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Entries tagged: Missouri Bicycle And Pedestrian Federation

In 2007-2008, districts across the United States spent a staggering $21.5 billion busing students from their neighborhoods to the classroom. At an average of $854 per student, that accounted for more than 4 percent of the entire cost of the K-12 education system.

By helping to create the conditions that get more kids to bike and walk to school instead, the Safe Routes to School movement is reducing that massive price tag. And the advocates at the Missouri Bicycle and Pedestrian Federation have created a new tool that aims to puts a dollar value on those notable savings.

Of course, busing trumps private automobiles by a long shot, saving 347 million vehicle miles traveled each day. And busing certainly makes sense for students traveling longer distances. “We know that school bus transportation is cheaper, better for the environment, and often better for kids, than being driven in private automobiles,” the Missouri advocates point out. But they also know that: “Walking and bicycling, when feasible and safe, is cheaper, healthier, and generally better for most kids than either of the other options.”

So the federation did some number crunching. They found that a typical student who bicycles or walks to school receives the following amount of savings and benefits:

• Bicycling: $2,749 per year ($1,129 in cost savings and health benefits; $1,620 in enjoyment benefit)
  
• Walking: $1,856 per year ($596 in cost savings and health benefits; $1,260 in enjoyment benefit)

Want to calculate the benefits in your community? Download the federation’s calculator in the Alliance Resource Library. Click here to read more about the data sources.

At long last, a living memorial now grows in the city of Susie Stephens’ tragic death.

Had she not been struck and killed by a bus while legally crossing the street in St. Louis during a conference in 2002, Susie would have turned 46 years old young this past Saturday, April 16. To commemorate and honor her joyful and lasting legacy, a handful of bike/ped advocates planted a Susie Tree in the shadow of the iconic Gateway Arch.

As many of you know, Susie was not just a co-founder of the Alliance; she was an inspiration to all who knew her. She was a passionate bicyclist and environmentalist, who celebrated life through song and advocacy and, above all, believed that the tough work of making the world a better place is best done with a smile on your face.

After her death, Susie’s mom, Nancy MacKerrow, started the Susie Forest project, planting trees around the globe to memorialize Susie’s indominable spirit. Sinking roots into the city where Susie passed was a long-held hope for MacKerrow and her family. This weekend, a trio of advocacy groups — Trailnet, the Great Rivers Greenway and the Missouri Bicycle and Pedestrian Federation — helped to make that hope come true.

“This will provide some closure to a terrible incident that happened in St. Louis in 2002,” Brent Hugh, Executive Director of the Missouri Bicycle and Pedestrian Federation, said in a press release before the event. “Susie was killed just about the time I was getting interested in bicycle and pedestrian issues, and it had a profound impact on me and on our work at the Missouri Bicycle and Pedestrian Federation.”

On the blog for the Susie Forest project, MacKerrow described the weekend as bittersweet.

“The trip to St Louis was wonderful but hard,” MacKerrow wrote. “It was hard to show Jack and Becky [Susie’s brother and sister] the corner where Susie was killed and hard to walk where she had walked to the Gateway Arch on her last evening. Somehow the cold and windy and rainy weekend seemed appropriate. And yet the flowers and the emerging leaves on the trees also seemed appropriate.

After getting to bed at 2:45 am because of a late plane, it was a groggy threesome that trudged to the arch on Friday morning to watch Susie’s tree go into the ground. The planting crew had to listen to my Susie spiel and look at the pictures and maps, but they were rewarded with tree-kibbles, which they deserved because they planted the Bur Oak correctly.

On Saturday the people from Great Rivers Greenway and Trailnet who made this planting possible came to dedicate this tree to Susie and to wish her happy birthday. None of them knew her, but had heard wonderful things about her. It was very emotional to hear them speak about her influence. We wrote tree-grams, which we hung temporarily in the tree for picture-taking because they are not allowed in national parks. They will be hung in Spokane’s mystery birthday tree when I find it. Someone suggested that I put my tree-gram under the mulch we shoveled. I like that idea because the disintegrating paper will feed the roots and send my thoughts through the entire tree. Perhaps I will do this for every anniversary tree I plant.

