The Junction Before and After, North Loop Removal

Issues concerning Downtown as described by the Downtown Council. River to 31st Street, I-35 to Bruce R. Watkins.
earthling
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Re: The Junction Before and After

Post by earthling »

^Need to think beyond the current state of KayCee. Downtown doesn't have as high workforce as comparable cities and should eventually grow. Expanding the south Loop isn't possible and not really even 6 lanes. When KC metro hits 3M it will be a different story as more pass through downtown. KC is also a major freight center still growing. I'd keep the N Loop but bury it and build over, maybe dig deeper. Make N Loop a buried downtown bypass with less access.
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TheLastGentleman
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Re: The Junction Before and After

Post by TheLastGentleman »

Lots of studies have been made that point to the conclusion that more roads don't lead to better traffic, but often the opposite. Honestly, what would probably benefit downtown the most is if all the urban freeways were removed. People adapt and find new routes.

Of course, it wouldn't go over very well with our car obsessed city, but maybe in several decades the atmosphere will have shifted. Like I said earlier, this discussion isn't meant to be about things happening right now, more possibilities of things that could happen in the future. No harm in starting discussion now.
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Re: The Junction Before and After

Post by TheLastGentleman »

https://gizmodo.com/6-freeway-removals- ... 1548314937
Okay, you’re thinking, but where do all the cars go? It turns out that when you take out a high-occupancy freeway it doesn’t turn the surface streets into the equivalent of the Autobahn. A theory called “induced demand” proves that if you make streets bigger, more people will use them. When you make them smaller, drivers discover and use other routes, and traffic turns out to be about the same.
https://www.houstonchronicle.com/local/ ... 287710.php
Houston has a perfect example of "induced demand," in fact: I-10. In the 2000s, $2.8 billion was spent to widen it to 23 lanes. At first, it seemed to work. Commutes became less bad, the Chronicle reported in 2012: "Four years after the project was completed, a comparative analysis of drive-time data for a three-year period before and after the expansion shows that at both peak and non-peak periods of the day, it takes less time to traverse the Katy Freeway than it used to."

Over time, Joe Cortright of City Observatory has found, the congestion went from less bad to worse than it was before.
Another benefit of removing the north loop comes from the creation of readily developable land. It would vastly improve the pedestrian experience by creating an actual streetscape from the junction up to the river market, as opposed to this.

Image

Even ignoring all of that, the concept of inconveniencing cars shouldn't even be offensive in the first place. We need to be encouraging people to walk, take public transportation, advocate for light rail, ect. Good cities don't need freeways dug through their downtowns.
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ToDactivist
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Re: The Junction Before and After

Post by ToDactivist »

TheLastGentleman wrote: Sat Sep 01, 2018 5:11 pm https://gizmodo.com/6-freeway-removals- ... 1548314937
Okay, you’re thinking, but where do all the cars go? It turns out that when you take out a high-occupancy freeway it doesn’t turn the surface streets into the equivalent of the Autobahn. A theory called “induced demand” proves that if you make streets bigger, more people will use them. When you make them smaller, drivers discover and use other routes, and traffic turns out to be about the same.
https://www.houstonchronicle.com/local/ ... 287710.php
Houston has a perfect example of "induced demand," in fact: I-10. In the 2000s, $2.8 billion was spent to widen it to 23 lanes. At first, it seemed to work. Commutes became less bad, the Chronicle reported in 2012: "Four years after the project was completed, a comparative analysis of drive-time data for a three-year period before and after the expansion shows that at both peak and non-peak periods of the day, it takes less time to traverse the Katy Freeway than it used to."

Over time, Joe Cortright of City Observatory has found, the congestion went from less bad to worse than it was before.
Another benefit of removing the north loop comes from the creation of readily developable land. It would vastly improve the pedestrian experience by creating an actual streetscape from the junction up to the river market, as opposed to this.

Image

Even ignoring all of that, the concept of inconveniencing cars shouldn't even be offensive in the first place. We need to be encouraging people to walk, take public transportation, advocate for light rail, ect. Good cities don't need freeways dug through their downtowns.
here here...well done. need to be planning and thinking about the current transit trends not last century's.
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Re: The Junction Before and After

Post by flyingember »

There’s also the idea that there’s excess capacity in the whole system to reroute traffic.

Why couldn’t there be a large redirect of not downtown to not downtown through traffic N-S to 635?

And a simpler system is easier to use. Most I-70 traffic comes from the bad geometry.
EB 70 has to trade sides with 35 and then again with 71. All this does is slow things down and reduce the total system capacity.

