KCMO Downtown Streetcar

[DaveKCMO]

Parking has become a real serious issue.

over half of streetcar passengers are boarding at union station. that means they're using excess parking capacity there to visit the city market (the number two boarding/alighting location).

problem: solved.

[kboish]

Also, the city market is not a Target. You shouldn't be able to pull up right in front of it and park. In fact, thats pretty much why the city market is nice. Its an urban setting and people are going to have to learn to access it in an urban, multi-modal manner. Adding more parking isn't going to make the city market any better and is in fact probably going to have the opposite effect intended.

[NorthOak]

Yesterday the City Market was packed solid like a weekend in July.
Parking has become a real serious issue.
Why isn't the city moving forward quickly with development of their properties on 5th St?
Parking garages are needed yesterday as the surface lots are now barely making a dent in the need.
With new residential coming on board so quickly the city should have anticipated that parking was going to become an issue.
As more surface lots disappear with new construction - the city looks pretty stupid just sitting on theirs.

It's super easy to park other places and just take the streetcar!

This. There's thousands of spots further south that are easier to get to than the mess around the market. Those two lane streets and heavy ped traffic combine to make the city market a horrible place to drive to. The train was the best thing ever for the success of that area.

From the north take the HOA bridge, turn west at Admiral and park around 7th/Main. During peak use last summer there were spots less than 50 steps from the train stop.

So far all the new river market residential is coming with private parking so don't worry about them. And don't forget the large public garage KCATA is putting in.

The next big need is to turn over some more garages into weekend and evening public parking. There's thousands of spaces behind a gate that are already built.

I don't think people understood my comment.
We're all aware of the streetcar and parking south of the Market and that's all good and successful and stuff.

THIS is what my comment was about >>>

And don't forget the large public garage KCATA is putting in.

Every time I drove along 5th street there were nearly 100 people waiting for the next streetcar.
Not quite as many but still a long wait on 3rd street.
The streetcar is maxed out on Saturdays in the market.
There is still a huge need for more public parking so the Market doesn't come under a singular stigma that it's impossible to drive there and the only way to get there is by streetcar. In my case I was carrying music equipment and the streetcar is/was not an option. Many, many, many people still go to the Market to buy plants and larger items and the streetcar isn't an option. When is the city going to get the long needed garage done?

[FangKC]

The City might be moving with more caution in regards to parking garages after the debacle with the parking garage at 300 Wyandotte.

http://www.pitch.com/news/article/20851 ... cture-firm

[Eon Blue]

Every time I drove along 5th street there were nearly 100 people waiting for the next streetcar.
Not quite as many but still a long wait on 3rd street.
The streetcar is maxed out on Saturdays in the market.
There is still a huge need for more public parking so the Market doesn't come under a singular stigma that it's impossible to drive there and the only way to get there is by streetcar. In my case I was carrying music equipment and the streetcar is/was not an option. Many, many, many people still go to the Market to buy plants and larger items and the streetcar isn't an option. When is the city going to get the long needed garage done?

So then you have several hundred people queued up in their cars, blocking the streetcar, waiting to get into the garages?

The best short-term solution is to start charging to park in the city lots. That will encourage turnover and availability for those with a real need to park close and encourage other people to park away and use the streetcar. A functioning market for parking will encourage people to make rational decisions and get them accustomed to paying for parking so that if/when a garage it built it won't be 100% subsidized.

As for the streetcar crush, the authority is working on purchasing additional vehicles, but that process takes time.

[DaveKCMO]

So then you have several hundred people queued up in their cars, blocking the streetcar, waiting to get into the garages?

this is what many of us are actively trying to avoid.

The best short-term solution is to start charging to park in the city lots. That will encourage turnover and availability for those with a real need to park close and encourage other people to park away and use the streetcar. A functioning market for parking will encourage people to make rational decisions and get them accustomed to paying for parking so that if/when a garage it built it won't be 100% subsidized.

paid parking is one of the recommendations from the recent parking study -- on-street and off-street, i believe. http://kcmo.gov/publicworks/rivermarketparking/

As for the streetcar crush, the authority is working on purchasing additional vehicles, but that process takes time.

2 years.

[Eon Blue]

Glad to hear, on all accounts.

[loftguy]

Seems on days like these the streetcar doesn't have the capacity to handle the traffic it has, let alone people parking and riding to the city market.

So, the popularity of the streetcar is a problem...?

It's a 4 or 5 block walk from endless open parking at 7th and Main to the City Market.
Kansas City needs to get over its fear of walking.

