The City of Independence announced public input meetings on the city’s public transit system. The meetings will be Thursday, September 4 from 3 PM to 5 PM, and Saturday, September 6, from 10 AM to noon. The meetings will be held in Conference Room D on the lower level of City Hall.
I plan to attend on Saturday to propose investment in the walkability and bicycle-friendliness of the urban areas of the city. By investing in the walking and bicycling infrastructure of our urban areas, we can achieve several benefits:
- Provide transit options that benefit residents of all socio-economic levels
- Stimulate the local economy by reducing our need to buy fuel
- Encourage small businesses such as Pace Bicycle and Peddlers
- Improve public health by encouraging residents of all ages to participate in healthy activities
- Reduce carbon emissions by supporting alternative transportation
- Lower our dependence on fossil fuels
In urban areas, bicycling and walking work together with mass transit options such as buses. While we cannot and should not replace buses, we can change the way we look at public transportation by including these alternatives in the formula.
A bicycling/walking strategy also requires us to think differently about how we organize our neighborhoods. For decades we’ve tried to apply a suburban template, clustering work and commerce away from houses and relying on automobiles to get us everywhere. As we look at rebuilding and restoring our older neighborhoods in Northwest Independence, we need to encourage and support the return of the kinds of businesses that support our everyday lives. As a community, we need to find our way back to traditional neighborhood designs, so that neighborhood grocers, hardware stores, and pharmacists can return to areas such as Englewood.
