Bicycle Links

Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices (MUTCD), Part 9, Traffic Controls for Bicycle Facilities

Lose the Training Wheels - a way to teach bicycle riding and balance that is useful for anyone but especially effective for teaching children with physical or mental disabilities.

Bicyclists and pedestrians are 8.5% of traffic fatalities but receive only 0.3% of highway safety funding (PDF) - this is data from 2002 but the situation has not changed much since then.

An analysis of crashes and crash severity in road diets (PDF) - the study found the number of crashes in road diets, compared with control sites, decreased about 6 percent. The type and severity of crashes did not change. This indicates that, measured solely by the number and severity of traffic collisions, "road diets" are just as safe after the road diet transformation as before--and perhaps a bit safer.

Aims of the new national Traffic Justice Institute - The primary goal of our transportation system must be the prevention of traffic crashes . . . We offer the principle of Traffic Justice -- the expectation of just and accountable conduct of all participants in our transportation system.

Traffic Justice Institute - We plan to mount a campaign to redefine our societal perspective on motor vehicle crashes, and substantially reduce their occurrence. We will come at this goal from every possible angle, including transforming public discourse about road safety, holding drivers accountable for their actions, changing highway design to better limit motor vehicle speeds, fully enabling the employment of every enforcement technology, and curtailing the use of distracting electronic devices. National Center for Bicycling & Walking, League of American Bicyclists, and other national organizations are involved.

Traffic Justice Initiative - Over the past thirty years the U.S. has fallen from first to ninth place among the industrial countries in miles driven between road deaths — a metric which compensates for any increase in distances covered. By the more tangible measure of traffic-caused funerals per million people, the U.S. scores 5th worst in a 30-nation industrialized-countries road-crash database, with at least twice the per-capita automotive death rate of Sweden, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Norway, and the U.K. Yet just a few decades ago the U.S. population-based fatality rate was close to the middle of the pack in relation to other highly motorized societies.

Zip code map - show zip code areas on an overlay with a road/city map.

Road Diets (PDF) - Road dieting is a new term applied to skinnying up patients (streets) into leaner, more productive members of society. The ideal roadway patient is often a four-lane road carrying 12-18,000 auto trips per day. Other roadway patients may be helped through this same process. Some especially sick four-lane patients may be carrying 19-25,000 cars per day, but still qualify for diets. What are the symptoms that scream for change? What roadways are ideal patients? And what are the upper limits?

Why the typical U.S. traffic engineer's "level of service" is a misnomer and a bad idea - What it actually measures is the level of comfort for drivers, who tend to like streets that have very few other cars and where they can drive fast without interruptions. To get a "good" LOS (i.e., an A or B), you needed to widen streets, add lanes, get rid of on-street parking, limit crossings, add turn lanes, etc. In the US, LOS was never intended to measure how well a road performed for all interested parties (e.g., the people who lived near it and worried about high speeds, the kids who wanted to cross it to get to school, the bicyclists who wanted to use it to get to work, transit users, etc.).

Kansas City Riverfront Heritage Trail - new web site

Mountain biking trails in the Kansas City area (map)

Missouri Traffic Safety Compendium, 2005--analysis and statistics about all traffic crashes in Missouri in 2005 [PDF file].

NHTSA Traffic Safety Facts 2005--national statistics about roadway injuries and fatalities.

A summary of the different reasons Missouri tourists visit the state [PDF]--from the Economic Impact Report for Fiscal Year 2005, commissioned by the Missouri Division of Tourism and compiled by researchers at the University of Missouri, is available in PDF format. 4.3% of Missouri tourists bicycle or hike. These are more frequent activities for tourists than boating and golf, and is almost as popular as gambling and nightlife.

KIDS AND CARS' mission is to assure no child dies or is injured in a non-traffic, motor vehicle related event. Kids and Cars is based in Kansas.