Tour of Missouri

Columbia, MO, tackles snowy sidewalk problem

Snow-covered sidewalks have become an increasingly noticed problem for Missouri pedestrians in the past couple of years. Now the city of Columbia is poised to do something about it.

The City's Bicycle and Pedestrian Commission has proposed a solution that involves increased attention to highly used sidewalks in a "priority area" of town.  According to the Columbia Missourian:

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Great Rivers Greenway Completes Bike Plan

The Great Rivers Greenway District recently sent the following announcement about the completion of the Gateway Bike Plan--a bicycle plan covering the entire St. Louis region.

This plan is a huge step forward for the St. Louis area.  If you live in the area, please encourage your local community to adopt and endorse the plan, and take the other steps outlined below.

Working to help the St. Louis region become a premiere community that encourages healthy living and active lifestyles, Great Rivers Greenway and a host of regional partners recently completed the Gateway Bike Plan.  The product of months of work, the Bike Plan will provide direction for the region to develop a safe, convenient connected on-road bicycle system of routes with links between communities, greenways, transit and trails, creating one of the larger bicycle networks in the United States.

Over the next 20 years, the Gateway Bike Plan partners envision 1,011 miles of bike lanes, shared use lanes and other bicycle facilities throughout St. Louis City, County and urbanized areas of St. Charles County. The network aims to improve the use and safety of bicycles by commuters, students and recreational riders and contribute to the region's economic and environmental health, making St. Louis a better place to live.

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MAP-21: First draft of Federal Transportation Bill for next several years has several problems for biking and walking

This week the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee released its first draft of the long-term renewal of federal transportation funding bill.

If you're in a rush, the short version is this--the bill is disappointing in several ways and, in particular, has these three serious problems:

  1. The current dedicated funding programs for bicycling and walking are combined into one program, with significantly less funding;
  2. An expanded list of eligible activities are added to this smaller funding pot, including such big-ticket items as NEPA compliance and land acquisition for wetland mitigation; and
  3. The proposed bill effectively allows states to completely opt out of the program and would allow all this money to be redirected to highway construction.

Background: The six-year federal transportation bill

The federal government renews transportation funding authority every six years. Starting in 1991 it was ISTEA, then TEA-21, then SAFETEA-LU.  Here is the breakdown of where we are in the process:

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Study documents massive health and economic benefits of switch to bicycling

A recent study by University of Wisconsin researchers calculates the health, environmental, and economic benefits if trips of five miles and less were made by bicycle instead of automobile.

Their conclusion:

Our findings suggest that significant health and economic benefits are possible if bicycling replaces short car trips. Less auto dependence in urban areas would also improve health in downwind rural settings.

The researchers modeled an area consisting of 11 metropolitan areas in the upper midwest with a population of 31.3 million people.  They assumed that during six months of the year, automobile trips of less than five miles were eliminated (round trip distance of 5 miles or less). They assumed 50% of those short trips were made by bicycle instead.  

Given those assumptions, they found these results:

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Effort to eliminate Transportation Enhancements defeated in U.S. Senate, 60-38

An effort in the U.S. Senate to eliminate Transportation Enhancements funding was defeated today by a vote of 60-38 in a bipartisan vote of support for bicycle and pedestrian funding.

Transportation Enhancements, the number one source of funding for bicycle and pedestrian projects in the United States, was the target of an attack by Kentucky Senator Rand Paul.  

Issues and examples attempting to portray the projects as a poor use of federal funding used by Paul and opponents of Transportation Enhancements had been thoroughly debunked by the media and bicycle and pedestrian groups.  The AP even went so far as to say the Senator Paul "continued the misrepresentation" when he spoke on the Senator floor today.

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AP Fact Check: Stories disparaging Transportation Enhancements funding are exaggerated or misleading

Next week a small group of U.S. senators is forcing a vote on a proposal to eliminate the Transportation Enhancements and other bicycle/pedestrian funding in the federal transportation budget.

An AP story fact-checking the stories members of Congress are telling about Transportation Enhancements is in the Kansas City Star and newspapers around the state and U.S. today.

The fact check is unusual--every supposedly horrible example of Transportation Enhancements spending is completely debunked.

Each example turns out to be either grossly exaggerated or completely misleading.  

That's not surprising, because Transportation Enhancements is the single largest source of funding for bicycle and pedestrian funding in the U.S. today, and those projects are important, popular, and much needed.

There are more than enough very good, very needed, projects to crowd out bad projects--and it looks like that is exactly what happened to many of the examples opponents have cited.  They were bad and so they were turned down for funding entirely.

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Action Alert: U.S. Senators again try to eliminate main source of bike/ped funding in U.S.

Today the Alliance for Biking and Walking sent the Action Alert below.

Please take a moment to contact our Missouri Senators in support of Transportation Enhancements--currently the main source of funding for bicycling and walking infrastructure in the U.S.

We are in an unusual situation in Missouri, where Senator Roy Blunt has voiced support for continuing the Transportation Enhancements program and Senator Claire McCaskill has voiced strong opposition to it.

Both senators need to hear from you--Senator Blunt, to shore up his support, and Senator McCaskill so that she will change her mind.

It only takes a couple of minutes, and if our senators do not hear a tidal wave of citizen response whenever our key bicycle and pedestrian programs are attacked, those programs will be eliminated sooner or later.

From Jeff Miller of the Alliance for Biking and Walking:

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MO Trails Summit Presentation: How to find funding to build your bicycle/pedestrian project or trail

At the 2011 Missouri Trails Summit in Kirkwood, Missouri, Amy Stringer Hessel of the Missouri Foundation for Health, Cindy Mense of Trailnet, and Brent Hugh of the Missouri Bicycle and Pedestrian Federation gave a panel presentation about finding funding for bicycle and pedestrian projects. Most participants at the Trails Summit are parks and rec department staff, so one focus of the presentation is funding for trails projects and trails programming.

However, most of the ideas and principles are just as applicable to finding bicycle and pedestrian funding for any project or program, whether for a city, a county, any other government agency, or a nonprofit organization building trails, bicycle facilities, pedestrian facilities, or doing bicycle or pedestrian programming.

Download the presentations in PDF format:

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Lee's Summit becomes Missouri's first Walk Friendly Community

Lee's Summit has become the first Missouri community officially recognized in the national Walk Friendly Community designations. 

Lee's Summit received a bronze level award in the Walk Friendly Community program, which is sponsored by the U.S. Department of Transportation and FedEx.

MoBikeFed recently updated our Vision for Bicycling and Walking in Missouri to include goals for the state in the new Walk Friendly Community program.  Thanks to Lee's Summit for becoming the first city to help us reach those goals!

Find out how to make your community a Walk Friendly Community here.

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Student's death in Fulton highlights need for safe bike/ped bridges

Saturday Westminster College student Ruslans Petrovskis died when he fell from the 7th Street bridge over Stinson's Creek in Fulton, on the Westminster College campus.

Petrovskis' death has hit the small, tight-knit Westminster College faculty and student body hard, according to an article in the Fulton Sun.

The Columbia Tribune has some details about the incident.  Petrovskis was bicycling across the bridge when he fell about 20 feet to the trail below.

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