Bike KC, the city's master bike plan that aims to improve biking and walking trails across the area, recently received bad marks on a report released by the City Auditor's Office.
The report brought up a number of issues, including inadequate bike lanes, that are holding the city back from being more bike-friendly.
According to the City Auditor's report, 53 percent of the plan's identified bike routes are not suitable for average bicyclists.
Furthermore, 91 percent of Bike KC's built routes do not include specially designated lanes for bicycles.
The report also cites Bike KC for a lack of vision, design guidelines, implementation plans, and performance indicators.
Todd Pennington, who owns Bike Stop in the metro, agreed with the assessment.
"Kansas City downtown is probably ripe for something to happen," he explained. "People have been asking for bicycle lanes, bikeways, and pathways for quite some time. As cycling has gotten more popular over the last 15 years, that's a part of town that hasn't kept up with demand."
Pennington said many customers he has talked with in recent years have brought up safety concerns as a result of downtown Kansas City falling behind in improving the biking experience.
"It's tough to ride out there," he said. "You got a lot of people that are kind of taking their lives in their hands on some of those intersections. What the riders are looking for is a simple thing: a safe place to ride."
To help change the approach to Bike KC, the city recently named Wes Minder as Bike & Pedestrian Coordinator.
In an exclusive interview with 41 Action News, Minder said the Bike KC plan hopes to achieve a number of things for Kansas City residents, including making it easier to get around.
"We're pretty well spread out. There's a lot of folks in other parts of the city having a hard time attracting workers because folks that are making lower incomes can't afford the car to get to the job," he explained. "What we hope to do is find a way to get those folks to opportunities."
Minder said some of the focus of improving Bike KC in 2017 will be securing funding for future parts of the plan.
"The big thing, mostly when it comes down to everything and doing things, is funding," he explained. "We have a lot of things to maintain. We've got a lot of competing interests."
Part of his main goal is improving the experience for commuters who use bicycles.
"The vision for the city is that no matter where you live in the city, you'll be able to get to an employment opportunity using a bicycle," he said.
Moving forward, the city hopes to gain input about the plan from bicyclists and riding groups.
By 2020, Minder said the city hopes to become a top bike-friendly community.
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Tom Dempsey can be reached at Tom.Dempsey@KSHB.com.
