e-biking in Kansas City

Perhaps no one has a better sense for just how trashy Kansas City is than cyclists.

The city’s bike lanes are full of litter and debris. The bike trails, especially segments in the woods, serve as free landfills, fouled by pickup loads of junk. Roadsides and parks are full of trash. Streams have belched garbage onto their banks.

Blue River Road south of its intersection with Grandview Road, which could be a beautiful, scenic drive, instead serves as a dump for south KC–far more convenient than legal ways of disposing of tires, mattresses, broken refrigerators and worthless furniture. It’s easy to drive in to this unobserved area, toss your crap on the side of the road, and high-tail it out.

The Brush Creek trail yields a view of months’ worth of garbage that floats through our storm-sewer system and into the creek, along with a huge volume of tires tossed directly into it.

The Trolley Track Trail south of 85th street, now features many pickup piles of of crap and the adjacent woods are completely litter strewn.

Of course early Spring shows the city at its worst. When the trees and bushes leaf out, much of the trash will be obscured. Eventually, the beleaguered parks department will get around to cleaning up a portion of the mess. But the evidence is clear now, the citizens of this city have an appalling lack of respect for their environment.

In coming posts I’ll investigate ways other cities have tackled this problem. I have a vested interest here: I frequently cycle in all of these areas and the garbage depresses me. I know its an aesthetic and economic drain on our city.