Bridging Park & Market

Issues concerning Downtown as described by the Downtown Council. River to 31st Street, I-35 to Bruce R. Watkins.
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Re: Bridging Park & Market.

Post by ToDactivist »

normalthings wrote: Mon Oct 12, 2020 8:06 pm
ToDactivist wrote: Mon Oct 12, 2020 6:33 pm
normalthings wrote: Mon Oct 12, 2020 3:38 pm
KC Southern would only support rail to Union Station. That was way too expensive. Jackson County Commuter Rail polled extremely well and an official election campaign was very close to being launched. County Executive went to prison (in 2016?).

Lots had changed since 2012 - hope to see Troy pick this up now that he’s at the county.
Well prison can be an impediment to progress...Troy is interesting but silent lately, perhaps surveying the vibe at county? Personally I didnt think Union Station the right binder anyway but a good fallback. Also heard BNSF wouldn't allow it there. Unsure who owns tracks per your KCS comment. That leaves 670 or 70 ditches repurposed for spoked commuter rail albeit I have no idea how the rail gets there from E-W ingress points but grander things solved elsewhere worldwide. Overall KC (MARC, County, Regional Council) has to plan for an eventuality of post auto transit and before it gets really expensive i.e boring.
The UP yard in NE KC closed down recently presenting a new opportunity 3rd Grand could be adjusted and still work. I70 ditch is an interesting proposal. A quick glance at google maps makes it look like you could travel from north loop along 35 down to the NE bottoms
had toyed with this some time ago thinking wherever commuter rail intersected the streetcar, it needed to be near/in downtown (hub/spoke thing) and also seeing/hearing I-70 as a waste of good real estate then leveraging it for commuter transit, bus, parking, ballpark on top (alas not happening) now parks/etc on top but an ideal intersection near downtown perhaps. correct on easer into W Bottoms and ? on east side. Disclosure - I'm a meddling amateur and I cant figure out how to add the map...
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Re: Bridging Park & Market

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ToDactivist wrote: Mon Oct 12, 2020 6:33 pm Personally I didnt think Union Station the right binder anyway but a good fallback.
Why is it that you see US as the less desirable option? While placing a commuter station in the NE part of DT would be a boon for the north land commuters, it significantly underutilizes an already existing asset, but also would make western based trains heading East go pasts DT to bring people into DT. What I’ve seen in Europe has been a centrally located station regardless of where the commuters are coming from. Just my two cents though, would love to hear your thoughts!
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Re: Bridging Park & Market

Post by normalthings »

Anthony_Hugo98 wrote: Tue Oct 13, 2020 1:22 pm
ToDactivist wrote: Mon Oct 12, 2020 6:33 pm Personally I didnt think Union Station the right binder anyway but a good fallback.
Why is it that you see US as the less desirable option? While placing a commuter station in the NE part of DT would be a boon for the north land commuters, it significantly underutilizes an already existing asset, but also would make western based trains heading East go pasts DT to bring people into DT. What I’ve seen in Europe has been a centrally located station regardless of where the commuters are coming from. Just my two cents though, would love to hear your thoughts!
$1 billion additional cost, limited train movements, etc
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Re: Bridging Park & Market

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Anthony_Hugo98 wrote: Tue Oct 13, 2020 1:22 pm Why is it that you see US as the less desirable option? While placing a commuter station in the NE part of DT would be a boon for the north land commuters, it significantly underutilizes an already existing asset, but also would make western based trains heading East go pasts DT to bring people into DT. What I’ve seen in Europe has been a centrally located station regardless of where the commuters are coming from. Just my two cents though, would love to hear your thoughts!
You're comparing to train stations built 100-150 years ago rather than ones built today

On UK's High Speed 2 a major new station to transfer to local service will be at Old Oak Common, which is about 9 miles from the center of London. This won't be a minor rural transfer point, it's connectivity to service to Heathrow

For any station point, it's not how central or the distance that matters, it's travel time.

You're focused on the train station, you need to be focused on wait time, transfer options and connectivity distance.

