Below are the important reasons Let’s Go KC supports transportation choice.
Safer neighborhoods—People will be more likely to walk and cycle instead of travel in the isolation of a car. They will become more familiar with their neighbors and neighborhoods.
They will know if someone doesn’t belong there and create bonds and friendships with their neighbors that will make people happier, more cohesive and safer.

Social justice— Almost 25% of our population doesn’t have a driver’s license and almost 10% don’t have cars. How should these people get to work, to school, run errands? Don’t they, as taxpayers, deserve safe bridge crossings, bike lanes, sidewalks and transit so they can travel? In Holland, literally from birth through old age, people use the human-powered infrastructure to keep themselves mobil without a car. They travel to work, school, for errands, to socialize on well-designed
paths.

Good Urban planning—How should a city be planned? Currently our area cities are planned to welcome only car travel. Do you really want to continue encouraging the traffic jams, bad air, parking problems, dangerous driving, sprawl, wasted time and the expensive infrastructure of this direction?

Or, do we want to have the option of traveling by foot, bicycle, bus or train and the lively, interesting urban environment this helps create? European cities evolved to accommodate
travel by foot, horse or bicycle. It’s what makes them so charming. I think it would be great to see more of those types of environments here.

Taxpayers and businesses save money—Do you know that a parking space can cost $25,000 or more each? http://www.walkablestreets.com/parking.htm . How about the costs of widening and constructing roads—only a few million a mile. It would be good to examine how the cities and state spend our tax dollars on roads and learn the cost/benefit of some of these decisions. If we had more people taking transit, biking and walking think how much we could save on construction of roads and parking. We would save millions on road repair, parking and by not building as many roads. Adding bike lanes in some areas would only cost for the striping, signs and painted symbols. Businesses would not have to pay great sums to build parking structures. Their overhead costs would drop significantly and so does health care costs.

Improved Economic development—Cities with a good bicycle/pedestrian/transit environment have better quality of life and are more attractive to businesses. Not only does it attract bicycle and running related businesses such as tourism, hospitality, races, retail and manufacturing but other businesses that want to hire talented people want to locate in a progressive environment that keeps their employees happy and healthy. The bicycle industry and events alone have brought 63 million to Portland, OR.

Healthier citizens—It goes without saying that if more people walked and cycled we would be a healthier population. There would be additional savings for health care that you can add to the other list of savings that encouragement of bicycle/pedestrian/transit offers.

Improved Road safety—More pedestrians, bicyclists and transit on the roads makes for a safer traffic environment. Traffic moves slower and drivers pay more attention when there is more variety of road users. This is a long and complex topic but it’s been proven in Holland where they have many times fewer crashes than we do. In the US, according to statistics, busses are the safest mode of transportation. So why aren’t we using them more?

Improved Environment—Here’s another no-brainer. Water quality and air quality improve if we walk, bike and use transit. We have more green space if we build fewer roads and parking structures.

Student are more prepared to learn—It’s interesting that we now need to teach parents and children to walk or ride bikes to school again. Do we really want to drive chlldren to school when the idling cars create dangerous air quality around schools and more vehicles increases the chance of hitting children who are trying to get to the building? Children who walk or bike to school are more physically fit and more alert for learning. It’s been proven in studies. See http://www.saferoutestoschools.org/ .

Recreational benefits—Biking is fun for people of all ages. It can be a life long healthful activity. Trails and on-road cycling and walking infrastructure are also quality of life improvements that attract residents and make the city a better place to live.