Streetsblog Capitol Hill

Pittsburgh was the newest city to announce its bike-share plans this week, when it confirmed the city would add a 500-bike system by the spring of next year.

Kansas City was one of the first cities in the Midwest to launch a bike-share system, when it did so last summer. But soon it will have plenty of company. Image: Missouri Bicycle Federation

But nearby Columbus, Ohio, will beat them to the punch. Ohio’s capital city is planning to add 300 bikes this summer. Meanwhile, Indianapolis’ plan was to roll out its system next month.

The truth is you would be hard-pressed to find a large Midwestern city that hasn’t taken formal steps toward adding a bike-share system.

Both Cleveland and Detroit are studying bike-share. Cincinnati completed a bike-share study late last year, and is now seeking proposals from contractors. Milwaukee is assembling money for a system. Chicago hopes to add 3,000 bikes this spring.

And of course there’s the grandaddy of them all: Minneapolis’ Nice Ride. Launched in 2010, this system currently boasts more than 1,200 bikes. Late last year, the system surpassed half a million trips.

Midwestern cities have been inspired by some of the more spectacular examples on the coasts, according to Eric Rogers, executive director of BikeWalkKC, the nonprofit organization that manages Kansas City’s bike-share system. Kansas City was a little ahead of the pack when it launched Kansas City B-Cycle, with 200 bikes at 12 stations, last summer.

“The last few years a lot of cities, especially in the Midwest, have seen good examples from places like Chicago and Portland and New York and D.C. of a lot of innovative facilities that are out there: cycle tracks, bike boxes, bike-sharing,” he said. “There’s so much more knowledge out there now that it’s easier to develop a solution and pursue it.”

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If everything goes according to plan this election, Kansas City will be on track to build its first streetcar in under five years, from conceptual planning to first boarding. Maybe more impressive still, this relatively sprawling Midwestern town is this close to getting its first rail transportation without even a mild political dustup.

An artist's depiction of the Kansas City Streetcar. Image: Kansas City Business Journal

When you’re a car-centric Midwestern city that hasn’t had rail transportation in 50 years, swaying a general public — the majority of which doesn’t find transit useful or attractive — can be the single hardest obstacle. But as Kansas City’s streetcar project illustrates, you don’t necessarily need to.

This month some 700 voters — members of a downtown special taxing district surrounding the planned line — will determine the fate of this project. They will decide whether to tax themselves and district shoppers — through a combination of sales and property taxes — a collective $10 million per year for 25 years. That amount, plus $18 million in funding the Kansas City Streetcar won from its metropolitan planning organization, will be enough to cover construction and operating costs for this two-mile downtown circulator.

Project sponsors applied for a TIGER IV grant earlier this year, but were passed over. That didn’t stop them, or even slow them down much. The special taxing district will bring in 74 percent of the project’s $100 million cost. Since the project will not rely on direct taxation from the general public, no larger community-wide vote will be necessary.

This election won’t necessarily be full of intrigue. Residents of the special taxing district already voted by a wide margin to support the creation of the district back in August, leading project sponsors to believe they will support the tax as well. David Johnson, president of Streetcar Neighbors, said there have been some general NIMBY complaints, and some members of the taxing district have been vocally opposed, but that’s about it.

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