Our downtown routes use Walnut Street, one block west of the official Grand Avenue dedicated, unprotected bike lanes that were over seven years in the making. In the spirit of always searching for a better route and always questioning the existing routes, I reconsidered whether we were right–whether Walnut beats Grand. And after all, a…

California Governor Gavin Newsom has just signed legislation that expands the state’s Clean Cars 4 All program to include vouchers for e-bikes. The bill is California Senate Bill 400 (SB 400). The program has provided support for buying electric, hybrid, and plug-in cars and mobility options such as car-sharing memberships and transit passes. Now e-bike…

We’ve been exploring different east-west connector routes, and can use some help and input. The goal is to find the best routes for e-bikes today, that can connect to the north-south routes. Those north-south routes connect people to our two largest job centers – Greater Downtown and the Plaza area. Armour and 35th Street seems…

Before we publish a route, we ride it many times and investigate alternative streets to make the route as direct and safe as possible. But we don’t always nail it right out of the gate. There are so many alternative streets. Time-of-day traffic variations make a difference. Conditions change with the seasons. Construction necessitates rerouting.…

When I took Driver’s Ed in the mid 70s, they taught us the Smith System, which included these five fundamental rules of safe driving: Aim high in steering Get the big picture Keep your eyes moving Leave yourself an out Make sure they see you Seems to me that these rules are even more important…

“But on an electric bike, these things hardly matter. I merge onto streets with confidence because I’m moving as fast as most cars. I zoom up inclines I would have otherwise avoided on a pedal bike, shortening my commute. When a light turns green, I’m fast off the line and don’t have to worry about…

I was commuting home along the A-Line, which passes a few blocks to the west of the shopping center at Westport and the Southwest Trafficway when it struck me that I needed several items for a project. I diverted to Westlake Hardware, one of my favorite hardware stores in the city, only to find there…

Much like a subway line, we are looking for transit corridors that connect people from home to office, except of course we’re designing for an e-bike, not an underground train. We want the following: Direct routes. We measure this by the route mileage between key points versus the “as the crow flies” distance between them.…

E-bikes make cycling for everyday purposes much more feasible–especially in a hilly city like Kansas City. They are powerful and speedy. They zip up the steepest of KC hills. They move much nearer the speed of cars traffic. They require much less exertion to cover distances. They are a coming revolution in urban transportation. Still,…