I don’t know how to thank the wonderful, welcoming people of Missouri for making this dream of mine come true.”

Read more about the Susie Forest Project here. 

Did you know there are more than 900 resources in the Alliance’s online library? And that we’re adding new items almost every day?

We hope the Resource Library is your first stop when you’re looking for tips and templates to grow your organization, advance your campaigns or find the latest research on bike/ped topics. But we’re in the midst of making it even better, by editing, adding and updating many of the items and categories. To keep you posted, each week on the blog we’ll round up some of the recent additions.

Here’s this Friday’s hit list:

• Need stats on bicycling mode share, demographics, infrastructure or just about any other metric? You’ll likely find the data you’re looking for in the latest paper from John Pucher (Rutgers University) and Ralph Buehler (Virginia Tech): “Analysis of Bicycling Trends and Policies in Large North American Cities”

• A couple weeks ago, I had the opportunity to participate in the “Women Can Change the World Through Cycling” webinar presented by APBP, which marked the release of new materials from the Women’s Cycling Survey. Click here to read the survey results, watch the webinar and check out the new analysis of three open-ended questions from the survey, including “What would cause you to start or increase your cycling?”

• If you weren’t able to attend the Alliance’s “Fundraising Fundamentals” Mutual Aid Call this month (and even if you did attend), check out a wealth of resources and templates shared by our expert panelist Andy Robinson, including a fundraising menu for your board and an income diversification form.

• We know many of you are preparing your applications for Advocacy Advance Grants. For inspiration, see what some of our past grant recipients have been able to develop and share with other member organizations, including a variety of resources from the League of Illinois Bicyclists on their incredibly successful Bicycle Planning Workshops.

• New proof Americans also want more livable communities: A survey from the National Association of Realtors revealed that 56 percent of respondents preferred smart growth neighborhoods over neighborhoods that require more driving between home, work and recreation.

• May is just a few weeks away; check out this sample Bike Month proclamation/resolution created by the Missouri Bicycle and Pedestrian Federation and tailor it for your mayor or city council.

• Are you ready to work with the media for your Bike to Work events? Make sure you’ve got a helpful one-page press primer, like this one from the Bicycle Transportation Alliance in Portland.

Stay tuned for another installment next Friday!

This month we celebrated with the National Complete Streets Coalition, as they marked the passage of more than 200 complete streets policies across the U.S.

Well, add Kansas City, Missouri, to that quickly growing list.

This week, the Kansas City City Council passed a “Livable Streets” resolution that recognizes “streets and sidewalks are an important part of our community that serve transportation needs and are also a part of the public realm where people live, shop, interact, and travel” and resolves that “Kansas City supports the concept of Livable Streets as a means to promote great neighborhoods, healthy and active people, and a thriving community.” The Missouri Bicycle and Pedestrian Federation lauded the passage of the complete streets policy as a “a giant step forward.”

According to federation: “Kansas City is moving to the forefront of transportation parity in Missouri following the adoption of similar Complete Streets policies in Columbia, De Soto, Ferguson, Crystal City, Festus, Herculaneum, St. Louis, and Lee’s Summit.”

“The Livable Streets resolution is a sort of capstone to several different polices and plans that are already moving the city forward towards becoming safer and easier to navigate by whatever mode of transportation people choose,” Eric Rogers, the vice president of the MoBikeFed writes on KCBike.info. It builds on recent progress, including a Bike KC Master plan, a walkability plan and the reform of the development code and parking regulations.

“It’s great to see more Complete Streets policies being adopted in Missouri,” says Sarah Shipley, a KC resident and staffer at the MoBikeFed. “It means our roads and streets will be designed for everyone and safer for everyone — the old, the young, people with a disability, people who walk, bicycle, take the bus, or drive.”

Click here to read the full resolution.

Back in October, we highlighted a major victory in the Show-Me State. After years of targeted advocacy and partnership building, the Missouri Bicycle and Pedestrian Federation helped cut the ribbon on a new bike-ped path on the Heart of America Bridge in Kansas City (pictured).