For the sake of comparison assume that zero busses would switch to a Union Station stop but they would all go down to the riverfront, for a three-mode transfer point.

Sure, you might spend 5 minutes longer reaching that point but you save a bus route transfer for a lot of people, the streetcar is closer with the funded extension and being the same track gauge, it's easy to extend the streetcar to use the same station and the two modes share a platform

Even building an elevator up to Main from the current Amtrak platform you come out a block and a half away at union station.
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Re: Bridging Park & Market

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Anthony_Hugo98 wrote: Tue Oct 13, 2020 1:22 pm
ToDactivist wrote: Mon Oct 12, 2020 6:33 pm Personally I didnt think Union Station the right binder anyway but a good fallback.
Why is it that you see US as the less desirable option? While placing a commuter station in the NE part of DT would be a boon for the north land commuters, it significantly underutilizes an already existing asset, but also would make western based trains heading East go pasts DT to bring people into DT. What I’ve seen in Europe has been a centrally located station regardless of where the commuters are coming from. Just my two cents though, would love to hear your thoughts!
US would be the most logical option - had it been a bit more centrally located within a dense neighborhood (acknowledging the streetcar) and BNSF allowed this to happen. I am just going off hearsay that that was not in the cards, period. Too bad, if true. I really dont care where it is other than knowing that this must happen somewhere convenient and it is imperative that someone consider the cost of the infrastructure at the edges of the spokes vs near the hub and the hidden agenda of attracting talent from neighboring communities (Lawrence, etal) into the city.
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Re: Bridging Park & Market

Post by Rabble »

I find it strange that the exciting topic of removing the barrier between Columbus Park and the City Market, so quickly digressed into a discussion about rail commuting. I'm sorry young futurists but the primary form of commuting in KC will be the automobile FOR THE REMAINDER OF YOUR LIVES. Let's let the 22nd century worry about rail commuting and let us focus on creative ways to improve the many parking issues in the City Market. Find ways to free up the surface parking lots from the parking leases, so depressingly brought up by Flying Ember and others. There has to be a way for City Hall to help the developers turn this area into KC's greatest attraction.
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Re: Bridging Park & Market

Post by flyingember »

Rabble wrote: Wed Oct 14, 2020 8:49 am I find it strange that the exciting topic of removing the barrier between Columbus Park and the City Market, so quickly digressed into a discussion about rail commuting. I'm sorry young futurists but the primary form of commuting in KC will be the automobile FOR THE REMAINDER OF YOUR LIVES. Let's let the 22nd century worry about rail commuting and let us focus on creative ways to improve the many parking issues in the City Market. Find ways to free up the surface parking lots from the parking leases, so depressingly brought up by Flying Ember and others. There has to be a way for City Hall to help the developers turn this area into KC's greatest attraction.
Incredibly, you would be wrong but not in how you think.

It's the bike that has the greatest opportunity and biking will drive demand for transit because once you're biking more places, more people will look for ways to bridge that gap without needing a car.

The idea is to induce demand any way possible and that can be to increase demand for bus service too.

So I made a new thread
viewtopic.php?f=9&t=21075
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Re: Bridging Park & Market

Post by dukuboy1 »

Make no mistake I understand that commuting via cars will still be the dominate form of transportation in the city. However I am 47 and can see a shift as the city's populations grows over the next 25yrs for a desire for more options of mass transit. I even expect to be alive and god willing, vibrant still at 72 :)

But I think the biggest mistake would be to not try to incorporate something when you have a chance to do so. Even a simple street car line coming in from the Northland to connect to what he have and the expansion plans on the table would be huge. Even if it takes at most 5% of the cars off the roads commuting in from the North, that is something.

I fully agree I would like to see better use of the land than parking lots. Building garages with Buildings on top of that land would be better than a vast open lot.
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Re: Bridging Park & Market

Post by Rabble »

It seems like the only solution out there for ugly downtown parking garages and surface lots, is to decrease the demand for parking spaces by decreasing the demand for cars. Bikes and trains are great but cars are going to dominate for another generation or two.