[grovester]

Not to mention that it's only packed when the weather is nice!

[kboish]

Lets also look at the proportionality of how funding has been allocated toward moving people in an out of downtown. 99.99% vehicular. Adding to that category is not going to relieve congestion, gridlock, or parking issues (which as people have pointed out is just a reluctance to walk 5 blocks). There is no such thing as a lack of parking or a parking failure. There is only such a thing as a lack of transportation options or a failure to properly plan transportation in an area.

[flyingember]

Seems on days like these the streetcar doesn't have the capacity to handle the traffic it has, let alone people parking and riding to the city market.

So, the popularity of the streetcar is a problem...?

It's a 4 or 5 block walk from endless open parking at 7th and Main to the City Market.
Kansas City needs to get over its fear of walking.

Last time I was downtown I parked at 18th and Main (literally next to the track) and walked all the way to the city market and rode the train back.
It wasn't that bad of a walk. I had to ignore almost every ped signal for it to not be super slow though.

Walking works if you have someplace to go. The streetcar corridor happens to have the majority of places people want to be downtown so you get a crunch on the service. it's also currently setup so it's easy to park on either end and use it to go further into downtown, like walking two blocks to Sprint Center- one of the first days of four train service every train was filling at Union Station and taking people to the city market

The solution is what everyone knows, remove cars from downtown. The easiest starting point would be frequent weekend bus service into more of the city. We can't reduce traffic if the only way to ride the train is to park downtown. Moving people 2-4 blocks out just shifts the problem area.
Offer an incentive to ride the bus the first couple of months on the weekend, like if you have a bus ticket you get the cost of the ticket off on your bill at a downtown retailer.

Look at the Royals vs Cubs world series celebration. We had tons of cars downtown, parking literally everywhere, and they had crunches getting a train back home on the commuter system. We couldn't provide enough busses to do the same because of the capital-labor math problem I've used to show a high density train is cheaper than the same density of bus service. We're not setup for a crazy large event. But we are for a normal load.
https://www.dnainfo.com/chicago/2016110 ... ays-trains

I would give good odds that train delay was far better than all those people being in their car.

[shinatoo]

Seems on days like these the streetcar doesn't have the capacity to handle the traffic it has, let alone people parking and riding to the city market.

So, the popularity of the streetcar is a problem...?

It's a 4 or 5 block walk from endless open parking at 7th and Main to the City Market.
Kansas City needs to get over its fear of walking.

Just an observation. And certainly not what I was implying. I think it's great that it's getting use, just wish we could quickly increase capacity.

[miz.jordan17]

When will the streetcar authority purchase another vehicle? I remember seeing they were considering it.

[DaveKCMO]

Saturday ridership was 11,594.

Additional vehicle procurement is in progress.

[KCPowercat]

Yeah!

[earthling]

We took bus downtown around noon, got off at Crown Center - fountain plaza packed to the gills, CC shops packed to the gills, Westin jammin with Folk Music fest, Union Station packed to the gills, streetcar so jammed that there were this many people waiting at Union Station after last train left... we took MAX bus instead. This is shot of people waiting shortly after last train left, taken from MAX stop with only 4 people waiting...

[mean]

The fact that the streetcar is free is undoubtedly a factor, but holy crap. You would never see that many people at a MAX stop, even if it was free.

[JBmidtown]

Extending the streetcar and buying more trains should be priority number one. It's becoming an essential piece of infrastructure.

[earthling]

^So just to clarify most of those in pic above couldn't get on last train because it was too packed. There were more people to right of pic.

Here's River Market W stop a few hours later...

City Market Park had a good vibe...


With some smokin' goin' down...


Also checked out the Junior Olympics fencing qualification trials at Bartle Hall...

[normalthings]

Sounds like Cincinnati Bell Connector has been having a number of issues leading to declining ridership and a loss of money. They have a fraction of our ridership but more streetcars. Is anyone looking into leasing or buying Cincinnati's streetcars? We could lease a few of their streetcars while ordering new ones from Siemens. That way we meet our excess demand while Cincinnati's is still low. Money from leasing may help Cincinnati earn enough to stop losing money.
If they wanted to sell or lease(~1 or 2), it would only be a matter of weeks/months to get more streetcars instead of years before brand new ones could be delivered.

http://www.citylab.com/commute/2016/12/ ... em/510143/
http://www.cincinnati.com/story/news/po ... /96440018/
http://www.cincinnati.com/story/opinion ... /97038360/