KCRag Forum

-Capping or filling the north loop will be expensive. If the linear park concept is pursued (which I'm not endorsing) then hopefully they wouldn't actually fill in 100% of the land. imo it would be better to leave it at least partially below grade so that people can walk underneath the intersecting...

I've now gotten to the part of the report where it says that the scores for development potential do not take into account the likelihood that any development will actually take place. Eh.

Can you imagine the NIMBY shit storm that would accompany an attempt to rezone the land along the county club ROW? I think Waldo and south was supportive of redevelopment in the previous study Here's what it says: "The Corridor is characterized by a range of support where support increases as ...

CorneliusFB wrote: ↑Wed Feb 23, 2022 10:47 pm Can you imagine the NIMBY shit storm that would accompany an attempt to rezone the land along the county club ROW?

It would have to be targeted pretty selectively. But you wouldn't need to upzone everything in sight in order to get a good amount of new development.

I also see that the study estimated lower construction costs for the CC ROW, but only because it proposes single-tracking and not because it's inherently cheaper. But isn't it cheaper to build on empty land than in a street? I've always thought that was the case but I don't know where to find hard d...

You can't just pick a street because it has space -- in KC they ALL have space. The corridor has to have trip generators now -- residents and jobs, preferably plenty of both. Hardly any of the leading candidates have changed and they're mostly represented by existing transit service today. Start th...

Longer trains really shouldn't be a factor for near-term planning. The capacity of each streetcar train is already some 3x the capacity of a bus, and Kansas City can barely muster enough transit ridership to run core bus routes at decent frequencies. The problem with virtually every major transit pr...

Commute times are quick in KC But how many more office jobs can be added downtown before that stops being true? It's been a long time since I've driven downtown during rush hour, but back when I did I always lost several minutes to congestion, and I assume that hadn't changed much up until the pand...

It doesn't make any sense to build separate light rail and streetcar networks when the streetcar already uses light rail technology. Rails are just a piece of infrastructure. Nothing says you can't mix and match services and nothing says you can't change those services in the future. Building a mixe...

It's not a coincidence that all the land bordering all of the highways is vacant or industrial while there are pockets of activity away from them. Highways are blight. Remove the blight and it becomes a lot easier to get the land developed. The Cordish towers are getting massive subsidies. P&L a...

The trench is a massive investment for little gain. How much of the cost of the old proposal was due to trench issues? If you're running a tunnel north-south through downtown then the trains could enter that tunnel from the north end rather than the south. For that matter you could have through-run...

If that's the site it's just gonna generate sprawl all the way out to Lawrence.

Transfers kill ridership. It's empirically shown that an average person will often choose a one-seat ride over a two-seat ride even when the two-seat ride is a bit quicker, and in this case we're talking about a transfer which is guaranteed to be significantly slower. Taking transit is slow even in ...

The only subway I see making sense is one through the north loop as its decommissioned. Tunnels proposed in Nashville and Austin are $1 billion+ cap ex The cost for the barebones commuter rail system proposed 10+ years ago was already a billion dollars just for slow one-way rush hour service. Once ...

The thing about "it's too easy to drive in KC" is that that statement depends entirely on current traffic volume... while KC has tons of highway miles, it doesn't really have an excessive number of lanes leading to downtown, and if you start adding in more jobs downtown then you could quic...

Andy Reid may be a great coach Monday through Friday, but on gameday he's a liability. Week after week the Chiefs build a comfortable lead and then completely stop scoring points. The only way we managed to win a Super Bowl was to fall behind in every single game. People overlook a lot of stuff beca...

Maybe I'm just old-fashioned, but my favorite plazas are basically just urban forests with some paths and benches running through the trees. And the one that specifically comes to mind is actually built above a subterranean parking garage, but you'd never guess it based on the size of the trees. It ...

Roeland Park has been trying for a long time to find a developer that's interested in this site. I'm assuming they're giving away the farm in incentives here.

Just not a fan of most American style commuter rail. Even the Commuter rail in DC is terrible. Unless you build commuter rail that is actually usable all day long and connects many urban areas and has many stops (like Chicago Metra etc) it's just not worth it. Commuter rail in Europe is basically a...

A full blown commuter rail line from Olathe to Union Station would probably only be used by about 1000-2000 people a day max. What's the point? I know you're asking this rhetorically, but shifting 2000 commuters from cars to transit would mean 2000 fewer parking spaces downtown, which saves some $5...