I think everyone here agrees that Waddell & Reed is not a good parking solution for downtown. How about what Cordish did in the Power & Light district? Could the city steal any of those ideas for the River Market?
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Re: Bridging Park & Market

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Rabble wrote: Thu Oct 15, 2020 9:42 am It seems like the only solution out there for ugly downtown parking garages and surface lots, is to decrease the demand for parking spaces by decreasing the demand for cars. Bikes and trains are great but cars are going to dominate for another generation or two.

I think everyone here agrees that Waddell & Reed is not a good parking solution for downtown. How about what Cordish did in the Power & Light district? Could the city steal any of those ideas for the River Market?
The trick is to shift cars to the least popular spaces to put anything else and remove parking from prime spaces people want to be. Let's be honest, Cherry is going to become a car sewer. MO 9 has 7200 cars per day. That's an average of 300 per hour, or 5 cars per minute.

Take the space gained and put a parking garage where MO 9 is today but also put active uses along 3rd and 5th.

Then put in a shuttle to the river market and shut down the current lots, or at least make it a lot more expensive to park right next to the market on the weekend.

The streetcar boomed because of available parking + a train ride to the destination. It didn't reduce driving but it reduced the number of parking spots needed at every destination to add people.


Waddel and Reed is a great parking solution because it's easy to reach other places from the garage by changing modes.

it just needs to be public parking on the weekends for this to work

The convention district has space for 100,000 people and there isn't enough parking + transit capacity to come close to filling it. Opening up parking for events is going to be worth a fortune if we can get conventions to come.

This is part of the financing equation that's too often missed. The city can give incentives, require public parking and get the money back in user fees in the parking garage, all without owning or maintaining the garage. Incentives need to mean equity.
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Re: Bridging Park & Market

Post by WoodDraw »

The streetcar boomed because it is free to ride. There is no friction to riding it.

Make everyone get a transit card and I bet levels fall to 25% of prepandemic levels.

With all of these projects you should do a short term what can we do now and a long term what do we need for the future, so you don't forclose on future changes.

But for right now, come on, just reconnect the grid.
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Re: Bridging Park & Market

Post by flyingember »

WoodDraw wrote: Thu Oct 15, 2020 7:24 pm The streetcar boomed because it is free to ride. There is no friction to riding it.

Make everyone get a transit card and I bet levels fall to 25% of prepandemic levels.

With all of these projects you should do a short term what can we do now and a long term what do we need for the future, so you don't forclose on future changes.

But for right now, come on, just reconnect the grid.
Reconnecting the grid induces demand for cars because it's reducing friction to drive more.

A lot of drivers don't understand this and think one wide road is better for driving, but it's really a bunch of long-distance parallel roads.
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Re: Bridging Park & Market

Post by TheLastGentleman »

flyingember wrote: Fri Oct 16, 2020 8:07 amReconnecting the grid induces demand for cars because it's reducing friction to drive more.
Some serious mental gymnastics here.
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Re: Bridging Park & Market

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TheLastGentleman wrote: Fri Oct 16, 2020 8:10 am
flyingember wrote: Fri Oct 16, 2020 8:07 amReconnecting the grid induces demand for cars because it's reducing friction to drive more.
Some serious mental gymnastics here.
Induced Demand is pretty sound. When you create a path people will use it. Reconnecting the grid is like adding lanes from A to B without widening an existing road. It's the network effect in play too, the Internet is proof of it in another form.

Overland Park has an extremely solid grid with very few places cut (mainly the freeways) and it doesn't reduce car use. South KC has a solid grid, with mainly 71 cutting it up, and it doesn't reduce car use.

The northland doesn't have a grid and it's developed much slower than Overland Park.

Removing the elevated portion of 9 won't reduce car use, it will actually create new paths which people will start to use more, increasing the amount of cars driving in surrounding neighborhoods. For example, access to Indep Ave will be improved from NKC so more drivers will take it through Columbus Park.

The way to reduce car use is to create bike only roads and transit only roads. To decrease the value of the network by cutting it up for one use but not others.