“Advocates have been working for this day for more than two decades,” Brent Hugh, MoBikeFed’s executive director, told us. “The Missouri River cuts the Kansas City metro area in half, and a safe crossing point for bicyclists and pedestrians has been the biggest missing piece of the area’s bike-ped network.”

Kansas City is far from unique. Bridge crossings pose significant challenges — and opportunities — for bicycle and pedestrian advocates across the country. To help spur more successes like the one in Missouri, the Advocacy Advance Team has just released its latest report, Bridging the Gaps in Bicycling Networks: An Advocate’s Guide to Getting Bikes on Bridges.

“Bridges provide critical connections in a transportation network,” writes Darren Flusche, policy analyst for the League of American Bicyclists and lead author of the report. “After a generation of building bridges exclusively for cars, it is time for a more inclusive approach. Bicyclists and pedestrians need bridges at least as much as any other road users and advocates are increasingly making progress with transportation agencies. However, because of their scale and complexity, advocates often need to undertake serious, concerted campaigns to ensure accommodations are made.”

“This report identifies some of the common objections to bridge accommodations for biking and walking and offers suggestions on how to answer them,” Flusche adds. “It also contains recommendations based on the experience of several successful and on-going advocacy campaigns.”

The report is a must-read. It brings together all the relevant statistics, policy statements and federal regulations that you need to discuss these critical issues with officials in your community. It includes key insights and engaging anecdotes from advocates across the nation. Click here to download your copy.

Then mark your calendars for our “Learn from the Bridge Access Report” Mutual Aid call on December 15th at 3 p.m. EST (please note the date and time change!). Advocacy Advance staff will join the call to answer any questions about the report and a panel of advocates will share their experiences in waging and winning bridge campaigns in their communities. Be sure to read Bridging the Gaps and dial in to add your voice and insight to this important discussion.

Click here to register for the call.

For Kansas City civic leaders, the Missouri River is an exciting, barely tapped resource that brings human and natural history to the doorstep of downtown. But, for many years, area cyclists have seen the Big Muddy as a big barrier.

With no safe means to cross the bridges over the Missouri River, bicycle commuters and recreational riders had difficulty moving between the urban core and the city’s growing northern neighborhoods and commercial districts.

Not anymore.

Last week, the Missouri Bicycle and Pedestrian Federation joined a number of other groups and government agencies to cut the ribbon on a separated bicycle path on the Heart of America Bridge. According to Brent Hugh, the bike fed’s executive director, the new facility is a longtime dream finally made reality.

“Advocates have been working for this day for more than two decades,” Hugh says. “The Missouri River cuts the Kansas City metro area in half, and a safe crossing point for bicyclists and pedestrians has been the biggest missing piece of the area’s bike-ped network.”

A broad coalition of advocates and officials made it happen. In 2006, the Missouri Department of Transportation started planning for the reconstruction of the Paseo Bridge, the landmark structure that carries Interstate 35 over the Missouri River. A feasibility studied frowned on the addition of bike-ped facilities to the Paseo, but suggested the nearby Heart of America Bridge could provide safe passage for cyclists. Hundreds of residents showed up at public meetings and thousands expressed their support for a safe bridge crossing in e-mails and phone calls.

The result: MoDOT retrofitted the 25-year-old bridge with a $2.88 million separated path. When it opened last week, ahead of schedule, cyclists pedaled across with smiles and video cameras. Adding to the excitement, Hugh says, the push for bridge access spawned more than a single victory.

“We came out of this with a regional bike-ped River Crossings Policy and now MoDOT District 4 is working on its first ever District-wide Bicycle and Pedestrian Plan — one that will be a model for the other nine MoDOT districts across the state,” Hugh adds.

Even better, officials at MoDOT are now working on a second bike-ped crossing on the Chouteau Bridge, just two miles to the east. According to Hugh: “Having these two river crossings in place is going to be tremendously important in energizing the rest of Kansas City’s bike/ped network to finally come together.”

As early as 1904, a public library in South Carolina started loading books onto mule-drawn wagons to bring knowledge to the rural masses. Now Bookmobiles are a common feature of many libraries, taking the institutions’ wealth of resources to the streets.

