Bike Lanes

[shinatoo]

For what it's worth, I reached out to Melissa Robinson. She said she fears a vote to remove bike lanes and wants to prevent that by getting this right.

That's the right answer. Even if they got a postcard, understanding of the scope of what the city was doing, or more realistically thinking the city would actually get it done, isn't something I would expect the average citizen to understand. Especially if it was 5 years ago.

Get it right with all the parties that are willing to be reasonable. The fundamentalist on both sides are never going to be appeased.

[FangKC]

Are they planning to publish these records to the public? Or are they open source? Even if it was just a postal notification, it’s not the city’s responsibility to ensure grown ass adults check their mail…

A couple of points. You can't guarantee that postal notifications are delivered. My neighborhood Facebook page has constant posts from residents about not getting mail delivered timely, or at all. I have USPS informed delivery (where you get images of your coming mail via email so you know what's to be delivered), and sometimes, I don't get the mail. I also regularly get neighbors' mail delivered to my house. Most of this is due to the postal service being so understaffed and overworked. I regularly see postal delivery personnel still delivering mail after 7 pm.

Yet, it is hard to imagine that all the business owners didn't get postal notifications. It would depend on the type of notification. Did the city send pre-sorted bulk mail flyers, and the postal delivery people pulled a Newman (Seinfeld reference to Newman not delivering mail because he was too lazy, or it was raining that day).

Yes, there is a widespread misunderstanding among citizens that the street parking in front of their home or business belongs to them and is not for use by the general public, or can be removed by the City entirely. There are streets in the city where there is no street parking spaces at all that were lost when the City used that space for an additional traffic lane.

The other thing lost on me about bike lanes is how residents and business owners have no sense that there might ALSO be children riding bikes in those lanes, and that children are often biking in the streets -- perhaps going to school.

[Chris Stritzel]

A certain forum user blasted the anti-bike lane crowd tonight at the meeting. Definitely a deserved response to a group of “men” who acted like they were up for the electric chair whenever someone disagreed with them or the city officials didn’t have specific answers on the most random things. The small dick energy was big with these guys. No wonder why they were pissed.

And they all wore the same army green sock hats. That made them look more like goofy fucks than they already were from being slouched over from sulking and scribbling red marker on poster board to look like blood. One of the most beautiful signs said “bike lanes = death lanes”, but don’t get it twisted. They’re not pedestrian advocates. They’re Hoosiers (aka: white trash) that know their driving sucks so bad that they’ll likely end up killing someone but want to make it seem like it’s the other drivers causing the problems.

I seriously want to know where these people live. They want to come into a jurisdiction where they only have a business and act like they run the entire show. Threatening the councilwoman and others with a “30 day notice” to remove the bike lanes and do other things or else they’ll petition the city for them to be removed and push for a citywide referendum that the grayshirts believe would get 70% of the vote.

And then you had three city council candidates in there kissing the ass of the anti-bike lane crowd in a bit to boost their already failing campaigns. They were open about it, introducing themselves as such. I don’t know why two northland candidates think they have a say in what goes on south of the river, especially with something like this. Sure, you can get more cops to patrol this, but do you honestly think the cops are going to pull over speeders in this day and age?

The complete and utter disregard for respect to the pro-bike lane and traffic calming crowd from the anti-bike lane crowd was insane. Then you have the disregard for the poor and vulnerable from one business owner by basically calling homeless people “animals” who walk in the bike lanes and hang around in the area. Something that’s unacceptable and the eyes of these people. You can’t make it up.

It’s clear what these people’s agenda is. It’s clear to see how they see the city they supposedly live in. It’s clear they belong in the far flung suburbs, where they live and belong.

Whenever I see the news about politicians bitching about this or that, I thought stupidity was at its ceiling. I was wrong. The stupidity glass ceiling was broke many times over tonight and I can only hope the shattered glass comes back to bite these people in ass.

If Melissa Robinson, or the city, caves in to these guys, we can kiss every single pro-pedestrian piece of infrastructure goodbye and say hello to a city that’s financially broken from wider and newer streets.

These people need to be silenced and disregarded.

[Cratedigger]

Yeah so unbuilding the car infrastructure KC has built and incentivized is going to be a painful process. A three quick takeaways from the meeting:

- At the beginning, Melissa Robinson mentioned that she has a drafted ordinance to remove bike lanes. Towards the end of the meeting one of the audience gave her 30 days to remove the bike lanes from Truman or else they would start a petition/referendum to remove them city wide.

- Majority of the comments were from businesses on Truman that were VERY vocally against bike lanes. In one instance, they went after a resident that was in favor of the bike lanes because "nobody lives over here." Worth mentioning that even audience members outside of the businesses were frustrated with the implementation, lack of signage and (perceived?) lack of communication from the city.

