Bike Lanes

[langosta]

Are you trolling us?

No, just getting a bit tired of some of the urban development cliche that doesn’t really seem to change the city as drastically as it needs to. Let’s just be very honest, very few people want to bike commute to work. There, I said it. It’s probably in the 100s of people in a metro of millions. Sure, we’ve gained several thousand people DT in the last 20 years I’ve been on this board. The suburbs outgrew us by far. Walkability is nice but it has to be in the bottom ten on why people choose to live somewhere. “Schools”, “low crime”, and “good paying jobs” probably top the list. So, leave Brookside Blvd alone and quit trying to “right size” every street every time you hear a tire squeak from your living room. Focus on the big stuff instead of spending millions on plans and neighborhood meetings and more plans to replace the first plans and “why aren’t we Amsterdam?”. When’s the last time we had a new major business move DT and why can’t we keep even small businesses like a dog bar? When’s the payoff?!? When does the train go downhill instead of always trying to climb a hill? Why does it seem we only have one developer in this city and they can’t seem to work in parallel. Happy for the WC, but it’s not enough. Time to go ride my bike.

I want the same things as you but I disagree on how to get there.

[grovester]

Are you trolling us?

No, just getting a bit tired of some of the urban development cliche that doesn’t really seem to change the city as drastically as it needs to. Let’s just be very honest, very few people want to bike commute to work. There, I said it. It’s probably in the 100s of people in a metro of millions. Sure, we’ve gained several thousand people DT in the last 20 years I’ve been on this board. The suburbs outgrew us by far. Walkability is nice but it has to be in the bottom ten on why people choose to live somewhere. “Schools”, “low crime”, and “good paying jobs” probably top the list. So, leave Brookside Blvd alone and quit trying to “right size” every street every time you hear a tire squeak from your living room. Focus on the big stuff instead of spending millions on plans and neighborhood meetings and more plans to replace the first plans and “why aren’t we Amsterdam?”. When’s the last time we had a new major business move DT and why can’t we keep even small businesses like a dog bar? When’s the payoff?!? When does the train go downhill instead of always trying to climb a hill? Why does it seem we only have one developer in this city and they can’t seem to work in parallel. Happy for the WC, but it’s not enough. Time to go ride my bike.

You seem to think that people don't want it, when actually, they've never had a choice.

[beautyfromashes]

You seem to think that people don't want it, when actually, they've never had a choice.

If enough wanted it, it would be there. Perhaps, you could say, "Not enough people know they want it.", but that just seems a bit pretentious.

I ride the Gillham cycle track all the time. I never see people in work attire. It's a great connection between lots of Midtown and downtown. Obviously, people have to choice to take it downtown for work. It's fun. But, people aren't using it for that. And the streetcar isn't for commuting. It's the same as the cycle track. You'll get some UMKC students who live in the dorms without a car who will use it to get to the bars downtown or to work in a restaurant but we're talking very small numbers.

[beautyfromashes]

Are you trolling us?

No, just getting a bit tired of some of the urban development cliche that doesn’t really seem to change the city as drastically as it needs to. Let’s just be very honest, very few people want to bike commute to work. There, I said it. It’s probably in the 100s of people in a metro of millions. Sure, we’ve gained several thousand people DT in the last 20 years I’ve been on this board. The suburbs outgrew us by far. Walkability is nice but it has to be in the bottom ten on why people choose to live somewhere. “Schools”, “low crime”, and “good paying jobs” probably top the list. So, leave Brookside Blvd alone and quit trying to “right size” every street every time you hear a tire squeak from your living room. Focus on the big stuff instead of spending millions on plans and neighborhood meetings and more plans to replace the first plans and “why aren’t we Amsterdam?”. When’s the last time we had a new major business move DT and why can’t we keep even small businesses like a dog bar? When’s the payoff?!? When does the train go downhill instead of always trying to climb a hill? Why does it seem we only have one developer in this city and they can’t seem to work in parallel. Happy for the WC, but it’s not enough. Time to go ride my bike.

I want the same things as you but I disagree on how to get there.

Maybe, this is me turning from an idealist dreamer about Kansas City to a realist. I lived in Austin in the 90s. I've seen Portland boom. Visited friends for long periods in Brooklyn in 2000s. I have seen in Kansas City what those places had before they boomed with increasing levels of development. But, we're no further along now after me living here for decades than Minneapolis at Y2K. We're still 1/4 century behind and I'm not even sure we're making up ground. We have made some progress. The people who got the streetcar built deserve high praise. Kay Barnes' vision was commendable and we have some tortoise-paced momentum downtown. I just really thought it would take off at some point. I really want Kansas City to be on the tongue of the nation. "Have you been to Kansas City?!! It's amazing what is happening there!" We can't even get one of our sports teams downtown without hell-all drama. We tear down buildings on the Plaza for them to sit. And maybe it should be alright knowing that I was part of the beginning of a change for this city, but I'd sure like to know without a doubt that the pace will quicken and speed up from those beginning pushes to see substantial change. Does a vision of what the marvelous future could be turn to delusion if you don't get to see it come to fruition? Is this city really going to be a Johnson County-dominated squeaky suburb town for the next 100 years, cause I don't see much change besides a few more people on this message board, and more road diets aren't what's going to get us there. And I still can't get to Europe without fucking going through New York or Chicago.

