Goals

I've been commuting primarily by bicycle for over ten years and let me tell you, cyclists living in Columbia, MO are pretty dang lucky. Granted, it's no Davis, CA, but it sure isn't bad.

Despite living smack in the middle of the Midwest, a region that is generally hostile toward cyclists, Columbia is well known among its populace as generally being a bike-friendly town. Our recently retired mayor, who was a huge advocate of non-motorized transportation, remained in office for 15 years and was often seen cycling to and from work. During that time, he actively campaigned to encourage non-motorized transportation in Columbia.

Furthermore, in 2005 we received a $21.5 million grant from the federal government to explore how we could make our community more cycling friendly. The stated purpose of this grant is to "demonstrate the extent to which bicycling and walking can carry a significant part of the transportation load, and represent a major portion of the transportation solution, within selected communities." Columbia's specific application of this grant was to attempt to make the city safer for, and more appealing to, those wishing to employ non-motorized transportation; basically an "if you build it, they will come" approach.

You have probably guessed from the title of this blog that I haven't found much of the application of this grant to have been very successful, specifically the applications to bicycle commuting. My goal for the remainder of this blog is to show what the shortcomings have been so that, hopefully, others won't make the same mistakes in the future. That's not to say that I think that the purpose stated by the grant writers hasn't been proven (in fact, I think Columbia residents had proved this before the city received the grant), rather that Columbia has been unsuccessful in creating a safer and more appealing environment for bicycle commuters, and in many ways has actually made the city less safe for us.