Missouri Bicycle News

I have been looking for solid statistics to show what many of us believe--that the rates to bicycling and walking in Missouri are far below the national average.

Well, here they are:

• St. Louis is right at the bottom when its rate of bicycling is compared with peer cities and Kansas City is 1/3 of St. Louis's dismally low bicycle mode share. In many cities the rate of bicycling is 2 to 5 times higher than in St. Louis. And let's not even talk about Kansas City--it's not even on the map.
  
• 21% of Kansas Citians reported riding a bicycle at least once in a summer. This compares very unfavorably with the national average: 27% report bicycling at least once per month in the summer.
  
• Nationally 8.7% of trips are made by walking and 0.8% by bicycle for a total of 9.5% combined. In Kansas City 3.9% of trips are made by walking and 0.4% by bicycling for a total of 4.3%. In short, Kansas City is less than half the national average on all counts.
  
• The silver lining in all this is that it is perfectly clear that there is tremendous pent-up demand for bicycling and walking in Missouri. People who live in Missouri are not physically different from those who live elsewhere in the U.S. Raising our rates of bicycling and walking above the national average would be a daunting task. But simply raising it to the national average is not so hard. We know what to do, because cities and states across the country have done it already.
  

Missourians simply need to find the political will to actually do what others have already done.

Statistics and references for all the figures mentioned above can be found on the Advocacy Resources--Statistics page.

Related:

News: Ride of Silence May 19th in Kansas City, Springfield, St. Charles, St. Louis

News: Local planning organizations make bike/ped-friendly streets better than state DOTs

permanent link to article: "Bicycling and walking in Missouri compared to the national average?"
posted by Brent Hugh at 4/04/2006 11:54:00 PM |comment on this article