KCRag Forum

I knew that in Proposition B (which Missouri voters mutalated, due to Holden's douchebagishness) there was supposedly going to be a new Paseo Bridge carrying US 71, I-35, and I-29 across MO river to NKC. Well now that whole plan has gone to shit. And now that the poor thing acts like a camel-toe on a Saturday night, I've been reading reports that all MODOT will do is repair it. Now what the hell. If you haven't notice, St. Charles/St. Louis Counties have a nicely paved 5 lane east-westbound(10 lanes total) bridge connecting across the MO. I say Kay Barnes needs to get off her ass along with Sam Graves and do some bitching for a new bridge that is rightfully ours! We've put up with the pitiful thing for 50 years and it's due time for Kansas City to see that state tax dollars do exist!

I found this on the Downtown Council website... I think this may have been what we'eve been waiting for regarding the Paseo Bridge and the North Loop highways...
I've already found a graphic regarding the north loop. It studies the alternatives to replacing the Paseo with one bridge, two bridges, or keeping the paseo and building a bridge with it.

http://www.downtownkc.org/content.aspx?pgID=894

Alternatives for Highway "urban enhancements".

http://www.kcskyscrapers.com/albums/ano ... erials.png
http://www.kcskyscrapers.com/albums/ano ... bridge.png

would the "deck" be a parking lot?   

i'm all about covering up those highways. what's all that beige represent? extra-large sidewalks, new greenspace?

The plan includes the whole north leg of the loop, not jus the bridge.  All the way back to the Broadway Bridge approach, where they want to put in a big SPUI.  Don't get too excited yet, the enhancements like the deck won't happen unless the city puts in a lot of its own money.

Be sure to attend the public meetings next week for more info.

the whole loop is due to be replaced i guess, but there isnt the money anywhere. the whole damn scar of highways strangling downtown need to be removed in my opinion. where the highway would be rebuilt, i don't know or care.

If money was no object, I'd love to see KC's own "big dig," to completely bury the downtown expressways.

Unfortunately, money is an object, and few people seem willing to render it up for things that aren't exciting.

does that image show the oak approach to the HOA bridge removed?  it would be great if that flyover was removed and the approach was treated as a simple highway interchange with signals, and then oak proceeded at grade through independece, 5th street, and 3rd street, before becoming a bridge.  maybe put signals at those three intersections.  it would do wonders in connecting columbus park back into the river market.

Many details (like the Oak approach) are unknown.  MoDOT is using this for their first big design-build project.  That means the contractor will a lot more leeway in making design decisions along the way.  This makes for a troubling regarding public input.  We'll have to be very vigilent as this thing progress and design decisions are made.

it seems that their CBD alternative B discusses simplifying the Missouri 9 interchange into an at grade interchange and reestablishing indendence avenue as the frontage road on the north all the way to broadway.  that would be fantastic...

we need an advocate planner, or "context sensitive" engineer to represent a better plan for us! yes..

eh..


of the north loop or the south loop, which would be better served by a low speed boulevard ( a real parisan style boulevard mind you, with a parking and low speed lane with wide sidewalks and a faster center section) as replacement for the freeway. im saying which one would be better to tear out....



octavia boulevard rendering showing "local lane"

Bulldoze I-70 on the north side of Downtown, tunnel over it, and leave it for a future Light Rail station with tracks converging on a platform in the tunnel.

A man can dream, can't he? 

You guys just aren't practical about the highways. They don't hurt Downtown, and heck, they help it... They make people have to come through Downtown. Demolishing it and rebuilding it somewhere else will just reroute all the cars and commuters to a location away from the center of the city.

Personally, I'd like them to build two new bridges, and name one, the Lambert Bridge...

Of course they bring people downtown--you're right.  But, do we really need a north side of the loop, though?  All I'm talking about is the portion of 70 between Broadway and the Paseo Bridge.  The southern portion is much busier.  There's a lot that could be done with the space that the north side occupies.

KCDevin wrote: You guys just aren't practical about the highways. They don't hurt Downtown, and heck, they help it... They make people have to come through Downtown. Demolishing it and rebuilding it somewhere else will just reroute all the cars and commuters to a location away from the center of the city.

Personally, I'd like them to build two new bridges, and name one, the Lambert Bridge...

devin: no offense - you sound like a circa 1960 traffic engineer, you might want to read more up to date literature,

the whole premise that highways help downtowns is why they did this in the first place - it's quite debatable whether it helped downtown kc, or hastened its fall. i would argue it was was negligible either way because a certain process was well under way...but i would argue that this snare of freeways are an obstacle to downtown revitalization now.

take a look at:

portland, oregon
san francisco, california
milwaukee, wisconson

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harbor_Dri ... he_freeway


"The closure of Harbor Drive is widely considered a significant event in urban planning; the first time a freeway had ever been removed and not replaced. It (along with the subsequent cancellation of Interstate 505 and the Mt. Hood Freeway) cemented Portland's reputation as a model of pedestrian- and transit-friendly design. Since the completion of Interstate 205 in the mid 1980s, no new freeways have been built in the city, other than a short realignment of U.S. Highway 30 near the Fremont Bridge.

Many other cities in the United States have since demolished freeways as well, or considering such action. San Francisco is well-known for the (earthquake-assisted) demolition of the Embarcadero Freeway, Boston demolished the elevated portion of Interstate 93 as part of the massive Big Dig project, and Milwaukee removed the Park East Freeway. In addition, Seattle is now considering removal of the Alaskan Way Viaduct along the downtown waterfront."

The original intentions in building the fetid downtown highway look were based on the supposition that without easy motoring access, downtown would die.

The opposite is what happened. All that "easy motoring access" is what killed downtown and made it the cesspool hellhole it was for so long.

Tosspot wrote: The original intentions in building the fetid downtown highway look were based on the supposition that without easy motoring access, downtown would die.

The opposite is what happened. All that "easy motoring access" is what killed downtown and made it the cesspool hellhole it was for so long.

true, i was arguing that sprawl was already so far underway that it didnt matter whether the freeway loop helped or hurt - but that sort of ignores the overall orgasm of downtown destruction that this whole process of hyper-autocentrism entailed. 

Amazingly all of the major european cities seem to do just fine without having massive highway viaducts cutting through the hearts of their downtown districts.  Some might even be so bold as to suggest that is why the cities have stayed so healthy during the years that all of the American cities were rotting. 

LenexatoKCMO wrote: Amazingly all of the major european cities seem to do just fine without having massive highway viaducts cutting through the hearts of their downtown districts.  Some might even be so bold as to suggest that is why the cities have stayed so healthy during the years that all of the American cities were rotting. 

heheh, well, this should be a widely accepted fact now...but apparently it isnt in kansas city. the overall focus on road building over transit etc in our cores and across the hinterlands probably screwed us over either way, even if we had avoided our city centers.

interesting discussion.

this draft eis is probably getting more attention -- and from a wider range of interests -- than any previous draft eis done in this region.  most of the attention i see is focused on the i-29/i-35 corridor from the northeast corner of the loop to armour road in nkc.  some of the major issues are number of lanes to be added, provision for bikes and peds in the corridor, provision for transit in the corridor, impacts on adjacent low-income and minority communities, and the level of uncertainty about the "final product" resulting from modot's decision to use design-build.

by all means, *do* attend at least one of the public meetings.

Shutting down the north loop would put a great strain on the other highways. The south loop cannot be expanded, so only the east and west loops could be expanded. What would happen to the Heart of America Bridge, would we just abandon that bridge because we hate the idea that there is a north loop? Or should we just let it loop to connect to the east loop?