- The city ran through proposed changes to the street (still keeping bike lanes) which could be implemented in a matter of weeks. They'll probably redesign a bit based on conversations around loading zones for certain businesses and sightlines.

The tone in the room at one point was very "Bike lanes are dangerous. I know because I almost hit a biker!" Hopefully when they redesign and they implement loading zones, there is still some route for bikers. I'm worried we're going to end up with the bike lane rendered useless because of parked vehicles in the loading zone.

[FangKC]

Bike lanes are going to be ripped out unless BikeKC gets its constituency out at these meetings to provide pushback. There need to be two pro-bike lane people for every anti-bike lane people. That's what the Council will notice. If the BikeKC people don't show up in big numbers, they will lose everything they have worked for and the bike lanes will get ripped out citywide. The Council members will fold.

You can't have just one person at these meetings fighting back.

BikeKC needs to get tough. They need to consider suing the City every time someone is killed or injured by vehicle traffic.

[FangKC]

And then you had three city council candidates in there kissing the ass of the anti-bike lane crowd in a bit to boost their already failing campaigns. They were open about it, introducing themselves as such. I don’t know why two northland candidates think they have a say in what goes on south of the river, especially with something like this.
...
If Melissa Robinson, or the city, caves in to these guys, we can kiss every single pro-pedestrian piece of infrastructure goodbye and say hello to a city that’s financially broken from wider and newer streets.

It doesn't matter where Council members live. They all vote on ordinances and on issues the might be outside their district. The At-large Council members represent the entire City.

The Council has to respond to their constituents. If more of their constituents want something, they win. If 90 percent of their constituent feedback is against something, they will win the issue. The mayor and Council members can be removed from office or recalled over one issue if enough signatures are gathered.

The majority of constituents can be wrong on any given issue, and still win the day.

[beautyfromashes]

You can't have just one person at these meetings fighting back.

Maybe we can time forum meetups to coincide with meetings like this. I know a problem with some of the development public testimony meetings that the city has is that they always schedule then reschedule them later. It's hard enough to get to a meeting (like the MAC properties one today) without have notice or having to change schedules several times. It makes for meetings with just people that are angry enough to show up or empty schedules with a bunch of dead time on their hands to show up.

[DColeKC]

I’m not a big bike lane advocate because I believe they’re seriously under utilized but I get what the goal is. I’m definitely not anti-bike lanes but how can anyone be mad about business owners who are simply protecting how they make a living? I don’t care what kind of hats they wear or what color their skin is. If any of us owned a business and the city did something to negatively impact that business, we’d be upset too.

The push for bike lanes and “build it and they will come” strategy isn’t anything new. A consistently bad idea to force people into using other forms of transportation. No different than make the current most popular form expensive and subsidize the new way.

[Anthony_Hugo98]

I’m not a big bike lane advocate because I believe they’re seriously under utilized but I get what the goal is. I’m definitely not anti-bike lanes but how can anyone be mad about business owners who are simply protecting how they make a living? I don’t care what kind of hats they wear or what color their skin is. If any of us owned a business and the city did something to negatively impact that business, we’d be upset too.

The push for bike lanes and “build it and they will come” strategy isn’t anything new. A consistently bad idea to force people into using other forms of transportation. No different than make the current most popular form expensive and subsidize the new way.

Wait until you hear how subsidized car travel is… but to address your points, the city didn’t do anything to harm their business, as this project is still not complete. The only claim that could even come close falling into that category is the delivery trucks, but again, parking was retained. The business owners refuse to let the city complete it. The chief complaint is parking, which was retained, but will be improved with the completed buildout.

[beautyfromashes]

Wait until you hear how subsidized car travel is… but to address your points, the city didn’t do anything to harm their business, as this project is still not complete. The only claim that could even come close falling into that category is the delivery trucks, but again, parking was retained. The business owners refuse to let the city complete it. The chief complaint is parking, which was retained, but will be improved with the completed buildout.

Probably a good lesson for the city that if you're going to build out a bike lane, don't take a long amount of time to complete the finished product. Get to the goal quickly to remove the opportunity for people to complain about a project that's not finished.

[Anthony_Hugo98]

Wait until you hear how subsidized car travel is… but to address your points, the city didn’t do anything to harm their business, as this project is still not complete. The only claim that could even come close falling into that category is the delivery trucks, but again, parking was retained. The business owners refuse to let the city complete it. The chief complaint is parking, which was retained, but will be improved with the completed buildout.

Probably a good lesson for the city that if you're going to build out a bike lane, don't take a long amount of time to complete the finished product. Get to the goal quickly to remove the opportunity for people to complain about a project that's not finished.

