On May 16th, Kansas City’s successful Car Free Weekends on Cliff Drive will expand onto the streets of the Old Northeast neighborhoods for a full-fledged Ciclovia called Sunday Parkways along Gladstone Boulevard and the Indian Mound.

Streetfilms video of Sunday Parkways in New York:

Following the lead of Bogotá, Columbia, cities around the world have begun regularly closing streets to automobile traffic and opening them to people. In Bogota they call it Ciclovia, and in other cities they use names like Sunday Parkways, Summer Street, Open Streets, etc.

The streets will be filled with people walking, bicycling, jogging, skating, etc.; and family-friendly activities like yoga, face painting, live music, food vendors, puppets, a dog show, bike skills clinics, and much more. The Parks Department and the City’s Bike/Ped program home to expand Sunday Parkways to include all six Council Districts and run monthly from May to October.

Sunday Parkways on Cliff Drive – details and schedule of activities.

Streetswiki article about Ciclovias.

Streetsfilm video of Ciclovia in Bogotá:

Streetfilms has more ciclovia videos from Chicago, San Francisco, Milwaukee, etc.

Check out St. Louis Open Streets

Even though light rail is on hold here in KC, St. Louis shows us that we still have a lot of room to improve our existing transportation system and its scattered facilities. Right now we have a bus hub is at 10th & Main, but Amtrak is a mile south at Union Station and Greyhound is a mile east at 11th and Troost.  To make matters even worse, there is no single bus route that connects all three, not even the flagship MAX..  Someone needing to transfer between Amtrak and Greyhound would need to take two different buses to get there.

As our three Missouri counties move forward with the Smart Moves regional transit plan, we need to be considering ways to connect all of our transit systems and provide seemless transfer between each one.

Yesterday the city did something virtually unheard of here, it took public space from the automobile and reallocated it to people.  The Parks & Rec Board approved a plan to close Cliff Drive on weekends and create a car-free recreation and fitness opportunity for pedestrians, bicyclists, skateboarders, rollersbladers, dogwalkers, etc. The closure will be in effect Friday afternoons through Monday mornings starting May 16 and running through the end of October.  If all goes well, it could lead to car-free days in other parks and maybe even a boulevard or two in the future.

Car-free days are becoming commonplace in parks and boulevard all over the world.  Just a few examples include Golden Gate Park in San Francisco, Central Park in New York City, and Prospect Park in Brooklyn. In the South American city of Bogota, Columbia, most of the city’s main streets become car-free on Sundays.

Cliff Drive is an oasis of nature in the middle of Missouri’s largest city. It is one of the original parts of the city’s famed boulevard system, as well as Missouri’s only urban scenic byway. It’s a four mile long road along the limestone bluffs high above the Missouri River. It is a centerpiece of Old Northeast Kansas City, the historic neighborhoods east of Downtown and north of Independence Avenue.

New York Daily News: Safer walks plotted for seniors

By NICHOLAS HIRSHON, JOTHAM SEDERSTROM and PETE DONOHUE
DAILY NEWS WRITERS

Sunday, January 20th 2008, 4:00 AM

Bates for News

‘I always figure I’m going to get hit,’ says Dolores Orza, 66.

Two dozen neighborhoods where senior citizens on foot have been killed or seriously injured by cars will be getting safety upgrades, officials told the Daily News.

This year, five neighborhoods will benefit from the program, which includes longer red lights for cars to give pedestrians more time to cross the street.

An additional 20 neighborhoods will be evaluated, starting next year, to determine what changes should be made, Department of Transportation Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan said.

“The number of pedestrian fatalities is the lowest in a century, and we are working hard to make the streets even safer,” Sadik-Khan said.

“This is the largest program of its kind ever undertaken in the nation, and it’s appropriate that it targets our most vulnerable New Yorkers.”

The total of 138 pedestrians killed last year was a historic low for the city, but seniors were disproportionately affected. Even though they make up just 12% of the population, seniors were victims in a third of the accidents.

“We could use a little more time here,” agreed retired beautician Dolores Orza, 66, using a walker to shuffle across Main St. in Flushing, Queens, one day last week.

“I always figure I’m going to get hit.”

Seniors are at greater risk because “they move little slower, and when a senior pedestrian is involved a collision with a vehicle, their injuries are typically more severe because their recuperative powers are a little less,” said Mike Primeggia, deputy transportation commissioner.

The zones that will be targeted this year are the lower East Side, Fordham/University Heights in the Bronx, Brighton Beach in Brooklyn, Flushing/Murray Hill in Queens and the New Dorp area on Staten Island, with a focus on Hylan Blvd.

Neighborhoods to follow include Chinatown, Washington Heights, Mott Haven in the Bronx and Bensonhurst, Brooklyn.

“When it’s rush hour, it’s dangerous,” said Astrit Bega, 65, using a motorized scooter to navigate Bay Parkway in Bensonhurst.

“The cars go fast. People think there’s no cars coming and they cross, and they die.”

Some signal changes already have been made in Brighton Beach, Primeggia said.

Upgrades in the Senior Pedestrian Safety Program also will include physical alterations like pedestrian medians and new street markings, he said.

The 25 zones were selected in a process that mapped each accident and took into account the severity, age of the victims and senior population in the area.

Transportation Alternatives, which has called for signal and engineering changes to help seniors, cheered the DOT program.

“We’re glad their safety is finally getting the attention it deserves,” said Paul White, Transportation Alternatives’ executive director.

pdonohue@nydailynews.com