But constrained enough that people used the River Market as a park & ride until the city put two hour limits on the parking spaces. That shows a demand.
IIRC, the issue was that some workers were using the parking lots because they were free. Not because they didn't have easily available parking at their offices.
That was my understanding as well. What's been shown to be successful at discouraging car usage is simply making people pay for all of the costs associated with driving and storing their cars instead of subsidizing them or bundling them in a way that detaches them from actual car usage. What's been successful at increasing transit usage has been making it faster/more frequent/more reliable/more accessible (and making it free, in this particular case). Trying to increase transit usage by spending tens of millions of dollars on automobile infrastructure that won't pay for itself is really losing sight of the forest for the trees.
I agree with this as well.
It’s also just skipping over the point that there is parking everywhere downtown. You can already park at power and light or union station and take a ride to the river market.
I mean any of them are better than current. I don't really get why option 2 is it's own option. It just seems part of the lowering 9 highway options at least in the rendering. If you don't lower the bridge are you just ramping Independence up to 9 highway and signalizing it?
I am for options 3 or 4 the most. I don't like how trafficway'y option 3 is but that could just be rendering problems. As shown we'd have a speed problem there that would then really suck to cross between CP and RM. I think option 4 is getting us into a maintenance problem nobody will want to pay for.
Option 3 with a caveat. I don't like the buildings not having active use along the street. They appear set-back with no entrances. Big expanses of green grass lend too much of a suburban design. Take out that stupid strip of grass between the street and sidewalk. It will look like crap eventually anyway.
What is the point of having sidewalks along there if there aren't entrances to buildings or retail businesses? Who is going to want to walk down those long blocks of sidewalk without any entrances to buildings? Retain the street trees in wells, but push the buildings closer to the street curbs. If you want to slow traffic down, it helps having buildings and pedestrians closer to the curb. There is a natural tendency to slow down in that type of environment. That is what happens when drivers hit Broadway at 6th Street after coming off the Broadway Bridge.
And why is there no curbside street parking?
Option 3 is the best but it's still a crap design.
FangKC wrote: ↑Thu Nov 12, 2020 2:38 am
Option 3 with a caveat. I don't like the buildings not having active use along the street. They appear set-back with no entrances. Big expanses of green grass lend too much of a suburban design. Take out that stupid strip of grass between the street and sidewalk. It will look like crap eventually anyway.
What is the point of having sidewalks along there if there aren't entrances to buildings or retail businesses? Who is going to want to walk down those long blocks of sidewalk without any entrances to buildings? Retain the street trees in wells, but push the buildings closer to the street curbs. If you want to slow traffic down, it helps having buildings and pedestrians closer to the curb. There is a natural tendency to slow down in that type of environment. That is what happens when drivers hit Broadway at 6th Street after coming off the Broadway Bridge.
And why is there no curbside street parking?
Option 3 is the best but it's still a crap design.
If you think the people making a rendering of a *street project* made a big effort to worry about the design of example buildings, used to fill space in a rendering, I don't know what to say
FangKC wrote: ↑Thu Nov 12, 2020 2:38 am
Option 3 with a caveat. I don't like the buildings not having active use along the street. They appear set-back with no entrances. Big expanses of green grass lend too much of a suburban design. Take out that stupid strip of grass between the street and sidewalk. It will look like crap eventually anyway.
What is the point of having sidewalks along there if there aren't entrances to buildings or retail businesses? Who is going to want to walk down those long blocks of sidewalk without any entrances to buildings? Retain the street trees in wells, but push the buildings closer to the street curbs. If you want to slow traffic down, it helps having buildings and pedestrians closer to the curb. There is a natural tendency to slow down in that type of environment. That is what happens when drivers hit Broadway at 6th Street after coming off the Broadway Bridge.
And why is there no curbside street parking?
Option 3 is the best but it's still a crap design.
Agreed. Chalking it up to rendering problems versus actual design at this point. By their own admission this is a very pie in the sky concept at this point.
Option 3 or 4 for sure. Option 4 with the park gives it a bit softer feel, more residential/neighborhood feel. Might be a nice contrast to what is an turn of the century warehouse district that has been revitalized. Park may help create a unique feel for the area. But lowering the road and having the more distinct neighborhood feel will be a lot better. Plus it could create a new "friendlier" gateway/approach to those going into downtown from the North. This is something I know they have been trying to do for a while for people coming in from the airport. Hopefully they will continue to improve that effort with the new Buck O'Neil bridge improvements as well.
The City can't really afford another park to maintain. Especially one that I predict won't be used because of traffic blasting past on each side. With the homeless population, it will likely become place police will have to patrol. We already have problems with the Independence Plaza park along Independence Avenue at Brooklyn Avenue. There's already a farirly-big park a block away--Columbus Square park.
alejandro46 wrote: ↑Fri Nov 13, 2020 10:52 am
Agreed on Option 3. That is some prime real estate and the city should be able to make its money back on whatever the state charges it for the ROW.
why would you assume the city would be sold any new land, modot could sell it directly to a large developer just as easily
divesting state property comes with rules that have to be followed
Yeah MO would sell it outright and get rid of the bridge maintenance costs so that's their angle. That is also the angle to get them to help fund the change. There has to be some federal grant money out there for a project like this too.
FangKC wrote: ↑Fri Nov 13, 2020 9:35 am
The City can't really afford another park to maintain. Especially one that I predict won't be used because of traffic blasting past on each side. With the homeless population, it will likely become place police will have to patrol. We already have problems with the Independence Plaza park along Independence Avenue at Brooklyn Avenue. There's already a farirly-big park a block away--Columbus Square park.
I agree, with no finds to upkeep it. The renderings had a big green space, I was thinking more like the trolley trail, which also has a high volume of traffic rolling by each day but people still use. I was thinking from an aesthetics standpoint and, but Columbus Park and the River Front are there to serve true park needs. Option 3 is good and will serve as a nice new entry way into downtown, especially if there will be street level development along the approach, storefronts, etc. to give a little and give people a reason to cross the street. Otherwise it will be a lowered grade into a barren strip of concrete
I don’t understand why every public space has to be packed with grass. It’s possible to have beautiful plazas full of trees without a single blade of grass
I seem to come across a lot of articles that advocate getting rid of grass landscaping in regards to climate change. Acreage devoted to irrigated lawns would be equal to our biggest irrigated crop in the USA.
In addition, manicured lawns require a lot of fertilizer and pesticides which run off into water sources. Notice how many dead ponds there are in metropolitan areas with algae bloom from chemical runoff? Everytime I see these subdivisions built around a created lake with perfect lawns on the edge I see a future algae bloom situation.
Not only that, the more perfect looking one's lawn might be, the more risk to the health of people living there. It's probably not a good idea for children to be running barefoot through a lawn that has been plied with fertilizers and chemical applications to control weeds and insects.
One danger of lawn chemicals is that they are tracked into our homes, thus placing our pets and small children in danger. Small children are at particular risk since their developing bodies are far more vulnerable to toxins. The National Cancer Institute states that children in households that have lawns treated with pesticides have a 6.5 times greater risk of developing leukemia.
KCPowercat wrote: ↑Fri Nov 13, 2020 2:25 pm
Yeah MO would sell it outright and get rid of the bridge maintenance costs so that's their angle. That is also the angle to get them to help fund the change. There has to be some federal grant money out there for a project like this too.
It's the perfect candidate for a BUILD/TIGER grant under a Biden administration.