Correct, also definitely don’t let the contractors call the shots, because that seems to be how you’re left with a shitty project

[Chris Stritzel]

I’m not a big bike lane advocate because I believe they’re seriously under utilized but I get what the goal is. I’m definitely not anti-bike lanes but how can anyone be mad about business owners who are simply protecting how they make a living? I don’t care what kind of hats they wear or what color their skin is. If any of us owned a business and the city did something to negatively impact that business, we’d be upset too.

The push for bike lanes and “build it and they will come” strategy isn’t anything new. A consistently bad idea to force people into using other forms of transportation. No different than make the current most popular form expensive and subsidize the new way.

Thing is, if these bike lanes are really hurting their business, there's a major problem on their own end. If businesses on Main can deal with over two years of roadwork, detours, closures and no on street parking, and businesses on Southwest could put up with years of dirty roadwork, and the Truman Road businesses can't survive after 2 months of bike lanes, then maybe Truman Road businesses should reconsider their business model. I'd say the roadwork on Main and Southwest is far more of a hinderance to customers than repaving and putting some bike lanes in.

Why is it that businesses along the Hampton, Gravois, Grand (in select areas), South Broadway, Morgan Ford, Union and others in St. Louis were successfully able to adapt with the implementation of bike lanes and road diets? Auto repair, auto sales, bars, restaurants, law firms, schools, and more all adapted and are still in business. Every road I mentioned is far busier than Truman Road in KC, so what gives? Or what about streets like Armour, Gillham, Oak, 18th, and so on? Are those area's businesses and residents struggling because of some bike lanes?

People in this city need to get over the "wide roads" mentality. The City of KCMO is 87 square miles larger than the City of Chicago, has 7.47x less density, and, according to each city's public works departments, has 100 more miles of streets and alleys to maintain (Chicago has 5900 miles, KCMO has 6000). The infrastructure here is built for a City of a million people in a relatively condensed area. KCMO can afford to lose street width and it won't be the end of the world.

The thing about all of this is this: I'm not necessarily in favor of bike lanes. However, I understand that we need to be able to adapt our roads to appeal to people using all types of transportation methods. Whether you walk, bike, scooter, take the bus or drive, we can create roads out of the overbuilt roads to support these usages. KC is growing and, as a result, you'll get people who prefer to get around using other methods. It is the responsibility of the city to begin making those often hard decisions for the future. People from my generation (Z) overwhelmingly prefer to get around by foot, bike, scooter or transit than driving. Get Z are the ones who will begin the next wave of moving into the cities. It's time to start building for them and building for the future. We cannot deny that

[beautyfromashes]

This is a growing sign of a battle that has started in this city between those who want a vibrant, dense urban core and those who want quick access to all the city amenities from their suburb homes. Only one of the sides can win. To build the core, you have to make it more dense and difficult to jump in and out. You have to incentivize people to live closer in if they want easy access to the entertainment, restaurants and jobs that we ultimately have to attract. So, bike lanes (and streetcars) are the first sign of this change in priorities. The messaging will continue to grow from the suburbs that "all the city cares about is DT!" Of course, the council could derail changes (like Robinson seems to be doing) to win over their suburban-minded constituents. And you have to remember, there is really only one (maybe 2) urban council district out of the six. Vote accordingly.

[DColeKC]

This is a growing sign of a battle that has started in this city between those who want a vibrant, dense urban core and those who want quick access to all the city amenities from their suburb homes. Only one of the sides can win. To build the core, you have to make it more dense and difficult to jump in and out. You have to incentivize people to live closer in if they want easy access to the entertainment, restaurants and jobs that we ultimately have to attract. So, bike lanes (and streetcars) are the first sign of this change in priorities. The messaging will continue to grow from the suburbs that "all the city cares about is DT!" Of course, the council could derail changes (like Robinson seems to be doing) to win over their suburban-minded constituents. And you have to remember, there is really only one (maybe 2) urban council district out of the six. Vote accordingly.

but keep in mind, downtown can't survive without the money from the people in the burbs. Making it more difficult for them to get down here won't help anything. I look at bike lanes as a perk and not a priority. Seems to be a constant drama filled battle and I understand why.

[beautyfromashes]

but keep in mind, downtown can't survive without the money from the people in the burbs.

Then we're rebuilding downtown wrong.

[Anthony_Hugo98]

This is a growing sign of a battle that has started in this city between those who want a vibrant, dense urban core and those who want quick access to all the city amenities from their suburb homes. Only one of the sides can win. To build the core, you have to make it more dense and difficult to jump in and out. You have to incentivize people to live closer in if they want easy access to the entertainment, restaurants and jobs that we ultimately have to attract. So, bike lanes (and streetcars) are the first sign of this change in priorities. The messaging will continue to grow from the suburbs that "all the city cares about is DT!" Of course, the council could derail changes (like Robinson seems to be doing) to win over their suburban-minded constituents. And you have to remember, there is really only one (maybe 2) urban council district out of the six. Vote accordingly.

but keep in mind, downtown can't survive without the money from the people in the burbs. Making it more difficult for them to get down here won't help anything. I look at bike lanes as a perk and not a priority. Seems to be a constant drama filled battle and I understand why.

