KCRag Forum

flyingember wrote: So you're saying to wait until the entire east side is repopulated?

You're talking about Baltimore and Main and Walnut, etc. If you were talking about road diet on the east side, my response would be different.

beautyfromashes wrote:I don't understand all the road diet talk. Do we expect the city to stay at the same population for the next several years? Instead of cutting the flow to the current level of traffic, keep it in place for when the city gets back to the population that these roads were built for originally. Adding bike lanes is a positive step, but cutting entire arteries into and out of the city seems destructive.

Nope. These streets were probably overbuilt to begin with. I'm also a fan of the concept of driving to the edge of the city and taking public transportation into the core.

beautyfromashes wrote:

flyingember wrote: So you're saying to wait until the entire east side is repopulated?

You're talking about Baltimore and Main and Walnut, etc. If you were talking about road diet on the east side, my response would be different.

they're the width they are because the east side feeds into them. the two are connected

grovester wrote:Nope. These streets were probably overbuilt to begin with. I'm also a fan of the concept of driving to the edge of the city and taking public transportation into the core.

JOCO leaders are smiling at this post. Make it harder to get into the city plays right into their hands.

People already do this. They drive to Crown Center, Union Station or River Market. And now they take the streetcar into the core.

beautyfromashes wrote:

grovester wrote:Nope. These streets were probably overbuilt to begin with. I'm also a fan of the concept of driving to the edge of the city and taking public transportation into the core.

JOCO leaders are smiling at this post. Make it harder to get into the city plays right into their hands.

You must have missed the entire history of the 1950s through 1990s

beautyfromashes wrote:I don't understand all the road diet talk. Do we expect the city to stay at the same population for the next several years? Instead of cutting the flow to the current level of traffic, keep it in place for when the city gets back to the population that these roads were built for originally. Adding bike lanes is a positive step, but cutting entire arteries into and out of the city seems destructive.

IDK about you, but I don't live in the city because it's easy to drive.

So, make it painful to get into and out of downtown and hopefully people will live there to avoid the commute? I just don't why we would purposefully steal time from residents and what would be gained.

It's true that one way streets provide some advantages. Most importantly, as described above, they allow you to distribute across two streets what would otherwise have to be squeezed into one. Sometimes this makes bicycle and pedestrian accommodations easier, particularly in communities where automobile through traffic is sacrosanct. One way traffic also simplifies signalization and other tricky components necessary for high quality bicycle facilities, including protected bike lanes and cycle tracks.

However, one way streets have a long list of drawbacks that often outweigh the benefits. The biggest drawback is that wherever you permit two lanes of auto traffic in the same direction, you significantly increase the speed, add many more conflict points for all users, reduce operational efficiency of the street (each lane moves fewer cars), and dramatically reduce safety. If the goal is to support more walkable and bikeable streets, that can be a tough pill to swallow. Two lanes in one direction is certainly better than two lanes in both directions, but is it necessary? Only if you're expecting more traffic than a single lane of traffic in each direction can handle.

This also relates to road diet discussion. Road diets that go from from six lanes to five (with a turn lane), or from four lanes to three (with a turn lane) generally handle the same capacity of traffic as the "undieted" road, but in a smaller footprint (the extra can go to other modes and users). This is partly because all of the left lane turn traffic and associated conflicts can be moved from the "fast" lane to a designated turn lane. Through traffic on streets with odd numbers of lanes is always moving, and it does so with many fewer potential conflicts for all users. Having a single lane of through traffic also is a major traffic calming measure, because while traffic flows more smoothly, it does so only at the speed of the slowest vehicle. This is a good example of designing a road to a target speed, rather than trying to enforce speeding after the fact.

