Next week the STAR Team kicks off a new campaign for alternative transportation. I’ll have more specifics as we get close to the main event: Who: Joe Kurmaskie, The Metal Cowboy What: A public talk about bicycling When: 19 April at 7:00 p.m. Where: City Utilities Auditorium, 301 E. Central Click here for the official [...]
How did Springfield not make this list of America’s top 10 bicycling cities? Here’s what we have going for us: Largely flat terrain: Getting around town is not a struggle physically. Grid street system: You have choices getting from point A to point B, including long stretches of quiet, residential streets. Marked bicycle routes: Traffic [...]
My headline over-promises. I am not particularly interested in increasing participation as an end in itself. But it is clear that many bicycle advocates believe that providing such infrastructure as bicycle lanes, tracks, and separated paths does increase participation. According to recent studies, it’s not entirely clear what the cause-and-effect relationship actually is between infrastructure and participation. [...]
Last year I reported here, based on a conversation at a STAR Team meeting, that the city was uninterested in painting more bicycle lanes. With the creation of new lanes on Division and Benton and the discussion at night’s STAR Team meeting, it has became clear to me that painting more bicycle lanes is in [...]
Five members of the STAR Team of Ozarks Greenways toured the bicycle/pedestrian facilities in Columbia, Mo. on June 23-24. Columbia has earned a silver level Bicycle Friendly Community award from the League of American Bicyclists. GetAbout Columbia is the city program primarily responsible for the infrastructure. From its website: In 2006, Columbia, Missouri was selected [...]
Last year I mentioned The Link — a proposed north-south route slated for bicycle/pedestrian/transit improvements for the purpose of, among other things, better connecting the urban greenways. The city planning department would like for you to ride/walk the route and give feedback. Just click here. You’ll find a nice .pdf map of the route, Yesterday, I rode the [...]
I was in Florida when the following news article was published in the Springfield News-Leader on 5 January: How Can We Attract Young Professionals? Here are the first few paragraphs: Expanding local trails, banning public smoking and confronting the city’s lack of diversity are ways for Springfield to attract and retain young professionals, according to a [...]
Here area few improvement highlights (and one lowlight) from the Bicycle/Pedestrian Committee of the Springfield Traffic Advisory Board: The work associated with a Safe Routes to School grant to develop curriculum for four elementary schools has been delayed because the selected company that produces the curriculum has closed. Construction has begun on three miles of school sidewalks. Several streetscape projects downtown have been completed [...]
I’ll soon have the first results of my recent bicycle survey ready. But here’s an interesting preliminary result (as yet an uncrunched stat): A bunch of respondents (almost 40%) indicated that the best thing Springfield could do to make bicycling better is add bicycle lanes. And as I gazed across the columns of answers one [...]
Hello Springfield Bicyclists! I need your help to understand what’s happening on the streets of Springfield. Please take a few moments to fill out my survey. I’ll compile the results and report back here once I get a good sample. Please pass the survey to your friends. You can click the “like” button or use [...]
I’ve mentioned the coming improvements to the Springfield bicycle route system that will be paid for with the CIP tax. The improvements include route number signs and sharrows. The City also has plans for a new project called The Link — an exciting plan to link existing and new greenway trails into a coherent transportation [...]
Keri Caffrey, of Commute Orlando, just published this photo on Facebook. Her cutline indicates that drivers were giving them a full lane of passing width until they arrived at this bicycle lane. Then look what happened. By the way, that looks like 3 feet of clearence to me. Two things are going wrong here: Florida [...]
I rode on the Jordan Creek Greenway a few days ago as part of my effort to document the environment of Springfield’s urban core as part of my Urban Challenge series. Jordan Creek runs east to west through the middle of the core. Jordan Creek Greenway from acline on Vimeo. Technorati Tags: bicycle infrastructure, bicycle [...]
I spent Monday and Tuesday riding some great trails in Orlando, Florida with Keri Caffrey, of Commute Orlando. I’ll have a complete report soon, including photos and video. But it’ll have to wait until Monday. Until then, check out this destination along the Cady Way Trail. Thanks to all the Commute Orlando gang for the [...]
Cross-country athletes at MSU are not happy about a paving project on the Frisco Highline Trail, according to an article on the front page of today’s Springfield News-Leader. At the last STAR Team meeting, Ozark Greenways Executive Director Terry Whaley announced that some federal stimulus funds will be used to finish paving the trail between [...]
