Are new bike lanes bad for Kansas City? These Truman Road business owners think so

Are newly-installed bike lanes on Truman Road hurting small businesses, as some merchants along the commercial corridor claim? It’s too early to tell what the unintended consequences are of changes on Truman from Holmes Street to Hardesty Avenue, but bike lanes don’t hurt retail businesses, countless studies have shown.

The project, which includes 3 1/2 miles of protected bike lanes along the corridor, isn’t complete, city officials said. We urge patience and caution as crews work to finish the full resurfacing of the street.

Reducing lanes on streets that have too many lanes for the traffic they carry — a road diet — is essential to reducing crashes and traffic fatalities, advocates say. We are not against bike lanes. But it would behoove the city to educate folks about the bicycle lanes so people can know how to use them. The process needs to play out so drivers can get used to sharing the road with bicyclists.

Truman Road is considered one of the most dangerous roads in Missouri, according to Kansas City Public Works department officials. The six-lane street was in dire need of traffic calming measures, traffic safety advocates told us. Now, in some stretches, traffic has been reduced to one lane in each direction as a result of the new changes. This has caused some confusion among motorists and cyclists in the area, which is common in car-centric cities such as Kansas City.

That confusion was easy to see on a recent Friday morning. Motorists traveling westbound along Truman zoomed down the street much faster than the posted speed limit of 35 miles per hour. Vehicles legally parked in an outside lane of traffic 6 feet from the curb presented a challenge for unsuspecting drivers. Others were illegally parked in westbound bike lanes, which could potentially put cyclists in danger from passing cars until flexible plastic uprights called delineator posts are installed, as they have been recently in Truman’s eastbound lanes.

“It’s a safety issue,” said Shawn Arcidino, a business owner on Truman Road. “Someone is going to get hurt.”

This week, city officials will host a public meeting with stakeholders on Truman to discuss concerns business owners have, which includes parking. Kansas City 3rd District Councilwoman Melissa Robinson said some of the business owners she’s spoken to about the street’s new configuration were frustrated they had little notice and input about the changes.

The process of notifying nearby property owners began three years ago, Kansas City transportation planning officials told us. Mailers went out recently detailing the project’s scope. Some addresses may have been missed, city officials said. Under a city ordinance, public engagement is required for such a project. If the outreach was minimal, as critics contend, the city must improve its ability to follow its own public participation policy.

If bike lanes and other traffic calming devices on Truman Road cause businesses to lose customers, the city must use whatever resources are available to help. Lost revenue to a business means less tax revenue for the city.

Truman Road is a commercial area. Small entrepreneurs there rely on street parking for their customers. Business owners are concerned about how emergency vehicles can maneuver around bike lanes and other quality of life issues.

What’s the solution? Let the process play out. Motorists must adjust to a new way of sharing Truman Road. Pedestrians and cyclists should use extreme caution when traveling the street as well.