Mile 10 Campaign - BikeWalkKC Celebrates its 10th Anniversary!
This year, we celebrate our 10th anniversary! BikeWalkKC was officially launched in April 2011 as a nonprofit organization with a mission and purpose to serve the bi-state Kansas City metro area. We were Kansas City’s first professional advocacy and education organization dedicated to bicycling and walking.
For 2021, we plan to spend time celebrating accomplishments and, most importantly, focusing on a vision for Mile 20 and beyond. Through blog posts, e-news articles, and social media stories, you will learn more about BikeWalkKC and how your support was - and is - vital to our work.
Mile 6 (2016) Building for the future
By Eric Rogers, Executive Director & Co-Founder
Safe Routes to School program expands
In 2016 our youth education program expanded to high schools and middle schools. East High School in KCMO was the site of our first Bike Club, thanks to long-time BikeWalkKC member and EHS math teacher Andrew Killen. In addition to learning bike skills and earning bikes of their own, the first group of students got to ride to City Hall with former Councilmember Jermaine Reed and meet former Mayor Sly James.
BLAST goes to Lawrence
By 2016 we were getting requests to bring our Safe Routes to School programs to places throughout the KC metro. So we teamed up with folks from the Lawrence, KS school district and health department to train school staff to deliver our Bike Lesson And Safety Training (BLAST) curriculum. In later years we have replicated this train-the-trainer model to expand the impact of our work far beyond Kansas City.
Bike Plan Audit leads to a brand new bike plan
The big advocacy news in 2016 was a performance audit that found the KCMO bike plan was woefully inadequate and poorly implemented. The scathing audit of City Hall’s bike/ped program spurred the city to scrap the old plan and start the process of writing a brand new and more robust plan (which we’ll have a lot to say about in subsequent Mile 10 yearly reports!).
KCMO also adopted a new sidewalk closure policy to ensure pedestrian access and safety during construction projects, though five years later we are still fighting for better implementation of this policy.
Around the region
Outside of KCMO, the region made good progress in 2016:
- Overland Park amped up the implementation of its new bike master plan with 10 miles of new bike lanes. It continues to outpace the rest of the KC region, building more bike lane miles per year than the rest of the region combined
- The US 69 bridge over the Missouri River opened with a new shared bike/path connecting Platte and Wyandotte Counties, and we didn’t have to fight MoDOT and KDOT to get this one! Acceptance and support of new infrastructure began to really take hold in 2016
- KCK added bike lanes on 10th and 12th Streets, connecting the Rosedale and Armourdale areas to Downtown KCK and the Jersey Creek Trail
- North KC adopted a Complete Streets master plan
Help Get Kids Walking & Biking!
Mile 10 Gift Opportunity
You and I benefit from more kids walking and biking. They are our future advocates. We’re counting on them to continue working for improved sidewalks, better trails, and more public spaces so that walking or biking is the easy choice for everyone.
If you believe every day is a great day to walk or ride to school (or work, the store, a park, or the library!), then consider giving a gift to support BikeWalkKC’s community programs.
Your $10 gift will help get more kids and adults walking and biking. Thank you!
Did you know BikeWalkKC is celebrating its 10th anniversary? Read more about our Mile 10 campaign here.