This free seminar will focus on strategies and designs for more sustainable parking lots and garages.  The speakers include national experts on green streets, pervious concrete, parking policy, rain gardens, urban design, etc.  It is geared towards engineers, architects, planners, and such, but is open to the public.

Wednesday, October 28th
9:00 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.
Screenland Theater in the Crossroads Arts District

More information (PDF)

Event registration

Presented by Academy for Sustainable Communities at Mid-America Regional Council and  Sustainable Skylines Kansas City.

Today in cities all over the world, activists are taking over parking spaces and turning them into parks for the day. Here in Kansas City, BNIM Architects will create a PARK(ing) space at 1724 Main Street, in front of Souperman.  Their PARK(ing) space will be active from 11:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. Stop by and congratulate them for reclaiming a bit of public space from cars and giving it to humans.

Find out more about this global movement at www.parkingday.org.

Tonight the Plaza Branch of the KCMO Public Library hosts a lecture and book signing with Tom Vanderbilt, author of Traffic: Why We Drive The Way We Do. It’s a very interesting analysis of the psychological, physical, and technical factors of traffic.  The book includes bicycling and walking, so this event will be of interest to alternative transportation fans as well. Rainy Day Books will be selling Traffic at the event, and the author will sign copies purchased there this evening.

Tom Vanderbilt
Monday, September 14th, 6:30 p.m.
Plaza Branch Library
4801 Main Street, KCMO 64112 (map)
More info and RSVP.

Yesterday the KCMO City Council finally approved a complete overhaul of the city’s outdated planning/zoning/development regulations.  The new development code is a huge step towards more compact, sustainable, and multi-modal development.

Some highlights…

1. Pedestrian Zones: Ensures walkable streetscapes that are safe and inviting for pedestrians.
2. Reduced Parking Requirements: Businesses have to provide less parking -  facilitating redevelopment of older areas, paving less green space in new developments, and encourage more transit usage.
3. Bicycle Parking: new businesses and multi-family housing required to provide bicycle parking for visitors and customers, as well as enhanced bike parking for residents and employees.
4. Traffic Impact: developers must now study the impact on bicyclists, pedestrians, and transit users when their projects generate additional automobile traffic.

Read more about the development code…

The new code will start being phased in over six months and be fulling enforced in one year.  Advocates spent many hours negotiating with city staff and private developers, and many of you testified at public hearings or wrote letters to city officials.  All of that work paid off with a much better end result.

Tomorrow the KCMO Planning and Zoning Committee will have a public a hearing on a new zoning law that includes requirements for bike parking for new buildings.  Some real estate developers are opposed to bike parking, so we need your support to show that the public wants this.

If you live or work in the KCMO please send a quick letter online.

No matter where you live or work, come to City Hall to attend and/or testify at the hearing – Wednesday 1:30pm to 3:30pm on the 26th Floor, 12th and Oak. Help us pack the room and show how much support there is.

Great bike-friendly cities like Portland, Chicago, and Denver all started with bike parking as one of their first steps, and with your support so can Kansas City.

Today’s KC Star has a story about how the city of KCMO is going to spend $47 million of taxpayers’ money to build a 1,000-space parking garage for the new performing arts center under construction at 16th and Broadway. For comparison, the city spends $48 million a year on the bus system.

So the city is essentially spending an entire year’s worth of bus service to build a single parking garage. It’s a massive amount of money that works out to $47,000 for each parking space, more than twice the average for typical parking garages. For the cost of this one parking garage, we could double bus service for an entire year.

Building parking garages is OK when and where they are needed.  The interesting issue here is that the city is spending this money at the same that it is cutting other city services to balance the budget, as well as struggling to find enough money to keep the bus system running and pay for a promised light rail system.

To be fair, the contract to build this garage was signed by the last mayor and city council, so most of the current politicians are trying to deal with that legacy. However, the situation still a very bad message.

Despite all kinds of talk about climate protection, the environment, mass transit, green solutions, re-urbanizing the urban core – city leaders are not putting their money where their mouth is.  When push comes to shove the city is still putting the automobile first, even the most urban of environments.

• KC Star: City, Kaufman Center for Performing Arts near deal on parking garage.
• KCATA funding information.
• International Parking Institute: parking parking garage costs.

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