Lee's Summit's Livable Streets plan from the perspective of a traffic engineer. When you take the Complete Streets approach and design roads and streets to meet the needs of all citizens, including those who walk and bicycle, who benefits?  What approaches and treatments do you use? How do you find funding? How do you overcome objections?

Working for better, safer bicycling, walking, and trails, a complete world-class bicycle and pedestrian network, and improving safety for people who walk and bicycle and key goals of MoBikeFed's Vision for Bicycling and Walking in Missouri.  Working to encourage cities and counties across Missouri to work towards betters, safer bicycling and walking is one way we do this.

Your ongoing membership and generous financial support helps turn our Vision into reality!

File: 

brent-mml-presentation-2015-09c.pdf

livable_streets_lsmo_mml_2015.pdf

livable_streets_mo_municipal_league_9-21-15.pdf

randypogue-mml_presentation.pdf