KCRag Forum

DaveKCMO wrote:

dnweava wrote:

DaveKCMO wrote:Boards from the public meeting: http://kcstreetcar.org/wp-content/uploa ... dsMaps.pdf

the more I look at these designs the more I think about how much potential we are about to flush and I'm kinda angry and how shit these designs are... This design reduces traffic lanes on main and puts a streetcar in that traffic. Why is there still parking on main? Why does this not have a dedicated streetcar/bus lane? Why are we designing the streetcar network to be as slow as possible? The downtown segment is garbage for design... Have the people that drew these up ever been to Europe????

Reallocating space away from cars (or restricting their movements) is hard everywhere in America. Surely you have observed this fact.

That being said, the downtown streetcar has the best on-time performance in the region (and best streetcar-specific OTP in the US), travel times have been decreasing since launch, and incremental restrictions on car intrusions have been made all along the alignment. I appreciate the purist attitude, but it is just that. The city holds the keys as the system owner and controller of the right of way. Consider yourself lucky we even got the opportunity to study a center lane alignment (you're welcome).

Also, you bring no demographic data to support your assertion that it's "just for white people". Even anecdata from daily trips would tell you that is a lie. That's not even anecdotally the case on Saturdays. Nice try, though!

You guys set the on time performance though... It's not hard to hit a statistic that you pick.

I think we need to spend more time talking about good transit instead of being defensive about what we're doing.

Please create a "good transit" thread then. This one is for the streetcar we're actually building.

Ha. That’s some unintentional humor there.

Imarealperson wrote:Ha. That’s some unintentional humor there.

I put that in quotes for a reason. The project he's advocating for is not proposed and will probably never be built.

Phoenix, Minneapolis, Houston, etc have light rail dedicated in center lanes, we could do that.... you can't tell me it is hard to do just because we are in America.

Ok, it's a bus for middle class people who wouldn't use the bus system. I understand the stigma and how streetcar is easier to use. I'm pro streetcar, I just see us designing a shit system and I'm going to call it that.

Just because it's on time doesn't mean it's any faster than walking... especially if there is a downtown event where main st still becomes gridlocked around p&l. I walked from 14th to 7th street on main literally passing a streetcar during the big 12 and getting there quicker. Downtown segment should have been a dedicated lane with parking removed. No excuses for making the same mistakes again...

When Dave cuts off your legs, you will no longer be able to walk as fast as the streetcar.

dnweava wrote:Phoenix, Minneapolis, Houston, etc have light rail dedicated in center lanes, we could do that.... you can't tell me it is hard to do just because we are in America.

We tried getting voter approval for that -- twice -- and both attempts failed (city hall support for it was tepid, business support non-existent). I can't even get the average Midtowner to accept center-running lanes because it will prevent them from making a left turn where it's already restricted. Even our paltry attempts at dedicating space for buses is met with complete disregard from our state-controlled police department and insufferable public works policies. And at the end of the day, you're still left with an alignment that has to deal with cross-traffic and blocking the box.

Again, go have a discussion about perfect transit in another thread because that's all it will be: discussion.

Or maybe you could join the movement and get it done yourself.

DaveKCMO wrote:

dnweava wrote:Phoenix, Minneapolis, Houston, etc have light rail dedicated in center lanes, we could do that.... you can't tell me it is hard to do just because we are in America.

We tried getting voter approval for that -- twice -- and both attempts failed (city hall support for it was tepid, business support non-existent). I can't even get the average Midtowner to accept center-running lanes because it will prevent them from making a left turn where it's already restricted. Even our paltry attempts at dedicating space for buses is met with complete disregard from our state-controlled police department and insufferable public works policies. And at the end of the day, you're still left with an alignment that has to deal with cross-traffic and blocking the box.

Again, go have a discussion about perfect transit in another thread because that's all it will be: discussion.

Or maybe you could join the movement and get it done yourself.