The Missouri Bicycle and Pedestrian Federation is tweaking the roving library concept and tailoring it to serve students in the Show Me State.

Get ready for the BikeMobile.

Thanks to funding from a Safe Routes to School grant, the Missouri advocates are outfitting a box truck, school bus, or maybe even an old ambulance to carry bikes and safety instructors to elementary students.

“The BikeMobile’s maiden voyage will be this fall when we begin our Bicycle Lesson and Safety Training (BLAST) in the Kansas City area,” says Eric Bunch, the federation’s program coordinator. “BLAST is a three-hour, in-class, on-bike skills and safety training for 5th and 6th graders.  Thanks to a MoDOT [Missouri Department of Transportation] Safe Routes to School grant, MoBikeFed has a target of hitting 10 schools in the KC metro area with BLAST. We have funding for instructors, a coordinator, equipment, bikes and helmets. We just need the truck to complete the puzzle!”

Once they’ve secured their ride, they’ll take their ambitious plan on the road throughout the state.

“The ultimate goal is to take the BikeMobile around the state putting on bike rodeos and providing BLAST to thousands of students,” Bunch says. “Our next round of SRTS funding will hopefully fund a statewide train-the-trainer model by which we will teach PE teachers the ways of BLAST. Our Missouri SRTS State Network is working hard on this concept as we speak. Additionally, it is our hope that the BikeMobile will be as recognizable to Missourians as its inspiration, the Bookmobile.”

Read more about BLAST or donate a few bucks towards the BikeMobile on MoBikeFed’s website.

To save a professional bicycle race that could bring Lance Armstrong to the Show-Me State, bicycle advocates in Missouri are leaning hard on Democratic Governor Jay Nixon.

The Tour of Missouri — an annual, week-long, staged race that started in 2007 — has drawn more than 1.2 million spectators from 40 states and 20 countries to the Show-Me State. That kind of tourism means big money for Missouri — more than $75 million in economic impact over the past three years. It also means big exposure for bicycling.

But, despite the prospect of Lance Armstrong joining the Tour this fall, the 2010 event is on the brink of death.

Though the Missouri General Assembly specifically allocated $1 million in state support for the Tour, the Division of Tourism and the Governor Nixon are balking at that commitment and insisting the state simply doesn’t have the cash. Brent Hugh, executive director of the Missouri Bicycle and Pedestrian Federation and vice-chair of the Tour, is rallying cyclists to make Nixon reconsider.

“The Tour is Missouri’s premier bicycling event, an event of global importance, and one that Missouri’s bicycling community — and many others — care deeply about,” Hugh said in a press release last week.

Already, more than 2,200 supporters have signed an online petition urging Nixon to retain funding for the Tour. That’s in addition to the nearly 9,000 Facebook fans on the “Support the Tour of Missouri” page.

Thus far, both the Division of Tourism and the Governor’s staff have refused to meet with Hugh and other Tour officials, despite repeated and written requests. Those political shenanigans have caught the attention of the media. The Riverfront Times in St. Louis has started investigating the dicey politics underlying the decision.

Stay up-to-date on developments and read all about the fight — now dubbed Tour of Missouri-gate — on MO Bike Fed’s Web-site.

According to the Missouri Bicycle and Pedestrian Federation, “HB 1691, to make Bike Month, Bike to Work Week, and Walk/Bike to School Day/Week/Month a permanent part of the Missouri state holidays calendar, has passed the Missouri House as a consent bill.  The bill now goes to the MIssouri Senate.

Rep. Will Kraus sponsored the bill and wrote this summary in his weekly newsletter to constituents:

‘Bill on Bicycle and Walking Days Goes to the Senate
Last week, I presented HB 1691 to the House of Representatives for a vote.  This bill requires the governor to issue annual proclamations for a Walk and Bike to School month and day in October and Bike to Work month, day and week in May.  It received strong bipartisan support as it passed by a vote of 142 yes, one no, and one present.  The bill has been sent to the Senate and has been assigned to the Progress and Development Committee.

I would like to thank Brent Hugh, Executive Director of the Missouri Bicycle & Pedestrian Federation, Jonathan Hugh, and all others who have helped with this bill.