[beautyfromashes]

If I had the ability to bike to work or take streetcar everyday I would. But we don’t have the bike lanes for it very well and the streetcar hasn’t made it to Plaza yet. Once streetcar is to Plaza/UMKC I think that one could reasonably pull off a carless lifestyle in KC. Everything you’d need would be there except Royals & ride to the airport. Although even that will be solved in the next 4-5 years.

There are bike lanes from UMKC to downtown now already.

[langosta]

No, just getting a bit tired of some of the urban development cliche that doesn’t really seem to change the city as drastically as it needs to. Let’s just be very honest, very few people want to bike commute to work. There, I said it. It’s probably in the 100s of people in a metro of millions. Sure, we’ve gained several thousand people DT in the last 20 years I’ve been on this board. The suburbs outgrew us by far. Walkability is nice but it has to be in the bottom ten on why people choose to live somewhere. “Schools”, “low crime”, and “good paying jobs” probably top the list. So, leave Brookside Blvd alone and quit trying to “right size” every street every time you hear a tire squeak from your living room. Focus on the big stuff instead of spending millions on plans and neighborhood meetings and more plans to replace the first plans and “why aren’t we Amsterdam?”. When’s the last time we had a new major business move DT and why can’t we keep even small businesses like a dog bar? When’s the payoff?!? When does the train go downhill instead of always trying to climb a hill? Why does it seem we only have one developer in this city and they can’t seem to work in parallel. Happy for the WC, but it’s not enough. Time to go ride my bike.

I want the same things as you but I disagree on how to get there.

Maybe, this is me turning from an idealist dreamer about Kansas City to a realist. I lived in Austin in the 90s. I've seen Portland boom. Visited friends for long periods in Brooklyn in 2000s. I have seen in Kansas City what those places had before they boomed with increasing levels of development. But, we're no further along now after me living here for decades than Minneapolis at Y2K. We're still 1/4 century behind and I'm not even sure we're making up ground. We have made some progress. The people who got the streetcar built deserve high praise. Kay Barnes' vision was commendable and we have some tortoise-paced momentum downtown. I just really thought it would take off at some point. I really want Kansas City to be on the tongue of the nation. "Have you been to Kansas City?!! It's amazing what is happening there!" We can't even get one of our sports teams downtown without hell-all drama. We tear down buildings on the Plaza for them to sit. And maybe it should be alright knowing that I was part of the beginning of a change for this city, but I'd sure like to know without a doubt that the pace will quicken and speed up from those beginning pushes to see substantial change. Does a vision of what the marvelous future could be turn to delusion if you don't get to see it come to fruition? Is this city really going to be a Johnson County-dominated squeaky suburb town for the next 100 years, cause I don't see much change besides a few more people on this message board, and more road diets aren't what's going to get us there. And I still can't get to Europe without fucking going through New York or Chicago.

Understood. My final argument is this:

In 1990 we had 5 major roadblocks to getting KC back on track. In the 30 years since the 1990s, we are only now just now addressing most of those big 5 issues.

1. Revitalize Downtown ( 2007 on)
2. Connecting the String of Pearls (2025)
3. Modernizing KCI (2023)
4. Increasing Hotel Capacity to Align with Modern Convention Needs (2016 on)
5. Downtown Sports (2028)

Now that we are finally addressing these issues, downtown is starting to roar back relatively quickly.

Downtown population growth accelerated around the time that the streetcar was passed in 2012. Growth is continuing and will hopefully expand into Midtown and the Plaza area next. Tourism is a growing business with Kansas City hosting events unimaginable once upon a time. What is more impressive is that the events are coming DESPITE the suburban nature of our city. FIFA and the NFL see the vision for downtown KC and have bought into it.

KC's future (and ability to pop off) hinges on its ability to continue identifying and executing on "the next project". In 1990, we knew exactly what needed to be done. It just took us 20 years to step forward and another 10 to start building things. In 2004, Cordish had their little neighborhood proposed. In 2024, we will have 4 different developers building their own neighborhoods (Somera Roads WB, Ball Park District, KC Current Riverfront, Cordish P&L).




What I think the region needs to address next:

Regional Transit (County Funding and Expanded Rail Service)
Major Convention Center Renovation and Upgrades including BAP
Speculative Office Construction Downtown

[smh]

Are you trolling us?