The first paragraph of explanation was very helpful, thank you.

The extreme thin/skinned approach in the second two are very off putting.

DaveKCMO wrote:

dnweava wrote:Phoenix, Minneapolis, Houston, etc have light rail dedicated in center lanes, we could do that.... you can't tell me it is hard to do just because we are in America.

We tried getting voter approval for that -- twice -- and both attempts failed (city hall support for it was tepid, business support non-existent). I can't even get the average Midtowner to accept center-running lanes because it will prevent them from making a left turn where it's already restricted. Even our paltry attempts at dedicating space for buses is met with complete disregard from our state-controlled police department and insufferable public works policies. And at the end of the day, you're still left with an alignment that has to deal with cross-traffic and blocking the box.

Again, go have a discussion about perfect transit in another thread because that's all it will be: discussion.

Or maybe you could join the movement and get it done yourself.

So we can't even discuss how on street parking should be removed from the proposal because It's too "perfect"... why do we have to accept such mediocrity in KC....

It's still in the planning stages and we should be planning it better, it's a valid and on topic argument IMO.

And just because the city wide light rail failed 15 years ago has absolutely nothing to do with the design of this segment. Light rail and streetcar are the same damn thing, they are both the same "trams".

As a pro-streetcar voter, I'd like to see my tax dollars used to build the best system we can do on the budget. (I'm not asking for outrages and costly things like elevated lines here)

Imarealperson wrote:

DaveKCMO wrote:

dnweava wrote:Phoenix, Minneapolis, Houston, etc have light rail dedicated in center lanes, we could do that.... you can't tell me it is hard to do just because we are in America.

We tried getting voter approval for that -- twice -- and both attempts failed (city hall support for it was tepid, business support non-existent). I can't even get the average Midtowner to accept center-running lanes because it will prevent them from making a left turn where it's already restricted. Even our paltry attempts at dedicating space for buses is met with complete disregard from our state-controlled police department and insufferable public works policies. And at the end of the day, you're still left with an alignment that has to deal with cross-traffic and blocking the box.

Again, go have a discussion about perfect transit in another thread because that's all it will be: discussion.

Or maybe you could join the movement and get it done yourself.

The first paragraph of explanation was very helpful, thank you.

The extreme thin/skinned approach in the second two are very off putting.

People said the same thing about the airport. Look when the thread here was first started vs. when the airport will be completed. Conversations are important to make things change.

Dave is mostly right though. I don't think we even have full priority on streetlights for the streetcar yet.

Imarealperson wrote:

DaveKCMO wrote:

dnweava wrote:Phoenix, Minneapolis, Houston, etc have light rail dedicated in center lanes, we could do that.... you can't tell me it is hard to do just because we are in America.

We tried getting voter approval for that -- twice -- and both attempts failed (city hall support for it was tepid, business support non-existent). I can't even get the average Midtowner to accept center-running lanes because it will prevent them from making a left turn where it's already restricted. Even our paltry attempts at dedicating space for buses is met with complete disregard from our state-controlled police department and insufferable public works policies. And at the end of the day, you're still left with an alignment that has to deal with cross-traffic and blocking the box.

Again, go have a discussion about perfect transit in another thread because that's all it will be: discussion.

Or maybe you could join the movement and get it done yourself.

The first paragraph of explanation was very helpful, thank you.

The extreme thin/skinned approach in the second two are very off putting.

this might not be the site for you.

dnweava wrote:

DaveKCMO wrote:

dnweava wrote:Phoenix, Minneapolis, Houston, etc have light rail dedicated in center lanes, we could do that.... you can't tell me it is hard to do just because we are in America.

We tried getting voter approval for that -- twice -- and both attempts failed (city hall support for it was tepid, business support non-existent). I can't even get the average Midtowner to accept center-running lanes because it will prevent them from making a left turn where it's already restricted. Even our paltry attempts at dedicating space for buses is met with complete disregard from our state-controlled police department and insufferable public works policies. And at the end of the day, you're still left with an alignment that has to deal with cross-traffic and blocking the box.

