Bike Lanes

[kboish]

I think it was only introduced today. So it will be discussed in committee next week or next meeting time

[bspecht]

Year 2 passes through TIO Committee smoothly. https://clerk.kcmo.gov/LegislationDetai ... FullText=1

All in on calling them "personal mobility lanes"! Not much in Northland bc "they want a focus on the trail network."

French & Duncan commenting on public engagement, told apparently there's a new city standard set to rollout. New PIO in Public Works. Robinson wanting education program for using the lanes, PW has applied for grants on the subject.

Good on Michael Kelley, Shawn & Laura for supporting testimony!


Road diet analysis also passed, just a little push back from Robinson about bike lanes w/o public approval & how ugly white flexible bollards are (Bunch agreed). https://clerk.kcmo.gov/LegislationDetai ... FullText=1

[Anthony_Hugo98]

Year 2 passes through TIO Committee smoothly. https://clerk.kcmo.gov/LegislationDetai ... FullText=1

All in on calling them "personal mobility lanes"! Not much in Northland bc "they want a focus on the trail network."

French & Duncan commenting on public engagement, told apparently there's a new city standard set to rollout. New PIO in Public Works. Robinson wanting education program for using the lanes, PW has applied for grants on the subject.

Good on Michael Kelley, Shawn & Laura for supporting testimony!


Road diet analysis also passed, just a little push back from Robinson about bike lanes w/o public approval & how ugly white flexible bollards are (Bunch agreed). https://clerk.kcmo.gov/LegislationDetai ... FullText=1

What were the comments pertaining to public engagement? Was it in a negative sense, or that implementation should be based on where public engagement determines positivity?

[bspecht]

What were the comments pertaining to public engagement? Was it in a negative sense, or that implementation should be based on where public engagement determines positivity?

Bit of both, just that process up to this point hasn't been ideal and needs to be improved + a street shouldn't default get a bike lane because it can with a road diet if community is against it.

Can rewind back to this morning and hear it all here: https://www.youtube.com/@KansasCityMO

[smh]

What were the comments pertaining to public engagement? Was it in a negative sense, or that implementation should be based on where public engagement determines positivity?

Bit of both, just that process up to this point hasn't been ideal and needs to be improved + a street shouldn't default get a bike lane because it can with a road diet if community is against it.

Can rewind back to this morning and hear it all here: https://www.youtube.com/@KansasCityMO

Remember, your safety on the street only matters if the community is for it.

[bobthebiker]

I have a feeling most of these streets were widened with little to no public engagement. Or that "congestion" dictated that it needed to widen. In an ideal world "safety" would be swapped for congestion and should just be blanket approval to shrink them back to a reasonable number of lanes. Sucks we have to fight for every single stroad to not be a stroad.

I'm sure public engagement should improve, but in my mind it would be "this street is getting bikelanes and fewer car lanes as it will increase the safety, decrease vehicle speed, and improve this as a place to be. Tell us what aspects we need to consider in the design. (parking, loading zones, etc)"

[smh]

I have a feeling most of these streets were widened with little to no public engagement. Or that "congestion" dictated that it needed to widen. In an ideal world "safety" would be swapped for congestion and should just be blanket approval to shrink them back to a reasonable number of lanes. Sucks we have to fight for every single stroad to not be a stroad.

I'm sure public engagement should improve, but in my mind it would be "this street is getting bikelanes and fewer car lanes as it will increase the safety, decrease vehicle speed, and improve this as a place to be. Tell us what aspects we need to consider in the design. (parking, loading zones, etc)"

Agreed

[taxi]

I spent last weekend in NYC and was shocked at how many bikes are electric. Though a lot of those bikes are used for commercial delivery, I'm pretty certain that is what will be happening here. We're always about 10 years behind so it would be wise (and uncharacteristic) to get ahead of the curve.

[beautyfromashes]

There is no quick fix for changing a city like KC (it took KC years to become the way it is and will take years to fix it)….

Decades.

The main problem I have with restricting the flow of traffic is how does this not affect traffic into our core. Does adding 10-15 minutes to a drive because of these measures keep someone from going to the Crossorads for dinner instead of staying closer to home? Does it affect job creation or push people to take a job closer to their home in the suburbs because of the utility time lost? My #1 goal is increased density and activity. I want a more vibrant city again. More people should be the goal. It creates more restaurant opportunities, job creation and builds our marketing capability for tourism and events. Our roads aren’t too big, our city doesn’t have enough people.

[phuqueue]

Well sticking to the specific issue of Brookside first (though we are no longer in that thread), if frequent crashes are an issue at 51st St, I would have to say that mitigating that trumps any concerns about knock-on effects for businesses, especially businesses in farther away neighborhoods where these effects will be more attenuated. Safety is more important than anybody's bottom line.