No, just getting a bit tired of some of the urban development cliche that doesn’t really seem to change the city as drastically as it needs to. Let’s just be very honest, very few people want to bike commute to work. There, I said it. It’s probably in the 100s of people in a metro of millions. Sure, we’ve gained several thousand people DT in the last 20 years I’ve been on this board. The suburbs outgrew us by far. Walkability is nice but it has to be in the bottom ten on why people choose to live somewhere. “Schools”, “low crime”, and “good paying jobs” probably top the list. So, leave Brookside Blvd alone and quit trying to “right size” every street every time you hear a tire squeak from your living room. Focus on the big stuff instead of spending millions on plans and neighborhood meetings and more plans to replace the first plans and “why aren’t we Amsterdam?”. When’s the last time we had a new major business move DT and why can’t we keep even small businesses like a dog bar? When’s the payoff?!? When does the train go downhill instead of always trying to climb a hill? Why does it seem we only have one developer in this city and they can’t seem to work in parallel. Happy for the WC, but it’s not enough. Time to go ride my bike.

Man, it took us 60 years to get here. Will take us at least that long to get back. Would encourage you to pick up a copy of Walkable City or read some Strong Towns posts to see what we're talking about it. Commuting by bike isn't the end goal. A safe, healthy, and happy community built in an economically sustainable fashion is the goal. Right now this country is overweight, depressed, and being built in a financially unsustainable way. I, and millions of others, would submit that each of these issues is in large part due to our development patterns over the last half century which have induced severe/sole reliance on the automobile.

EDIT: Would also say based on your other posts, that if you don't want this to be a Johnson County dominated sprawl region, then KCMO needs to differentiate itself by playing to its strengths. The city's strength is that it is not the suburbs. It has the bones of a dense, walkable place and progress is being made to build upon that structure. It is infuriatingly slow and I, perhaps like you, have moved from blind optimism at 25 to something bordering on pessimism now that I'm basically 40. The problem is daunting, and it is super frustrating that governments are not all pulling in the same direction (i.e., JoCo continues to build the latest Rodrock community at 19Xth Street instead of densifying existing neighborhoods).

[taxi]

Most things in KC move at an achingly slow pace. The development I expected to happen in Columbus Park 20 years ago is just now happening.

Regarding bike lanes, an amazing thing happened to me yesterday. I've been riding the the full length of the Gillham track a few times a week since it opened. EVERY SINGLE TIME, I almost get hit. Both ways, without fail. I did not ride for 2 months and yesterday I rode it, both ways. No threat of accidents and I had several drivers make good eye contact and even wave to me to let me know they saw me. It seems people are finally understanding how it works. I thought it would take years and maybe a whole generation but was pleasantly surprised – hope it wasn't just a fluke.

[chingon]

Maybe, this is me turning from an idealist dreamer about Kansas City to a realist. I lived in Austin in the 90s. I've seen Portland boom. Visited friends for long periods in Brooklyn in 2000s. I have seen in Kansas City what those places had before they boomed with increasing levels of development. But, we're no further along now after me living here for decades than Minneapolis at Y2K. We're still 1/4 century behind and I'm not even sure we're making up ground. We have made some progress. The people who got the streetcar built deserve high praise. Kay Barnes' vision was commendable and we have some tortoise-paced momentum downtown. I just really thought it would take off at some point. I really want Kansas City to be on the tongue of the nation. "Have you been to Kansas City?!! It's amazing what is happening there!" We can't even get one of our sports teams downtown without hell-all drama. We tear down buildings on the Plaza for them to sit. And maybe it should be alright knowing that I was part of the beginning of a change for this city, but I'd sure like to know without a doubt that the pace will quicken and speed up from those beginning pushes to see substantial change. Does a vision of what the marvelous future could be turn to delusion if you don't get to see it come to fruition? Is this city really going to be a Johnson County-dominated squeaky suburb town for the next 100 years, cause I don't see much change besides a few more people on this message board, and more road diets aren't what's going to get us there. And I still can't get to Europe without fucking going through New York or Chicago.

Hahahahahaha. You sweet summer child.

[phuqueue]

You seem to think that people don't want it, when actually, they've never had a choice.

If enough wanted it, it would be there. Perhaps, you could say, "Not enough people know they want it.", but that just seems a bit pretentious.

I ride the Gillham cycle track all the time. I never see people in work attire. It's a great connection between lots of Midtown and downtown. Obviously, people have to choice to take it downtown for work. It's fun. But, people aren't using it for that. And the streetcar isn't for commuting. It's the same as the cycle track. You'll get some UMKC students who live in the dorms without a car who will use it to get to the bars downtown or to work in a restaurant but we're talking very small numbers.