At no cost to the state, days such as this provide an opportunity for schools to organize safe passage for kids to walk or ride to school; create enthusiasm, knowledge and comradeship for healthy exercise; and lead to positive physical and mental health benefits for Missourians.’”

According to the Missouri Bicycle and Pedestrian Federation, “Ciclovia—the street festival where cities close down miles of streets and residents come out to enjoy walking, bicycling, scootering, skating, and all other manner of fun physical activity—is coming to Missouri in a big way this summer.

Kansas City’s Car Free Weekends on Cliff Drive are entering their third year and have been a very successful program.  By removing cars from the drive on weekends, more citizens are able to enjoy bicycling and walking and crime has been reduced significantly. Now Kansas City is expanded on this successful program by creating the city’s first full-blown Sunday Parkways festival.” St. Louis is also expanding it’s ciclovia programming this summer. 

The Missouri Bicycle and Pedestrian Federation is working to bring ciclovia festivals to cities around Missouri.  The state has gone from no Missouri ciclovia festivals in 2007, to one in 2008, and now seven planned for 2010.

Learn more at MoBikePedFed.

According to a press release issued by the Missouri Bicycle and Pedestrian Federation, Missouri Governor Jay Nixon has announced an agreement to save the historic Katy Bridge at Boonville. This comes after Union Pacific railroad moved to abandon the railroad right-of-way through the bridge which would have threatened the legal integrity of about 165 miles of the Katy Trail (currently used for biking and walking).

According to Missouri Bicycle and Pedestrian Federation:

“Trail advocates across Missouri have been working years to save the bridge

‘The MKT Bridge at Boonville is beautiful, historic, and surprisingly important for the legal health of a long section of the Katy Trail,’ said Brent Hugh, Executive Director of the Missouri Bicycle and Pedestrian Federation. ‘That is why trail lovers from across the state have been working for over six years to save and preserve the Katy Bridge.’

The Governor said that with the announcement of the bridge transfer, the Missouri Division of State Parks was prepared to discuss with Boonville officials how the bridge might eventually be incorporated into use by bicyclists, joggers and hikers using the nearby Katy Trail. Boonville is one of the most populous communities along the trail, which is used by more than 300,000 people each year.

Several groups from across the state took steps to build support for saving the bridge. Boonville’s Save the Katy Bridge Coalition has galvanized local support and fund raising, while groups like the Missouri Bicycle and Pedestrian Federation have worked to develop statewide support. Great Rivers Environmental Law Center filed legal briefs in support of then-Attorney General Nixon’s state lawsuit designed to save the bridge.

‘In 2005, when the state allowed Union Pacific to abandon the Katy Bridge without taking the proper legal steps to preserve the underlying rail corridor, it put 165 miles of the Katy Trail in a very unfortunate legal situation,’ says Hugh. ‘Transferring the bridge to the City of Boonville will resolve that legal problem while also creating a historic and tourist attraction in Boonville. And some day we’d like to see the Katy Trail re-routed to use the historic bridge.’”

Background on the legal issues surrounding the Katy Bridge:

http://mobikefed.org/2005/12/map-of-rail-connections-to-katy-trail.php
http://mobikefed.org/2005/12/abandonment-of-boonville-bridge.php
http://mobikefed.org/2005/06/removal-of-mkt-bridge-at-boonville.php

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The Missouri Bicycle & Pedestrian Federation, founded in 1994, represents the interests of bicyclists, walkers, runners, and trail users throughout Missouri. Through its network of affiliated clubs and groups, MoBikeFed represents over 15,000 Missouri citizens and speaks for the 2 million Missourians who bicycle regularly and the 5.8 million who walk.

The Missouri Bicycle & Pedestrian Federation is working to realize its vision of active transportation in Missouri by creating a world-class bicycle and pedestrian network in Missouri, building a movement around walking and bicycling, encouraging more walking and bicycling, and increasing safety for all road users. Find out more or join the federation at http://MoBikeFed.org

Photo: Young bicyclist on Katy Trail with Katy Bridge at Boonville pictured in back. Courtesy of the Missouri Bicycle & Pedestrian Foundation.