Getting more general again, I would say that KC has more than enough people to be a vibrant city (comparable in size to metro Stockholm, larger than Prague, Bucharest, Lyon, Dublin, Copenhagen, etc). But KC's people are too spread out, a situation that is facilitated by big, fast arterial roads like Brookside (though obviously there are plenty of other factors as well). As you are getting at yourself, vibrancy requires density. Cars are anathema to density and vibrancy. The Brookside Blvd corridor wouldn't feel more "vibrant" just because it became clogged with additional traffic. Cars are not activity, they're just sealed pods whisking their often lone occupants off to other places. With sufficient density, Crossroads restaurants shouldn't need to rely on traffic driving in from Brookside in the first place, there should be enough people within walking or biking distance in the Crossroads area itself to keep those restaurants in business. And people in Brookside shouldn't need to drive to the Crossroads to get dinner either (and already they don't have to, but they're probably still driving even when they stay within their own neighborhood, which is a problem). Obviously, KC should have a solid transit system and bike network that can get people from Brookside to Crossroads when that's what they want to do, but "density" and "roads that make it fast and convenient to drive five miles for dinner" are opposing goals.

As far as the job creation thing, you're starting from the implicit assumption that people would rather be in the suburbs, so you can either give them the easiest possible commute into the city or they're going to take a job closer to home. I'd say make the city a place that people want to live so that the job offer in the city also represents an opportunity to relocate to a more desirable neighborhood. We can see that even a lot of suburbs are gradually trying to remake themselves, at least around their historic downtown areas or (in metros where applicable) rail stations, into more walkable environments. There was a lot of hype in the 2000-2010 period around people returning to the cities, and then in the 2010-2020 period some pumping of the brakes on that as core city population growth slowed or reversed again and suburban growth continued apace, but it's worth considering how many people are just getting priced out of core cities across the country, and these walkable suburb trends might just indicate that people want city life but can't afford it. So I think there is a real opportunity for KC to recapture some of its suburban population if it can give them a reason to come back, but you don't get there by emulating the suburbs with traffic-choked arterial roads and jobs and dinners that you have to drive on those roads to get to.

[bobthebiker]

Well sticking to the specific issue of Brookside first (though we are no longer in that thread), if frequent crashes are an issue at 51st St, I would have to say that mitigating that trumps any concerns about knock-on effects for businesses, especially businesses in farther away neighborhoods where these effects will be more attenuated. Safety is more important than anybody's bottom line.

Getting more general again, I would say that KC has more than enough people to be a vibrant city (comparable in size to metro Stockholm, larger than Prague, Bucharest, Lyon, Dublin, Copenhagen, etc). But KC's people are too spread out, a situation that is facilitated by big, fast arterial roads like Brookside (though obviously there are plenty of other factors as well). As you are getting at yourself, vibrancy requires density. Cars are anathema to density and vibrancy. The Brookside Blvd corridor wouldn't feel more "vibrant" just because it became clogged with additional traffic. Cars are not activity, they're just sealed pods whisking their often lone occupants off to other places. With sufficient density, Crossroads restaurants shouldn't need to rely on traffic driving in from Brookside in the first place, there should be enough people within walking or biking distance in the Crossroads area itself to keep those restaurants in business. And people in Brookside shouldn't need to drive to the Crossroads to get dinner either (and already they don't have to, but they're probably still driving even when they stay within their own neighborhood, which is a problem). Obviously, KC should have a solid transit system and bike network that can get people from Brookside to Crossroads when that's what they want to do, but "density" and "roads that make it fast and convenient to drive five miles for dinner" are opposing goals.

As far as the job creation thing, you're starting from the implicit assumption that people would rather be in the suburbs, so you can either give them the easiest possible commute into the city or they're going to take a job closer to home. I'd say make the city a place that people want to live so that the job offer in the city also represents an opportunity to relocate to a more desirable neighborhood. We can see that even a lot of suburbs are gradually trying to remake themselves, at least around their historic downtown areas or (in metros where applicable) rail stations, into more walkable environments. There was a lot of hype in the 2000-2010 period around people returning to the cities, and then in the 2010-2020 period some pumping of the brakes on that as core city population growth slowed or reversed again and suburban growth continued apace, but it's worth considering how many people are just getting priced out of core cities across the country, and these walkable suburb trends might just indicate that people want city life but can't afford it. So I think there is a real opportunity for KC to recapture some of its suburban population if it can give them a reason to come back, but you don't get there by emulating the suburbs with traffic-choked arterial roads and jobs and dinners that you have to drive on those roads to get to.

Agree to all of this.

Also, I think e-bikes especially in a place with significant hills like KC have changed the game. Suddenly you can conquer hills that would require you to be a very fit biker with relative ease. I think US regulations need to get a bit stricter on throttled e-bikes and maybe max speeds as I think it could breed trouble down the road but e-bikes have truly changed the game.

You no longer need to be concerned with hauling groceries or kids in your hilly city. The motor and batteries are a huge equalizer. They can truly be car replacements.

However to fully embrace them we need a good cycling network along with lots of other "calmed" roads. Brookside blvd loaded with cars or not is not calm in the slightest and there are many worse examples across the city. Calm roads also signal to driver what expectation should be of them. Wide open roads signal speed is king. Calm roads with lots of roundabouts or other features signal that they must drive much more respectively. Drivers will likely push back on this and this will be an adjustment period but we have to start now.