The historic dead spots downtown are where the grid has been disconnected because people don't drive there, so developers have gained value from parcels with more car connectivity first.
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Re: Bridging Park & Market

Post by Rabble »

flyingember wrote: Thu Oct 15, 2020 1:37 pm
The trick is to shift cars to the least popular spaces to put anything else and remove parking from prime spaces people want to be. Let's be honest, Cherry is going to become a car sewer. MO 9 has 7200 cars per day. That's an average of 300 per hour, or 5 cars per minute.

Take the space gained and put a parking garage where MO 9 is today but also put active uses along 3rd and 5th.

Then put in a shuttle to the river market and shut down the current lots, or at least make it a lot more expensive to park right next to the market on the weekend.

The streetcar boomed because of available parking + a train ride to the destination. It didn't reduce driving but it reduced the number of parking spots needed at every destination to add people.
OK, so this would be a Park & Ride parking structure at 3rd & Cherry, that could keep as many Northlanders off downtown streets as possible, whether shopping at the City Market or using the streetcar to get to work?
Last edited by Rabble on Fri Oct 16, 2020 9:10 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Bridging Park & Market

Post by Rabble »

flyingember wrote: Thu Oct 15, 2020 1:37 pm
Waddel and Reed is a great parking solution because it's easy to reach other places from the garage by changing modes.

it just needs to be public parking on the weekends for this to work
I thought the Waddell & Reed parking pedestal had 3 strikes:
1. Employees can just drive into their building without interacting in any other way with downtown.
2. Employees run over pedestrians as they race out off car-holes in a hurry to get back home to JOCO.
3. It's ugly
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Re: Bridging Park & Market

Post by Rabble »

flyingember wrote: Fri Oct 16, 2020 8:19 am
TheLastGentleman wrote: Fri Oct 16, 2020 8:10 am
flyingember wrote: Fri Oct 16, 2020 8:07 amReconnecting the grid induces demand for cars because it's reducing friction to drive more.
Some serious mental gymnastics here.
Induced Demand is pretty sound. When you create a path people will use it. Reconnecting the grid is like adding lanes from A to B without widening an existing road. It's the network effect in play too, the Internet is proof of it in another form.

Overland Park has an extremely solid grid with very few places cut (mainly the freeways) and it doesn't reduce car use. South KC has a solid grid, with mainly 71 cutting it up, and it doesn't reduce car use.

The northland doesn't have a grid and it's developed much slower than Overland Park.

Removing the elevated portion of 9 won't reduce car use, it will actually create new paths which people will start to use more, increasing the amount of cars driving in surrounding neighborhoods. For example, access to Indep Ave will be improved from NKC so more drivers will take it through Columbus Park.

The way to reduce car use is to create bike only roads and transit only roads. To decrease the value of the network by cutting it up for one use but not others.

The historic dead spots downtown are where the grid has been disconnected because people don't drive there, so developers have gained value from parcels with more car connectivity first.
Reconnecting the grid is not just about cars. And bringing back Walnut from 3rd to 5th is a perfect example. Yes, cars use it during the week but the real improvement is on weekends, when traffic is blocked and Walnut becomes a street party. This kind of energy was never there during Walnut's years as a pedestrian mall. My hope is the city does the same thing to Main, one block to the west.
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Re: Bridging Park & Market

Post by Rabble »

flyingember wrote: Thu Oct 15, 2020 1:37 pm
The trick is to shift cars to the least popular spaces to put anything else and remove parking from prime spaces people want to be. Let's be honest, Cherry is going to become a car sewer. MO 9 has 7200 cars per day. That's an average of 300 per hour, or 5 cars per minute.
Thank you for making me think about the traffic on Cherry after the approach/barrier is gone, but car sewer seems a little strong. With traffic lights possible at 3rd, 5th, Missouri and Independence, and no access to the north loop, it seems like a lot less people would use the HOA and choose instead the Broadway or Bond. I just hope a restaurant opens in the old Jennies so I can have a great view.
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Re: Bridging Park & Market

Post by flyingember »

Rabble wrote: Fri Oct 16, 2020 8:37 am
flyingember wrote: Thu Oct 15, 2020 1:37 pm
The trick is to shift cars to the least popular spaces to put anything else and remove parking from prime spaces people want to be. Let's be honest, Cherry is going to become a car sewer. MO 9 has 7200 cars per day. That's an average of 300 per hour, or 5 cars per minute.

