INTRODUCING WALKABLE WEDNESDAYS

A new series exploring what makes a city truly walkable.

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At Bike Walk Wichita, we believe that walkability is at the heart of a healthier, more connected, and more vibrant community. That’s why we’re excited to launch Walkable Wednesdays, a new blog series exploring what makes a city truly walkable—and how Wichita can rise to the challenge.

Leading this effort is Rami Toubia Stucky, a Wichita-based historian, cartographer, and musician whose passion for people-friendly places brings a unique lens to urban design an

d local infrastructure. Each week, Rami will draw inspiration from Walkable City Rules: 101 Steps to Making Better Places by urbanist

Jeff Speck, applying key principles to the streets and sidewalks of our own city.

Through thoughtful commentary, real-world examples, and community-centered insights, Walkable Wednesdays will highlight opportunities for Wichita to become a safer, more accessible place for everyone, whether you’re on foot, on wheels, or rolling with a stroller.

Join us each Wednesday as we walk through the rules, step by step.

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A Walking Path at the Great Plains Nature Center

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LESSONS FROM JEFF SPECK

On March 4, 2025, urban planner Jeff Speck visited WaveICT for the “Downtown Wichita Action Plan Kickoff Open House.” There, he gave a talk inspired by his 2018 book Walkable City Rules: 101 Steps to Making Places Better.[1] “What guidelines could the city follow to make downtown more walkable?” he asked during his talk. Wichita could restripe or rebuild Douglas Avenue. It has two more lanes than needed. It could make First and Second Streets two-way to the highway. It could trim extra lanes on Broadway, convert mechanized signals to stop signs, and narrow lane widths to ten feet. It could add bike lanes downtown, add housing near parking, plant trees, and better embrace the features of the Arkansas River. These were just some of the ideas he presented.[2] His book contains several more.

Beginning with this article, Bike Walk Wichita will publish a series that examines Speck’s written rules and, much like he did in his talk, applies them to Wichita. Walkable cities prioritize local schools and parks, invest in attainable housing downtown, understand induced demand, and create congestion-pricing city centers. When cities implement such rules, they generate more wealth and enhance the health of their residents. Walkable cities foster close-knit communities, promote equity, and combat climate change. Such advances are in accord with the City of Wichita’s mission statement: “keep Wichita safe, grow our economy, build and maintain dependable infrastructure, and provide conditions for living well.”[3] The series aims to demonstrate how Speck’s rules can be applied to the city and spark a conversation about what might make Wichita a better place to live.

This series will do more than provide a set of recommendations, though. It will also provide historical context, detailing the individuals and decisions that contributed to Wichita’s built environment. According to Speck, one-way streets are bad for walkability. But who decided to make First and Second one-way in the first place? Douglas has more lanes than needed. But why is it so wide in the first place? The series’ articles will be organized around each of Speck’s suggestions and describe the advent of Wichita’s zoning ordinances in the 1920s. They will document the debates over one-way streets during the 1950s, the embrace of angled parking in Delano in the 2000s, and the fight against the relocation of urban high schools in the 2010s.

The purpose of these histories will be to show how Wichitans both undermined and embraced Speck’s rules. Traffic engineers, city council members, activists, and residents alike have all contributed to the city’s look and feel. Of course, governmental officials have the final say in how Speck’s rules might be applied. However, as these articles will suggest, citizens hold immense power. The city is not a static object that grew out of nothing, made in the distant past, and set in stone. Instead, it is often subject to the ideas and opinions of everyday people. Residents can attend their District Advisory Board or Metropolitan Area Planning Commission meetings. They can volunteer to organize “bike buses” at their local schools. Or they can participate in their neighborhood associations and draft neighborhood plans.

Such civic engagement is vital. Wichita was not made in a vacuum. The remaining articles in this series will demonstrate how, rule by rule, various institutions, engineers, developers, and residents have shaped the city. With some guidelines provided by Speck, we can also get ideas on how to remake and improve it.

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[1] Jeff Speck, Walkable City Rules: 101 Steps to Making Better Places (Washington, DC: Island Press, 2018).

[2] Jeff Speck, “Toward A More Walkable Wichita” (Downtown Wichita Action Plan, Wave, March 4, 2025), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lGX9gNXSx8I.

[3] City of Wichita, “Our Mission,” n.d., https://www.wichita.gov/277/About-Us.