1980 Bike Plan, Back to the Future

1900 Priests of Pallas Parade ©Kansas City Public Library.

KCBC Advocacy Chair Laurie Chipman recently completed a big project to scan and format the city’s 1980 bikeways plan (PDF). In many ways, it’s very similar to our contemporary plans. It calls for a network of recreation and transportation routes within two miles of every resident, and the maps are very similar to present day maps.

As is often the case in this city, we are really good at planning and very bad at following through. The 1980 bike plan is just one of many other worthwhile plans gathering dust on the shelves of City Hall while we wait for our leaders to implement them. While it’s sad that so little of this 30 year-old plan has come to fruition, so much is happening today that I think we are poised to see some real progress in the next couple of years.

In the mean time, check out the old plan and see how much it makes sense even 30 years later. The document includes lots of photos, so be warned, the 1980s were not an attractive decade for most people.

Kansas City Bikeways plan, 1980 (PDF)