Take the space gained and put a parking garage where MO 9 is today but also put active uses along 3rd and 5th.

Then put in a shuttle to the river market and shut down the current lots, or at least make it a lot more expensive to park right next to the market on the weekend.

The streetcar boomed because of available parking + a train ride to the destination. It didn't reduce driving but it reduced the number of parking spots needed at every destination to add people.
OK, so this would be a Park & Ride parking structure at 3rd & Cherry, that could keep as many Northlanders off downtown streets as possible, whether shopping at the City Market or using the streetcar to get to work?
In the real world we should be shifting parking to the fringes of the system, but the system doesn't provide connectivity in the places we would always want to place parking.

So it needs to be much more on the macro level. There's small steps towards this but the ultimate goal should be to make it so there's options to park and change modes (bike, bus, etc) in areas where supporting lanes for cars makes sense and not where multi modal streets should exist. We shouldn't spend billions tearing out parking just yet nor should we give money for parking everywhere, but each opportunity to shift parking into fewer and fewer blocks should be taken advantage of.

A great start is the public parking at the city market. It slows down the train and it's in a spot where people think of going to spend money. This is a prime place to rethink public parking. That the proposal for the first building isn't replacing all the current parking is a start.
Rabble wrote: Fri Oct 16, 2020 8:49 am
flyingember wrote: Thu Oct 15, 2020 1:37 pm
Waddel and Reed is a great parking solution because it's easy to reach other places from the garage by changing modes.

it just needs to be public parking on the weekends for this to work
I thought the Waddell & Reed parking pedestal had 3 strikes:
1. Employees can just drive into their building without interacting in any other way with downtown.
2. Employees run over pedestrians as they race out off car-holes in a hurry to get back home to JOCO.
3. It's ugly
#1 isn't *wrong* but he goal of going to work for most places is to be in the building working. Someone's environment is the couple of blocks around where they work even if they go get lunch. Transit doesn't change this. You could replace #1 with a bus rider easily.

#2 is one of those things that is clearly hypoberle since traffic is also apparently so heavy downtown that it's faster to walk than take the streetcar.

#3 is subjective. Making decisions based on aesthetics is how buildings get torn down
Last edited by flyingember on Fri Oct 16, 2020 1:39 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: Bridging Park & Market

Post by flyingember »

Rabble wrote: Fri Oct 16, 2020 11:37 am
flyingember wrote: Thu Oct 15, 2020 1:37 pm
The trick is to shift cars to the least popular spaces to put anything else and remove parking from prime spaces people want to be. Let's be honest, Cherry is going to become a car sewer. MO 9 has 7200 cars per day. That's an average of 300 per hour, or 5 cars per minute.
Thank you for making me think about the traffic on Cherry after the approach/barrier is gone, but car sewer seems a little strong. With traffic lights possible at 3rd, 5th, Missouri and Independence, and no access to the north loop, it seems like a lot less people would use the HOA and choose instead the Broadway or Bond. I just hope a restaurant opens in the old Jennies so I can have a great view.
Broadway today is comparable to the traffic levels on MO 9. Maybe it was a little strong but it won't be so wrong people don't complain about the change.

The problem with the idea of moving away is it assumes there could only be movement away from this crossing. Changes in the network induce demand to change routes across the entire network. There will be hundreds of people changing their route each day in unpredictable patterns.

The Broadway Bridge having no wait to get onto I-35 will inducing demand to change to this route. But at the same time, for some the changed access to downtown from the north will get them to shift to the HOA bridge.

Some people won't like new stoplights. Some people will love being able to take Indep Ave to any N-S street
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