Kansas City could fare worse than many cities if gas prices shot up to $4 or $6 a gallon, a new study shows.
The study, released Monday by SustainLane.com, a for-profit media organization that provides guides for healthy living, ranked the 50 largest cities on their preparedness to meet an oil crisis.
Kansas City’s ranking was 39, mostly because fewer than 3.9 percent of people use public transportation in the city.
. . .
One local official agreed with the study’s findings.
“We are not prepared if this change happened, because we are very dependent on a private automobile for our transportation,” said Mell Henderson, director of transportation with the Mid-America Regional Council.
. . .
Worst in the rankings were Oklahoma City at 50; Louisville, Ky., at 49; and Fort Worth, Texas, at 48.
. . .
“I think right now in our community we sort of assume people have a car, and it is sort of laid out in a way that it only makes sense if you have a car,” Henderson said. “We have to rethink how our community is constructed so there are more places that we can get to either by foot or on bicycle.”
One city that is taking comprehensive actions to lessen its economic and physical dependence on the automobile is Denver. Ranked #15 on our oil crisis preparedness index, Denver has bet its future on new multi-modal public transportation as part of an economic strategy known as Transit Oriented Development.
The city passed the largest regional transportation funding measure in America’s history in 2003. The measure, which was led by Mayor John Hickenlooper and regional mayors, garnered 73 percent voter approval for a $4.7 billion initiative that combines funding for multiple new light rail, commuter rail, and bus rapid transit lines. There will even be a ski train to zip adventurers into the nearby constellation of Rockies resorts.
Hickenlooper told SustainLane, “What’s key to understanding our initiative is how it was formed in close collaboration between our urban center and the suburbs, with every one of the 31 mayors in the region backing it, Republican, Democrat, and independent.”
