News

Keynote Address for 2023 Summit Friday: Revitalizing a Rural Community - 1,000 feet at a time

The 2023 Missouri Active Transportation Summit is coming up Friday, August 11th - attend in person in Jefferson City or online via YouTube or Teams.

Our Summit Keynote this year is about a real Missouri success story - a small rural community that has been building its bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure literally 1000 feet at a time over the past 26 years.  And has now received a $25 million federal grant to complete their system.

How and why did they do it when so many other communities - large, medium, and small - have been unable to?

Register for the Summit today to hear this and MANY other Missouri bicycle, pedestrian, and trails success stories! View the full Summit Program here (PDF).

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Missouri State Parks officially names and adopts Rock Island Trail State Park as the 93rd park in the Missouri State Parks system

At 10am this morning in Windsor, Missouri - where the Katy and Rock Island Trails meeting - Missouri State Parks announced the state's 93rd State Park, with a new name: Rock Island Trail State Park.

Mayors and representatives from towns and supporting organizatiuons along the corridor spoke, as did David Kelly, director of Missouri State Parks, and Dru Buntin, director of Missouri Department of Natural Resources.

You may remember that Rock Island Trail State Park was the name of the 47 mile section of the Rock Island corridor developed using funding and a land donation originating to the 1990s and 2000s.  But when the trail was opened in 2016, the name was (suddenly!) change to "Rock Island Spur of Katy Trail State Park."

Communities along the railroad line were surprised and unhappy - railroad towns usually have a strong identity with the railroad and its name.

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City of Warsaw MO awarded $25 million RAISE Grant to take Complete Streets, trails to entire city

TIGER Grants were first awarded in 2009.  That very year, the City of Warsaw, Missouri, applied for a major grant, designed to expand the city's renowned trail system, but even more - to connect the entire city to the trails and to major destinations like parks and shopping, via bicycle- and pedestrian-friendly Complete Streets.

They didn't get it.

Literally every funding round since 2009, Warsaw - population 2231 - led by City Manager Randy Pogue and a team of citizens, staff, and elected officials, has resubmitted and refined its grant application.

Every year, the same result - no grant funding.

Over the years, the program, as President and Congressional leaders changes, the program was renamed BUILD, and now RAISE. 

But the purpose has always been the same - to provide significant transportation investment to communties and regions that have a vision for rebuilding their transportation system in a transformative way.

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Rock Island Trail: What happened in Jefferson City this legislative session - What was lost, what was gained, what's next?

If you have followed Rock Island Trail news in Missouri, you know that the new Rock Island Trail State Park has run into very significant headwinds in the Missouri legislature in 2022 and 2023. 

In 2023, Governor Parson asked for $69 million funding - which passed the Missouri House with east but was stripped in Missouri Senate, due to opposition from a couple of key Senate budget leaders. 

Earlier in 2023, we and a number of allied organizations issued an alert that $2.9 million in federal economic development funding that Governor Parson had earmarked for the trail would be lost forever unless the Senate chair reversed his position and allowed the funding to move forward.

So what happened and why is there suddenly such strong opposition to the Rock Island Trail in the Missouri legislature?

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After more than a decade of trying, Missouri legislature finally passes Siddens Bening Hands Free Law, prohibiting texting and electronic device use while driving

Thursday, May 11th, the Missouri House & Senate finally passed SB 398, including the "Siddens Bening Hands Free Law" which prohibits texting and other electronic device use while driving. 

Missouri is one of just two states still lacking a law prohibiting texting while driving.  The Missouri Legislature has been working to regulate electronic device use while driving since the late 2000s - passing a law that applied only to those 21 and under in 2009,  but otherwise unable to move any legislation forward thanks to opposition by a few key senators.

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ALERT: $2.9 million Rock Island Trail funding eliminated by Missouri Senate - federal funding will be lost if not spent this year - pls contact your Missouri legislators

Please contact your Missouri Senator and Representative this week and ask them to support the Rock Island Trail funding in HB 6.  A $2.9 million in federal grant has been approved for the Rock Island Trail. However, the grant must be  appropriated by the Missouri legislature.  The governor requested the appropriation, the Missouri House approved it, but the Missouri Senate, led by Springfield Senator Lincoln Hough, zeroed out the funding. 

If the $2.9 million in federal funding is not allocated by the legislature, it cannot be spent elsewhere.  It will simply be returned to the federal government and lost to Missouri.

We have one last chance to restore the funding.  When HB 6 goes to Conference Committee, the committee can decide to follow the House version (which includes the $2.9 million funding) or the Senate version (which zeroes out the funding). 

This decision will be made by Friday, May 5th, 5pm - when all 2024 budget bills must be complete.

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Columbia City Council discussing planned Cosmo Bike Park | komu.com

Headlines are quick hits from media outlets from Missouri and around the world. Follow the headline link for the full story. The source of this headline says:

The approval for the construction of a bike park in the Northeast Corner of the Columbia Cosmopolitan Recreation Area (Cosmo Park). The project will be known as the Cosmo Bike Park.

The plans include:

Trailhead for Rhett's Mountain Bike Trail
Asphalt pump track
Cyclocross event space
Bike playground
Mountain bike skills course

If approvals go through city council, the estimated date of completion would be late summer of 2024.

MoBikeFed comment: You can find out more about the planned Cosmo Bike Park in Columbia at https://beheard.como.gov/cosmo-bike-park

That page says that the "development of the Cosmo Bike Park will be funded by the 2021 voter-approved Park Sales Tax as well as a $300,000 donation from the Frank W. Morris Memorial Trust and a $250,000 donation from the Columbia Missouri Trail Association and Veterans United Foundation."

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