Again, go have a discussion about perfect transit in another thread because that's all it will be: discussion.

Or maybe you could join the movement and get it done yourself.

So we can't even discuss how on street parking should be removed from the proposal because It's too "perfect"... why do we have to accept such mediocrity in KC....

It's still in the planning stages and we should be planning it better, it's a valid and on topic argument IMO.

And just because the city wide light rail failed 15 years ago has absolutely nothing to do with the design of this segment. Light rail and streetcar are the same damn thing, they are both the same "trams".

As a pro-streetcar voter, I'd like to see my tax dollars used to build the best system we can do on the budget. (I'm not asking for outrages and costly things like elevated lines here)

Because as we sit right now, you will never get the community support behind "taking away lanes and parking" at this point and time. You won't get community support if you take away their ability to turn left on Main.

There will be all kinds of "see my tax dollar" people who will throw a fit if you take those things away from them. Lucky for us, sharing a lane of traffic with the streetcar is not going to negatively impact vehicle traffic or streetcar performance....it's not going to suddenly be able to go 50 MPH if it gets a dedicated lane of traffic.

What we can do is set up the rail lines to best accommodate what you are asking for as a future improvement....my thinking is center running would be better for this type of improvement but I'll defer to Dave and engineers on that one.

Yeah, this forum has a long history of being annoying and controversial. It also has a reputation of a lot of people with power being involved in it or actively reading it.

I always thought the idea was to bring up topics that are controversial and promoting what we think are best practices.

I think that is the idea...

Imarealperson wrote:The extreme thin/skinned approach in the second two are very off putting.

I get that it can come off that way, but we've been going around in circles with this stuff for years. Ultimately we're going to get whatever we can get precisely because it is what we we were able to get. Not because things that might be better haven't been discussed ad nauseam for years and years (they have) but because the car is king and will be forever and ever and ever and ever, amen.

Kansas City is not uniquely averse to anything that might even be slightly disruptive to automobile traffic or parking, but the people who care about those things care about them more passionately and vocally than normal people care about anything except perhaps their own children, and their single-minded mission is apparently to Keep Kansas City Great For Cars to the Exclusion of All Other Modes of Transportation and, secondarily, to Make Sure Nothing Ever Gets Built Anywhere and Nothing Ever Changes in Any Way Ever.

I think people always hate change until you give it to them in a package and say look, here is what we can do.

We dealt with this with the airport for years until we were finally able to mobilize around it and it passed easily.

Transportation is going to change rapidly in significant ways and I think we should spend more time talking about what we should be doing and less time talking about what we can accomplish in 5 years because that's what we were told to do.

1. A dedicated center lane would be ideal. If support isn’t there, then let’s build a mixed traffic center lane system and then dedicate the lanes later.

2. Dave, how can we get involved in the expansion of rail transit in KC.

3. From my experiences, the community, the unions, and businesses all support LR in KC to levels many times higher than those during the last LR push or even the big streetcar plan in 2014. I honestly see no reason why there shouldn’t be some sort of bigger proposal.

dnweava wrote: As a pro-streetcar voter, I'd like to see my tax dollars used to build the best system we can do on the budget.

Just a warning, this type of logic will get you nowhere. That you pay tax dollars means absolutely nothing. The transportation planning is decided by ‘experts’ who don’t really care about how changes affect neighbors directly. Good luck with your discussion. Probably a waste of time, IMO.

I'm gonna go with Dave on this, data driven real politik is the way to go in 2018.

The airport analogy doesn't work, there's a reason we didn't ask for gondolas up I-29 as part of the proposal.

You all need to focus your efforts on the future bi-state transit proposal.

How do we get involved though? I’ll that I’ve heard about it is that the chamber wants an AI Highway and Dave and co. doesn’t want rail.