Compromise reached on angle parking

Today the City Council's Planning and Zoning committee approved a compromise on angle parking along the 5th Street bicycle route in Columbus Park.  The developer will make 5th Street wide enough to accommodate either the safer back-in angle parking or the more hazardous head-in angle parking, but will wait for the city test it out elsewhere before committing to either design. 4th District Councilmember Beth Gottstein welcomed the test to her district.  The existing angle parking along Baltimore Street in the Crossroads District and on 62nd Terrace in front of the Brookside Market will reversed to the back-in design that has been proven to reduce crashes.  5th District Councilmember Cindy Circo also volunteered to try it in her district. 1st District Councilmembers Deb Hermann and Bill Skaggs had been adamantly opposed to the safer parking design, but ended up supporting the compromise plan. This is great progress for making Kansas City more bicycle-friendly.  We stopped the slow chipping away of the BikeKC route network, and served notice to developers that they can't push through new projects without making them bike friendly. Plus, the city will now take a much closer look at parking design and potentially improve the safety of diagonal parking on many streets.