The financially prudent thing for the city to do is to take away lanes that are under capacity now not wait 30 years and another maintenance cycle for the core to hopefully be repopulated. It's a win for every metric (climate, budget, safety) except on how it's perceived by drivers, but I'd argue that the average person will prefer the calmed lanes as a driver anyway. People just hate change.

[langosta]

There is no quick fix for changing a city like KC (it took KC years to become the way it is and will take years to fix it)….

Decades.

The main problem I have with restricting the flow of traffic is how does this not affect traffic into our core. Does adding 10-15 minutes to a drive because of these measures keep someone from going to the Crossorads for dinner instead of staying closer to home? Does it affect job creation or push people to take a job closer to their home in the suburbs because of the utility time lost? My #1 goal is increased density and activity. I want a more vibrant city again. More people should be the goal. It creates more restaurant opportunities, job creation and builds our marketing capability for tourism and events. Our roads aren’t too big, our city doesn’t have enough people.

We have the highways for high speed longer distance travel. Travel times today up Brookside & Main is the same or slower vs driving east and getting on 71. The fact there are 3-4 elevated speed ways for me to drive between the two demonstrates how overbuilt the road system is.

Anyways, having a train to take you between Brookside to Downtown would do more to address attracting tourism & job creation vs. high speed plentiful car lanes. Top tech, finance, etc candidates want to live in fun walkable urban environments and they want to take the train to work. They do not want to drive no matter if they are living in Crossroads, Brookside, or anywhere else. I’ve sat down with candidates from Top 10 universities and this is the big complaint holding them back from coming to KC or leading them to leave their jobs in KC.

[beautyfromashes]

We have the highways for high speed longer distance travel. Travel times today up Brookside & Main is the same or slower vs driving east and getting on 71.

I don’t understand, we all hate highways but you want to choke off alternative roads forcing more traffic back to them likely causing increased expansion of the system and further growth of the suburbs as a result?

[TheLastGentleman]

The urban core was made easily accessible to cars in the 20th century and all it did was tear the heart out of the city almost instantly. Any forward progress KC makes will be in spite of its motorist-friendly design, not because of it

[langosta]

We have the highways for high speed longer distance travel. Travel times today up Brookside & Main is the same or slower vs driving east and getting on 71.

I don’t understand, we all hate highways but you want to choke off alternative roads forcing more traffic back to them likely causing increased expansion of the system and further growth of the suburbs as a result?

The rest of us are arguing that traffic doesn't need to be in cars in the first place. In the economic development example you provided, we would be far better off w/ installing transit + creating walkable neighorhoods.

[beautyfromashes]

We have the highways for high speed longer distance travel. Travel times today up Brookside & Main is the same or slower vs driving east and getting on 71.

I don’t understand, we all hate highways but you want to choke off alternative roads forcing more traffic back to them likely causing increased expansion of the system and further growth of the suburbs as a result?

The rest of us are arguing that traffic doesn't need to be in cars in the first place. In the economic development example you provided, we would be far better off w/ installing transit + creating walkable neighorhoods.

And I'm arguing that you can't install commuter transit without more density, something that we have absolutely zero of in this city. So, you can build the infrastructure to the amount of people that we have now, or we can get busy building areas up with significantly more people. If you're going to start limiting places to drive, we should start with the highways to force more traffic onto these smaller roads instead of the other way around, because people driving through an area on a relatively small road will actually stop to get a coffee or lunch or a pair of shoes. Clogging those roads and incentivizing people to take the highway instead just kills all the more activity. Instead of spending money to choke Brookside Blvd, maybe we should kill 71 outright.

[smh]

Are you trolling us?

[TheUrbanRoo]

When is normalthings gonna finally come back to KCRag?

[beautyfromashes]

Are you trolling us?

No, just getting a bit tired of some of the urban development cliche that doesn’t really seem to change the city as drastically as it needs to. Let’s just be very honest, very few people want to bike commute to work. There, I said it. It’s probably in the 100s of people in a metro of millions. Sure, we’ve gained several thousand people DT in the last 20 years I’ve been on this board. The suburbs outgrew us by far. Walkability is nice but it has to be in the bottom ten on why people choose to live somewhere. “Schools”, “low crime”, and “good paying jobs” probably top the list. So, leave Brookside Blvd alone and quit trying to “right size” every street every time you hear a tire squeak from your living room. Focus on the big stuff instead of spending millions on plans and neighborhood meetings and more plans to replace the first plans and “why aren’t we Amsterdam?”. When’s the last time we had a new major business move DT and why can’t we keep even small businesses like a dog bar? When’s the payoff?!? When does the train go downhill instead of always trying to climb a hill? Why does it seem we only have one developer in this city and they can’t seem to work in parallel. Happy for the WC, but it’s not enough. Time to go ride my bike.

[TheUrbanRoo]

If I had the ability to bike to work or take streetcar everyday I would. But we don’t have the bike lanes for it very well and the streetcar hasn’t made it to Plaza yet. Once streetcar is to Plaza/UMKC I think that one could reasonably pull off a carless lifestyle in KC. Everything you’d need would be there except Royals & ride to the airport. Although even that will be solved in the next 4-5 years.