Office: 2nd District (In-District)
Candidate: Russ Johnson

1. Bicycling and walking account for less than 4% of all trips made in Kansas City. This is less than half the national average.

Question: How would you increase this rate up to the national average?

I have supported and will continue to support both commuter and recreational bicycle amenities such as bike friendly streets, bicycle trails and eliminating major barriers to bike traffic.

2. Since 2002 Kansas City has had a Council-approved plan called BikeKC to create a network of on-street bikeways throughout all parts of the city. To date very little of that plan has been implemented, due to funding and organizational problems.

Question: How would you work to implement the existing plan?

It is important to realize that EVERY street is a bikeway and should be able to safely accommodate both cars and cyclists.  The BikeKC plan wrongly assumes that only certain streets will contain bicycle traffic, as though such traffic would somehow divert only onto the streets identified in BikeKC.

That said, I believe that a wider outside lane (a hybrid lane) on the arterials is significantly easier and less costly to implement citywide then separated bike lanes.  As such, I believe the fastest way to make Kansas City a bike friendly city is to re-stripe the outer lanes with hybrid/sharerow symbols as part of the city’s resurfacing program.

It appears that bike lanes were implemented in the current plan not because of a community desire specifically for bike lanes, but because hybrid/sharerow lanes were not recognized by Federal Highway Adminstration (FHWA) / American Association of State of Highway Transportation Officials (AASHTO) standards.  However, bike lanes are next to impossible to implement on existing arterials and are almost cost prohibitive on new arterials.  As such a hybrid/sharerow system would be much less costly and easier to implement on both new and existing arterials.

3. Since 2003 Kansas City has had a Council-approved walkability plan, which identified several neighborhoods with deficient or non-existent sidewalk networks.

Question: How would you bring sidewalks to all neighborhoods in Kansas City?

Funding is the major obstacle.  The city simply cannot afford to build and maintain sidewalks without a property tax increase, which the voters most likely would not approve.  Therefore, I believe that neighborhoods that desire better walkability should be actively encouraged and coached by city hall to establish a Sidewalk Improvement District (similar to a Community Improvement District (CID) or Neighborhood Improvement District (NID)) that would allow the property owners to impose a small levy that would be controlled by the neighborhood and spent exclusively on curbs and sidewalks in that neighborhood.  Some neighborhoods have already done this and they should be championed as success stories to the rest of the city.  I have put a considerable amount of thought into this and have discussed it with several citizens.  As such, I have consider more details on how to do this successfully, that would be inappropriate to present in this questionnaire.

4. City policy treats sidewalks as the property of the home or business owner. Anyone who wants to, however, can use the sidewalks in front of a home or business.

Question: do you think the city should consider the sidewalk to be a public asset—part of the thoroughfare—or the personal property of the property owner?

Public asset.   However, funding challenges as discuss in 3 are the obstacle.

5. Kansas City's bicycle and pedestrian programs are haphazard and dispersed through many departments, leaving us with no coherent policy and no mechanism to oversee the policy that does exist.

Question: How would you create an integrated transportation system that includes bicycles and pedestrians?

The City Manager has broad authority at the city to structure the responsibilities of city staff.  Therefore, I would work with the City Manager to encourage him or her to empower one or more staff members, as appropriate, to manage the city’s bike/ped issues.

6. The city currently relies CMAQ and Transportation Enhancements for most of its bike/ped funding. This forces us to compete with all of our suburban neighbors for funding.

Question: Would you support the budgeting of city money for bicycle/pedestrian facilities, and if so how would you accomplish it?

As a member of the Public Improvements Advisory Committee (PIAC) for over three years, I championed and funded bike/ped facilities, including sidewalks, bike lanes, and recreational trails.  I will continue to do so, via the PIAC and other funding mechanisms, to secure such funding.