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'Transportation for All' plan proposes sidewalks, separated bike routes and Safe Routes to School priorities
Summary
Consultants and staff presented a citywide active-transportation plan funded by a MARC grant that emphasizes filling sidewalk gaps, creating separated bike corridors, improving bus stops and prioritizing school-area pedestrian safety; staff will use the plan to guide project selection and policy changes.
The City of Independence and consultants from Olson Engineering and Venice Communications presented the Transportation for All plan to the City Council, outlining a citywide approach to expand and connect walking, biking and transit options, prioritize safety near schools and improve regional trail connections.
Rick Arroyo, assistant director of community development, said the effort grew from identified gaps in sidewalks, trails and multi-use paths and was funded by a Mid-America Regional Council (MARC) planning and sustainable places grant awarded in 2022. Olson and outreach partner Venice Communications carried out stakeholder workshops, pop-up events, a mobility tour and an online survey that yielded roughly 250 responses.
Consultant Sean Strait said the plan’s citywide priorities include filling sidewalk and bike-route gaps, prioritizing pedestrian safety around schools, improving bus stops and updating policies and codes that shape development. “This is the Transportation for All project, because the infrastructure in the city for people walking and biking is quite a bit less developed than it is for people driving,” Strait said.
Consultants described distinct needs in West and East Independence: in the west, residents more often need walking and biking routes to reach daily services and schools, so the recommendations emphasize “safe routes to school,” arterial safety evaluations and sidewalk maintenance; on the east side, investments focus on connecting neighborhoods to larger recreational assets such as the Blue River Trace trail and building regional trail links.
Public engagement findings included frequent requests for separated, traffic-protected bike facilities, more sidewalks in older neighborhoods (especially on the west side), better maintenance and accessibility for people using wheelchairs, multilingual outreach and improvements near schools. The plan identifies priority improvements around specific schools named by the district (Fairmount, Castle Park, 3 Trails, Pitcher and Van Horn High School) and recommends focusing initial sidewalk investments on arterials near those schools to improve safety.
Consultants estimated that better connectivity and safety could meaningfully increase walking and biking mode share over time; when asked about quantitative expectations, a consultant said implementing recommendations could “easily see a doubling” of current walking and biking usage for some trip types, but emphasized change would be incremental and depend on connected infrastructure.
The plan groups implementation into policy/process changes, additional planning and design work, and priority capital projects (including Safe Routes to School corridors and trail connections to the Truman Connected corridor). Staff said the plan will inform future capital programming, grant applications and targeted maintenance priorities; the transcript records presentation and Q&A but no formal council vote on an adoption ordinance.
