KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Planners want to know how you get around Kansas City so they can better prepare for the future of transportation throughout the region.
This month the Mid-American Regional Council (MARC) launched the "How We Move KC" survey. It will send survey invitations to roughly 70,000 random people in the metro area. Organizers want survey participants to log all their travel in a 24-hour period. All the results should be back in May.
"How people move has changed and it's important for us to know and have a good understanding what those patterns are so we can develop the appropriate solutions to challenges people may face," said Martin Rivarola, an assistant director of transportation and land use for the Mid-America Regional Council.
Money from federal sources, and both the Missouri and Kansas departments of transportation will pay for the survey. Rivarola estimated the process will cost $800,000. The money is ear-marked for research, so the council is not taking money away from road projects.
The last time MARC conducted a survey on this scale was 2004. Planners aim to do this survey once every ten years. Since 2004, the streetcar has begun service, ride-sharing services like Uber and Lyft have arrived, and dockless electric scooters are now available.
"We're getting older, we're getting more diverse, younger people tend to not want to drive as much as their counterparts did 15 years ago," Rivarola said.
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