chingon wrote:
Well, the Trolley track probably gets as much recreational use as any comparable urban trail in the country. The Indian creek bike trail is well-used and expanding. Swope Park has a premium single track bike trail that is getting connected to the Blue river trail, which should make it among the longest urban single tracks in the country. Swope also has great, well-used hiking trails and I have never been through in the spring/summer/fall and not seen folks fishing Lake of the Woods, Loose park is lousy with people recreating from May-October, and while I can speak to usage, the riverfront trail and cliff drive are certainly available. To say nothing of suburban offerings.
Don't get me wrong, I think a "Bikes and Busses on Boulevards" program would breath new life into the city beautiful infrastucture we have, and I think most people here would agree with a similiar initiative, but even in StL, where they have a lot of bike lanes, usage is sparse at best.
I would say Downtown StL is worse than KC. I think StL probably is the one city that might be similar to KC when it comes to urban recreation. But then again, they have one of the most popular and utilized urban parks in the nation (Forest Park) and the most popular leg of the KATY trail in St Charles (which connects to a vast system in West County via the bike bridge over the MO river). So overall I think StL is better than KC as well.
My point is with two rivers coming together and all those levees, the PVP, the boulevards, the Brush Creek Trail, Trolley Track Trail etc, KC could have a top notch well used system. But it's just not connected, not built.
This could really be something that the entire metro could get behind and fund.
It's not just juppie towns shit. Baltimore, Cincy, Cleveland, Columbus, Pittsburgh, Richmond etc etc have all built extensive urban recreational infrastructure over the past ten years.