Gillham Road Complete Streets

What: A multimodal counts and observation study 
When: 2022
Team: BikeWalkKC
Client: KCMO
Funding: Menorah Heritage Foundation 

In 2018, the Gillham Road Corridor Bike Connections Plan - a Planning Sustainable Places (PSP) project - presented a framework to introduce a road diet along Gillham Road and Gillham Plaza to calm traffic and create space for a protected cycletrack. Starting in 2020, the road diet and cycle track were implemented in phases from Brush Creek Boulevard on the south to Truman Road on the north. The original plan did not call for the cycle track to extend so far north; however the positive community response and 2022 Protected Bike Lane Plan implemented by Kansas City, Missouri (KCMO) made the extension possible. 

For infrastructure projects like this, most cities struggle to provide enough staff and financial resources to conduct pre/post data collection to evaluate the projects, and KCMO is no exception. No funds were available in the city budget to conduct pre implementation data collection. BikeWalkKC believes in evidence-based research to guide infrastructure investment decisions. For communities that have experienced a long history of dis-investments and exclusion from decision-making conversations, cities must do better when it comes to planning and implementing infrastructure projects in these communities. 

Since the Gillham Cycle Track is the first of its kind in KCMO, this means there is no pre-condition data to compare current usage to. This report presents the results of the 2022 multimodal counts conducted along the Gillham Cycle Track, the qualitative observations of user behavior, and online and in person survey data to understand present day trends. By evaluating the impact of protected infrastructure like the Gillham Cycle Track has had, organizations and community members can better advocate for future infrastructure. 

Read the Executive Summary here and the full plan here.