If 70 never had those merges and 35 moved to 670 but it’s ramps aligned with the outside and 70 stayed on the inside would end up with two major interchanges for each rather than three for 70 and three for 35.
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Re: The Junction Before and After

Post by earthling »

Looks like we're all on same page that developing N Loop not around car culture is the way to go. And burying the N Loop with less access is a good way to keep the surface less car focused yet allowing a bypass through downtown when S Loop highly likely will not handle load as KC metro and regional traffic grows.

We can address both by burying N Loop as a downtown traffic bypass with pedestrian scale development above.
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Re: The Junction Before and After

Post by flyingember »

earthling wrote: Sat Sep 01, 2018 10:56 pm Looks like we're all on same page that developing N Loop not around car culture is the way to go. And burying the N Loop with less access is a good way to keep the surface less car focused yet allowing a bypass through downtown when S Loop highly likely will not handle load as KC metro and regional traffic grows.

We can address both by burying N Loop as a downtown traffic bypass with pedestrian scale development above.
Go read the content on this project. Burying it is not one of the alternatives presented.
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Re: The Junction Before and After

Post by TheLastGentleman »

Link, for all interested

http://www.beyondtheloopkc.com/
2000_Watts
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Re: The Junction Before and After, North Loop Removal

Post by 2000_Watts »

So the answer to KC not best utilizing buildable land is to create MORE empty space for the city or landowners to let sit vacant waiting on a big payday that may never come? Cars, highways, and people can co-exist. While I get that designing a city with ONLY the auto in mind is rather shortsighted and a drain on resources. I also understand that cars are a necessary evil and there are ways cars, people, bikes, trains, and such can co-exist. Going to the other extreme and designing EVERYTHING to be anti-car is equally detrimental. As with most things in life, balance, and moderation are key.

If you wanna take thru traffic off the North Loop, fine. Much like I-70 & 435 mess, without a rebuild of the surrounding infrastructure, you're not eliminating a problem or bottleneck, you're simply displacing it as 670 thru downtown is barely adequate for its current traffic load, and would become a MAJOR headache for increased eastbound thru traffic in its current configuration as a result of rerouting from the North Loop. In addition, it's not like downtown KCMO is a hotbed of construction running out of space on which to build. Completely eliminating the North Loop creates a new, artificial problem of MORE unused land waiting for vagrants, parking lot operators, and absentee landlords being held hostage by people with NO interest in any of the reasons anyone on this forum would want the highway removed to begin with.

While I can agree that the North Loop is functionally obsolete as built, based on this city's development pattern of the last half century or so, completely removing it won't achieve ANY of the objectives for which people on this forum are looking.
Last edited by 2000_Watts on Mon Sep 10, 2018 1:38 pm, edited 1 time in total.
earthling
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Re: The Junction Before and After, North Loop Removal

Post by earthling »

^Bingo. Leave North Loop as-is or dig it deeper and reduce the access allowing as a downtown bypass.
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Re: The Junction Before and After, North Loop Removal

Post by moderne »

In Seattle the Alaskan Way freeway (a double deck viaduct) that separates DT from the waterfront is going to be replaced with a tunnel.
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Re: The Junction Before and After, North Loop Removal

Post by kas1 »

You talk about balance and moderation, but you're opposed to the removal of a tiny stretch of highway in a metro that already has by far the most freeway miles per capita of any city in the country (and probably the world). And while it's arguably true that people and highways can coexist, they can't coexist in the same place at the same time. You're just promulgating the same failed urban planning doctrines that created this mess in the first place. KC decimated its downtown to build highways everywhere, and businesses picked up and left. At the same time, the Plaza thrived. Reversing the bad decisions which contributed to the death of downtown is a prerequisite for rebuilding downtown as a sustainable community.

If removing blight and creating more development sites is a "problem" then it's one of the best types of problems to have.
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Re: The Junction Before and After, North Loop Removal

Post by AlbertHammond »

I have not followed this thread or any of the previous discussions or proposals for the north loop. That said, this is a diagram of how I always wanted to see it changed. Fill in the highway with a park that is level with the surrounding streets. Allow 6th and Independence Ave to function as a boulevard pair (like Ward Parkway) with a linear park in the middle. It can still handle a ton of traffic, if needed. The parcels facing the linear park on 6th and Independence Ave would then become pretty special and highly desirable for development. Allow the Heart of America bridge to remain, but allow traffic to ease into the city grid instead of keeping those big sweeping ramps.

The park itself could be like the linear park on axis with the Saint Louis Arch. Keep it simple for now and get all cute and designy in a later phase. Give us plenty of benches, walking paths and shade for now.