That’s counterproductive to the goal though, through traffic should never be the priority, local traffic should be. Highways are for suburban throughput, surface streets shouldn’t serve this goal.

[DColeKC]

This is a growing sign of a battle that has started in this city between those who want a vibrant, dense urban core and those who want quick access to all the city amenities from their suburb homes. Only one of the sides can win. To build the core, you have to make it more dense and difficult to jump in and out. You have to incentivize people to live closer in if they want easy access to the entertainment, restaurants and jobs that we ultimately have to attract. So, bike lanes (and streetcars) are the first sign of this change in priorities. The messaging will continue to grow from the suburbs that "all the city cares about is DT!" Of course, the council could derail changes (like Robinson seems to be doing) to win over their suburban-minded constituents. And you have to remember, there is really only one (maybe 2) urban council district out of the six. Vote accordingly.

but keep in mind, downtown can't survive without the money from the people in the burbs. Making it more difficult for them to get down here won't help anything. I look at bike lanes as a perk and not a priority. Seems to be a constant drama filled battle and I understand why.

That’s counterproductive to the goal though, through traffic should never be the priority, local traffic should be. Highways are for suburban throughput, surface streets shouldn’t serve this goal.

Maybe I'm wait off here but wouldn't downtown curl up and crumble if it weren't for influx of non-downtown residents who frequent the area for entertainment purposes?

I'm not saying the city is getting rid of parking for bike lanes and we all know downtown KC has a massive surplus of parking. But making it harder to get around by car and easier by bike only serves a very small group of people. I get the future argument too but I disagree with the idea we need to make the urban core "difficult to jump in and out". We already fight the stigma of being a difficult area to navigate.

[Anthony_Hugo98]

but keep in mind, downtown can't survive without the money from the people in the burbs. Making it more difficult for them to get down here won't help anything. I look at bike lanes as a perk and not a priority. Seems to be a constant drama filled battle and I understand why.

That’s counterproductive to the goal though, through traffic should never be the priority, local traffic should be. Highways are for suburban throughput, surface streets shouldn’t serve this goal.

Maybe I'm wait off here but wouldn't downtown curl up and crumble if it weren't for influx of non-downtown residents who frequent the area for entertainment purposes?

I'm not saying the city is getting rid of parking for bike lanes and we all know downtown KC has a massive surplus of parking. But making it harder to get around by car and easier by bike only serves a very small group of people. I get the future argument too but I disagree with the idea we need to make the urban core "difficult to jump in and out". We already fight the stigma of being a difficult area to navigate.

Highways are for suburban transit into town, and we have no shortage of that. Pretending this specific bike lane is effecting anything is where the absurdity comes from.

[DColeKC]

That’s counterproductive to the goal though, through traffic should never be the priority, local traffic should be. Highways are for suburban throughput, surface streets shouldn’t serve this goal.

Maybe I'm wait off here but wouldn't downtown curl up and crumble if it weren't for influx of non-downtown residents who frequent the area for entertainment purposes?

I'm not saying the city is getting rid of parking for bike lanes and we all know downtown KC has a massive surplus of parking. But making it harder to get around by car and easier by bike only serves a very small group of people. I get the future argument too but I disagree with the idea we need to make the urban core "difficult to jump in and out". We already fight the stigma of being a difficult area to navigate.

Highways are for suburban transit into town, and we have no shortage of that. Pretending this specific bike lane is effecting anything is where the absurdity comes from.

I don't think the bike lanes are an issue. I was responding to the comment specifically about making it harder to get in and out of downtown being the winning strategy to a nice urban core. I don't have the math in front of me but I'd assume it's the people in the burbs who are mostly paying for all this in a round about way regardless. At least until we get downtown population to a much higher level.

It's no different than the push for more environmentally friendly forms of transportation. You make the current "dirty" ones expensive as fuck to operate, subsidize the shit out of the cleaner options and ram it down people's throats. Only hurts the end user.

[beautyfromashes]

Downtown is not an entertainment district, it’s not a tourist area, or corporate center. It functions in those capacities but that should not be its goal nor should those be the first focus when rebuilding the core. Downtown should be a neighborhood first and the #1 goal should be making it a place that attracts residents so that it can be self-sustaining and vibrant. This means bike lanes, walking paths, retail for residents, park upkeep, transportation and engaging street fronts. If your business doesn’t want that, it should look elsewhere (and I say this as someone strongly interested in business growth). If we focus on building a neighborhood, the other pieces will benefit too because this is the type of environment people want. So, these warehouse and non-resident focused businesses fighting this bike path need to either change their business model to do so or, humbly, move on.