KCRag Forum

Of the urban streets I've ridden around country, those like Grand are the worst. The more car traffic a street has the less sense to place a bike path unless it's only street to get between areas. But yeah if it has to be done, protected lanes are ideal. Walnut would be best N/S downtown street for a path, Grand and Broadway essentially the worst. And yeah SW Blvd is passable as it's basically only way to get from that area to downtown - that stretch would be worth putting in a protected lane.

I would hope those making decisions on bike path placement/spending are actually cyclists who have ridden around the country and have analyzed what works and what doesn't. In the past it seemed KC bus decisions were made by people who didn't regularly ride bus, but that seems to have changed.

Bicyclists want to go to the same places as drivers. If your bike network is limited to secondary streets then you create a "last block" problem where a cyclist has a difficult/dangerous time reaching their destination. Imagine trying to bike to something at 39th & Main if the network never got closer than Warwick. You either have to brave traffic or ride on the sidewalk to complete your trip - someone gets endangered in either scenario.

Cyclists' "last block" problem is analogous to drivers' "free parking in front" problem. If you can't walk the last block, maybe you should call an Uber.

kigmee wrote:Cyclists' "last block" problem is analogous to drivers' "free parking in front" problem. If you can't walk the last block, maybe you should call an Uber.

This is a good point.

Bicyclists shouldn't necessarily get parking right at their destination, we can't promise a bike spot right out front of any given business. If we are interested in shared car parking why not shared bike parking?

The NE corner 11th/Grand is a good example of this. Someone rides their bike on the future Grand bike lanes and parks there bike here. They then walk a block to their destination.

We should move the required bike parking to coordinate with car parking. If you want car spots you must put in bike spots. garage with 1000 spots should come with 100 bike spots and if/when biking becomes so popular they need more they convert car spots over. Let the neighborhood share both resources.

Yes, we need more parking regulations. That will get people to bike like crazy.

taxi wrote:Yes, we need more parking regulations. That will get people to bike like crazy.

The term is "induced demand"

Also, bike parking is already a requirement. It's just every single project has to put it in today when it probably makes more sense to treat it as a shared public resource to some degree.

I've seen tire stores with bike parking.

bike lanes will be the topic on Up To Date today at 11:30ish

http://kcur.org/programs/uptodate

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pash wrote:Does Burns & Mac stripe roads? Because if they could swoop in with a private-financing plan and make this happen ASAP, that'd be great.

oh my jesus that needs to be a tweet.

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How would it be paid back? Tolls on the bike lanes?

flyingember wrote:How would it be paid back? Tolls on the bike lanes?

woosh woosh woosh

http://www.kansascity.com/news/politics ... 64842.html

They’ve finally decided to pay for the bike lanes with local funds and use the federal funds for different purposes. A measure to that effect goes to the city council’s finance committee Wednesday.

”We want to start the Grand Boulevard portion of this project before the end of the year,” Beth Breitenstein, spokeswoman for Kansas City’s public works department, said Friday.

The plan for Grand Rd diet is just bizarre. Broadway and Grand through downtown make the most sense as major car thoroughfares long term. These should not get road diets or even worse, bike lanes. You can't road diet every street in downtown. As much as we need to treat cars as second class citizens downtown, there still needs to be a reasonable level of car traffic management (by maintaining a couple N/S thoroughfares). Bike paths ideally don't belong on major thoroughfares.

I don't feel this is going to affect grand's ability to host cars at all. It's basically empty all the time now as it is now.

KCPowercat wrote:I don't feel this is going to affect grand's ability to host cars at all. It's basically empty all the time now as it is now.

exactly. narrower streets in this town carry many more cars per day/hour. it is totally acceptable to have a bike facility on any local street, it's just a matter of design (higher speeds require protection and signaling, which grand will not need).

Think long term. In 10+ years downtown population could increase signficantly again and workforce could also double (at least that should be a target) - as well as stretch to Plaza. Ideally cars would be reduced as transit improves but not realistic - see other large cities with effective transit. There needs to be a way to manage expected increase in traffic, Broadway and Grand make sense for directing highest volume N/S auto traffic. From Midtown, Grand has Gilham and Main dumping into it. And Walnut makes sense for major N/S bike path.

I suppose things could be reconfigured over the years but might not be wise to give Grand a road diet that would be difficult to reverse.

I'm reminded of the fight this board had with Strongtowns' own Chuck Marohn after he laid down in the middle of Grand to demonstrate its excessive width and lack of automobiles.

smh wrote:I'm reminded of the fight this board had with Strongtowns' own Chuck Marohn after he laid down in the middle of Grand to demonstrate its excessive width and lack of automobiles.

There was a period of time a few years back I would park facing SB at around 5pm in the 1100 block and make a uturn from the parking spot every time. Not a car in sight to block me from doing this.

It's sized for a time the street was lined with fully occupied buildings and needed to support cars and streetcar equally.

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