Am I crazy?
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Re: The Junction Before and After, North Loop Removal

Post by 2000_Watts »

I get it. Highways are big, bad, and evil, and should not run thru cities. I also get that the north loop as exists is a stain and eyesore on the landscape. What I don't get is how the city will magically turn into the next Seattle or MPLS B/C we take out a highway to create MORE vacant land in a city that doesn't even have a land shortage to begin with. Based on this city's development patterns and history, I see absolutely NO reason to believe that the wishes of creating this new urban Utopian playland will play out upon opening up hundreds of acres of new land to development. If there were THAT much demand to develop the space(s) between the financial district and the River Market, then there wouldn't be full city blocks of parking undeveloped parking lots that people won't use adjacent to the big bad (but useful, even if constructed poorly) highway that moves people back and forth. Removing the North Loop and creating a whole bunch of new, vacant land in a city already full of vacant, undeveloped land will not achieve the desired objective of densification and increased urbanity. We're NOT Boston. Let's worry about filling up the hundreds of square miles of vacant land AND the hundreds of acres of vacant land adjacent to the highway before we spend non-existent MoDOT money to rip out a useful artery to create more.
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Re: The Junction Before and After, North Loop Removal

Post by flyingember »

2000_Watts wrote: Wed Sep 12, 2018 2:21 pm Let's worry about filling up the hundreds of square miles of vacant land AND the hundreds of acres of vacant land adjacent to the highway before we spend non-existent MoDOT money to rip out a useful artery to create more.
This is the key piece that shows you don't get it.

That land next to it isn't under utilized. Private owners are utilizing it for parking. Or they aren't. That doesn't matter. There's no rules that requires or expects someone to build on their land. There's no "worrying" about something that's legal and normal.

And to bring up some hypothetica land somewhere else. Same thing, no one has to build on their vacant land. They can keep it like that for decades if they want.

But if modot sells/gives to the land bank it can be handed over with legal terms that require development and actually be built on. The city loses a horribly designed road that goes at 45mph at rush hour and it can put in a city street that goes 25mph. Most people will take an extra 1.5 minutes if they don't find an alternative, of which there's many with extra capacity. A lot of it is through traffic from KS to north of downtown and there's already alternatives. I can think of five good ones depending on the starting point.
Last edited by flyingember on Wed Sep 12, 2018 2:59 pm, edited 3 times in total.
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Re: The Junction Before and After, North Loop Removal

Post by kas1 »

You don't see a connection between the blight and the lack of development?

Cordish thinks that the South Loop is such a drain on property values that they want to pay tens of millions out of pocket to cover it up.

In every city I've visited, the urban highways have been lined by utter trash regardless of how nice the adjacent neighborhoods are. They create rot and decay for hundreds of feet on each side.
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Re: The Junction Before and After, North Loop Removal

Post by AlbertHammond »

2000_Watts wrote: Wed Sep 12, 2018 2:21 pm Removing the North Loop and creating a whole bunch of new, vacant land in a city already full of vacant, undeveloped land will not achieve the desired objective of densification and increased urbanity. We're NOT Boston. Let's worry about filling up the hundreds of square miles of vacant land AND the hundreds of acres of vacant land adjacent to the highway before we spend non-existent MoDOT money to rip out a useful artery to create more.
This is one reason I prefer to see the land become an amenity (park) that makes existing land more valuable instead of adding it to the develop-able inventory.
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Re: The Junction Before and After, North Loop Removal

Post by anonkcmo »

2000_Watts wrote: Wed Sep 12, 2018 2:21 pm If there were THAT much demand to develop the space(s) between the financial district and the River Market, then there wouldn't be full city blocks of parking undeveloped parking lots that people won't use adjacent to the big bad (but useful, even if constructed poorly) highway that moves people back and forth. Removing the North Loop and creating a whole bunch of new, vacant land in a city already full of vacant, undeveloped land will not achieve the desired objective of densification and increased urbanity.
In fairness it is the highway itself that mostly keeps these lots undeveloped.
The lots have immediate on/off access to the highway so the owner(s) have little to no immediate incentive to develop them.
It's a catch 22, there's nothing else immediately near the lots (no critical mass or synergy) and easy highway access.
Remove the highway and that changes, it may not be a silver bullet but it will help.

You're also not considering that removing the highway creates 30 contiguous acres of land worth hundreds of millions to the city.
Does the city have tons of land open for development? Yes, but this location is far more relevant, attractive and prime.
DREAM: Imagine a Cerner campus there.
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Re: The Junction Before and After, North Loop Removal

Post by TheLastGentleman »

Also, remember that new land created by the loop removal would be essentially an extension of the already active river market. It would improve that area's appeal, removing its greatest physical constraints and letting it expand south. Hopefully by the time that happens the north loop landbankers will finally be willing to sell.

Again, we're not talking a few years here. These are long term goals
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