The idea that "if enough wanted it, it would be there" is superficially true but also really naive. What people want is malleable. It is a function of their circumstances and what they perceive their options to be. I don't believe that right now, in KC in 2023, there are vast legions who want to bike to work but just don't know it yet. I would more or less agree with the estimate you provided in your other post, that probably only hundreds of people in the entire metro "want" to commute by bike, and I suspect many of them already do. The challenge is not to reveal to people that, unbeknownst even to themselves, they actually wanted something different all along. The challenge is to change their minds so that they want something now that they didn't want before, and that requires changing the circumstances under which they're making their decisions. Bikes aren't big in Copenhagen because Danish people have some "biking" gene that Americans lack, bikes are big in Copenhagen because Copenhagen is a city that is easier to navigate on a bike than in a car. 30+ million people don't ride transit in Tokyo every day because Japanese people naturally prefer trains, they do it because it's the best way to get around Tokyo. These are the results of historical circumstance and past policy decisions (policy decisions that were themselves dictated by the circumstances facing policymakers at the time), they aren't a reflection of any innate, eternal preference of the people. What makes KC different from these places is not the nature of the people and what they do or don't want, it's that KC has spent most of the past century making itself a place that is best navigated by car. If we want to get people out of their cars and into other modes, KC needs to be redesigned to better suit those other modes. I'm getting the impression that maybe you don't care so much which modes people use, which might be where we aren't seeing eye-to-eye, but I think you should care, because you're never going to have the vibrancy that you claim you want in a city dominated by cars.

[beautyfromashes]

^ The #1 city that most people are moving to right now is… Las Vegas, non-bastion of anything urban design. So, why are we trying to “convince people that this is what they want.” We have a very short window in this city. We’re going to get even the smallest of spotlights for the WC. We have Mahomes and the Chiefs. The NFL Draft was here. A new airport and streetcar extension, maybe an Royals Stadium. Our city leaders HAVE to parlay this into some major job creation downtown. It hasn’t happened in my lifetime. Jobs have to enter the discussion. Steal some California HQs. Give sone tax breaks. I do appreciate the progress we’re making but the slow plodding pace needs to quicken.

[phuqueue]

What does any of that have to do with turning Brookside Blvd (or any other city street) into a traffic sewer?

[smh]

What does any of that have to do with turning Brookside Blvd (or any other city street) into a traffic sewer?

*keeping Brookside Boulevard a traffic sewer.

[TheBigChuckbowski]

I never see people in work attire.

I never wear work attire when I commute by bike. Weather-wise, there's about five days a year when that might make sense. Anyone out cycling on a street from 7-9am and 4-6pm M-F can probably safely be assumed to be commuting.

[Anthony_Hugo98]

^ The #1 city that most people are moving to right now is… Las Vegas, non-bastion of anything urban design. So, why are we trying to “convince people that this is what they want.”

While I get where you’re going, and agree with the latter half of this, you’re not making the point you want to here. Context for why Vegas is the #1 growth market is for a very specific 2 reasons, cost of living, and proximity to southern CA.

[beautyfromashes]

^ The #1 city that most people are moving to right now is… Las Vegas, non-bastion of anything urban design. So, why are we trying to “convince people that this is what they want.”

While I get where you’re going, and agree with the latter half of this, you’re not making the point you want to here. Context for why Vegas is the #1 growth market is for a very specific 2 reasons, cost of living, and proximity to southern CA.

What is your (and whoever cares to answer) opinion on what makes a city an attraction to new population growth and business development/relocation? What caused some cities to be the "it" city in the recent past, thinking about Seattle of the 90s, Austin, 00s, Portland 10s and maybe Nashville now? What is keeping Kansas City from moving into rapid growth?

[kboish]

Creating a long term vision and then having leadership consistently stick to and understand what the plan is and how their decisions are impacting it.

If you pay attention to one city council election cycle here, you will see that every 4years the new people (generally) coming aboard have no clue what was done in the previous years (except to complaint about it) and are constantly reinventing the wheel. Typically they spend years one and two learning or tearing down what was previously done and then in year 3 or 4 they reach the same conclusions as their predecessors and say they have finally figured out the solution.

[beautyfromashes]

Creating a long term vision and then having leadership consistently stick to and understand what the plan is and how their decisions are impacting it.

Agree this is an issue, but what is the vision for this city. Specifically, what makes people come here?

[chingon]

Specifically, what makes people come here?

Growing up in Topeka.

[kboish]

Creating a long term vision and then having leadership consistently stick to and understand what the plan is and how their decisions are impacting it.

Agree this is an issue, but what is the vision for this city. Specifically, what makes people come here?

It doesn’t matter what is chosen. The point is, pick something and execute. That is the lesson learned from other cities. It doesn’t happen by accident typically.