The near and long term proposal for Grand is a little bit different scenario. It goes from five lanes to three. So it -is- a reduction of capacity, and it's fair to ask what that means for the future operations of the street, especially if: a) streetcar is displacing traffic from Main, b) Grand is reprioritized as a high-frequency bus corridor, and c) we anticipate new development in the urban core in the future. That's exactly the question the City and downtown stakeholders asked from 2011-2013 or so, in the form of a very complex and expensive traffic model that was one of the first major sources of delay for the Making Grand Grand project. Among other tasks, the Downtown traffic model incorporated inputs for all of the factors mentioned above, and demonstrated that even with all of those extra users and reduced capacity, Grand Boulevard would maintain an adequate level of service in the future. That's not really surprising, though. Downtown has a dense grid that can easily redistribute traffic. Also, with one hundred feet of right of way, Grand is one of the widest downtown streets around. That means that on Grand, the entire process for rethinking the street is actually pretty easy. We don't have to choose between modes. Grand can handle future traffic, high-frequency buses, bikes, and pedestrians comfortably. That's a big part of why I think it has such potential as a signature urban boulevard.

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Baltimore and Walnut both only need one lane for traffic. One land for traffic, one lane for parking, the rest for bikes and walking.

Grand across 670 (south loop) has been closed for several months. This has had ZERO affect on traffic downtown. You could literally close grand fully and it would not affect downtown traffic.

And Broadway through Penn Valley was closed for what? a month? no one even noticed.

kboish wrote:Grand across 670 (south loop) has been closed for several months. This has had ZERO affect on traffic downtown. You could literally close grand fully and it would not affect downtown traffic.

other than a major on-time performance hit for KCATA.

grand closed on the very same day streetcar opened -- may 6 -- and some predicted streetcar would also bring traffic to a stand-still. neither happened. now those same people just say the ridership numbers are inflated and bikes are stupid.

beautyfromashes wrote:

grovester wrote:Nope. These streets were probably overbuilt to begin with. I'm also a fan of the concept of driving to the edge of the city and taking public transportation into the core.

JOCO leaders are smiling at this post. Make it harder to get into the city plays right into their hands.

I wouldn't consider better biking, transit, and still maintaining plenty of auto throughput "making it harder to get into the city"

DaveKCMO wrote:

kboish wrote:Grand across 670 (south loop) has been closed for several months. This has had ZERO affect on traffic downtown. You could literally close grand fully and it would not affect downtown traffic.

other than a major on-time performance hit for KCATA.

Well, yes. that did happen and it actually affects the bus i typically ride (51) so I can attest, it really hasn't made that much of a difference for the morning/evening commute either way. which likely says more about the on-time performance prior to the bridge closure than after...

KCPowercat wrote:I wouldn't consider better biking, transit, and still maintaining plenty of auto throughput "making it harder to get into the city"

The implication from the quote I referenced was that the ideal would be to limit traffic so that park and ride would be the ideal way to access the city core. We should continue to keep all forms of traffic, including quick, clear car arteries a viable way to get into and out of the city at all times.

kboish wrote:And Broadway through Penn Valley was closed for what? a month? no one even noticed.

Wrong. Traffic has been terrible with Broadway closed. 31st west of Main and Main north of 31st have been in gridlock with the construction.

beautyfromashes wrote:

kboish wrote:And Broadway through Penn Valley was closed for what? a month? no one even noticed.

Wrong. Traffic has been terrible with Broadway closed. 31st west of Main and Main north of 31st have been in gridlock with the construction.

I don't go through this area during rush hour but I can add that people on Reddit have certainly bitched about it quite a bit.

TheBigChuckbowski wrote:

beautyfromashes wrote:

kboish wrote:And Broadway through Penn Valley was closed for what? a month? no one even noticed.

Wrong. Traffic has been terrible with Broadway closed. 31st west of Main and Main north of 31st have been in gridlock with the construction.

I don't go through this area during rush hour but I can add that people on Reddit have certainly bitched about it quite a bit.

I drive this every day at around 7:30 & 5 and have never had an issue. Maybe it's just certain times that I'm missing.