The 2026 - 2028 Kansas Bicycle Map and Bicycle Safety Flyer are available free of charge as online PDFs (click the images below to download) or you can order print copies.
02/20/2026
Only one week left to submit your project concept for the KDOT Transportation Alternatives (TA) Program!
Visit the TA webpage for more information at: https://www.ksdot.gov/programs/multimodal-programs/transportation-alternatives
As a reminder, a Concept Paper is required prior to a full application to determine eligibility of applicant and project and to provide technical support during the application period.
02/19/2026
Let’s take a moment to appreciate the crossing guards who keep our kids safe getting to and from school every day! 🚸🦺🛑 Their vigilance, reliability, and commitment play an essential role in creating safe routes to schools in our communities. If you see a crossing guard today, take a second to smile, wave, or simply say thank you.
Pictured here is a crossing guard in Emporia, KS, photographed during our Kansas Safe Routes to School (SRTS) planning work.
02/14/2026
If you know you know.
What are the desire paths in your town?
With the snow sticking around, New Yorkers have had to navigate new, temporary terrain.
02/13/2026
Gravel Kansas is more than bike routes, it is history and great stories!
ROUTE OF THE WEEK
Hell’s Bend | Fort Scott, KS
This isn’t just a gravel route — it’s a ride through Kansas legend.
Hell’s Bend takes you to the site where the Katy 99 train derailed in 1885, plunging into the Marmaton River. Look closely and you’ll spot a lone railcar still clinging to the tracks above the bend. Sit long enough and some swear you can hear the engine bell echoing through the trees. Ding ding!!
📍 Location: Fort Scott, KS
📏 Distance: ~18.9
⬆️ Elevation: ~521
🗺Region: Southeast
💪Difficulty: Beginner
🚲 Best for: History lovers, haunting stories, and soulful gravel
This would be a great complement to a Transportation Alternatives grant!
Commerce has launched the Downtown Revive & Thrive: Rehabilitation for Innovation and Incubator Spaces Program. Communities in Kansas with 5,000 or fewer residents are eligible to receive a max award of $100,000 to transform abandoned or underutilized assets into bustling business, retail, or dining hotspots.
These grants will stimulate economic growth and add vitality in some of Kansas' most rural areas.
What happens when cycling is prioritized and encouraged.
How can you make your town more inviting to cycling?
Video: Victoria, British Columbia has rapidly become "the strongest cycling city in North America that isn't widely known for it."
02/05/2026
This week, we’re onto our last (but certainly not least!) principle for creating safer streets for kids: Design for safe vehicle speeds.
Higher speeds can mean more serious or fatal crashes—and kids are particularly vulnerable. But the design of a roadway can help slow drivers down and keep students safe, using features such as:
School zone speed limit signs
Narrow travel lanes
Speed humps
Pinch points
Roundabouts
Watch the video to learn more about principle #4!
02/04/2026
KDOT is accepting Transportation Alternatives Program applications!
$32M in funds will help communities design and build non-motorized forms of transportation projects that can have significant local and regional impacts. Click here to learn more: https://www.ksdot.gov/Home/Components/News/News/5868/15
02/02/2026
The 2026 Transportation Alternatives (TA) Call for Projects is
NOW OPEN!
See and be seen! 👀 For this week’s post about designing safer streets for youth, we're diving into Principle #3: Increase visibility.
Features like bright yellow signage and raised crossings can help drivers spot students from farther away—giving everyone more time to react safely. Watch the video to learn more, and check back next week for the fourth and final principle!
01/22/2026
Next up in our video series on designing safe streets for youth: Principle #2—Simplify crossings! When crosswalks are shorter and clearly marked, children can cross more safely 🚸
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A Fun, Healthy, Affordable Way to Connect People and Places
Imagine a future with greater choices for how you get around. Working closely with national and local experts in planning, design, and safety, the Kansas Department of Transportation (KDOT) is developing the state’s first Active Transportation Plan (ATP) in 25 years. The ATP will look at the needs of people who walk, cycle, use mobility assistance devices, scoot, and more. The plan will focus on how things can be improved through better policies, planning, design, and partnerships with other state agencies and local communities.
Benefits of Active Transport
Here are just a few of the many benefits that active transportation brings to its users and the broader community:
Improved Health and Lower Healthcare Costs
Active lifestyles can make a significant positive impact on physical and mental health and reduce the overall costs of providing healthcare in Kansas. Seven of the top 10 leading causes of death in Kansas are due to chronic diseases. Walking and bicycling are basic forms of physical activity that can help address the personal and community costs of poor health outcomes that result from inactive lifestyles. The CDC recommends changing the built environment in communities to make it easier for people to walk and bicycle as a strategy to prevent chronic disease.
Reduced Pollution
Increasing active transportation in Kansas can help make the air cleaner today and reduce the impacts of human-caused climate change. Biking and walking are zero-emission transportation modes. When people use active transportation instead of driving, motor vehicle-related air pollution emissions go down, thereby reducing the harmful effects of motor vehicle pollution on the environment and human health.
Increased Quality of Life, Equity, and Economic Vitality
Active transportation helps make communities more livable. Nationally, people who agree they have places to walk to nearby also report that they are more satisfied with their quality of life. In addition, communities that invest in mobility alternatives like walking and bicycling often generate higher property values and tax revenues after making such investments.
Active transportation benefits everyone by expanding mobility choices and ensuring that local businesses can retain the workforce they depend on. In Kansas more than 69,000 households lack access to a motor vehicle. While most households with above-average incomes have a car, only half of low-income households do.
This impacts these families’ ability to access jobs, school, transit, health care and other necessities. Safe and easy opportunities to walk or bike to these essential destinations and services can reduce the burden on households with limited motor vehicle access from needing to purchase one. Providing access to active transportation can be a powerful strategy for improving upward economic mobility.
For more information, see our Info Sheet at:http://www.ksdot.org/Assets/wwwksdotorg/KansasATP/documents/Kansas-ATP_InfoSheet_FINAL.pdf
