Eastern Jackson County's biggest problem???

Jackson/Cass Suburbs, including South KC
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KCgridlock

Eastern Jackson County's biggest problem???

Post by KCgridlock »

TRAFFIC It's not even close, if you live in the east suburbs you fight the worst commuter traffic in the metro area. I-70 and I-470 both have massive tie-ups daily that make tie-ups in Northland or even JoCo seem like nothing. People I talk to that are considering moving to the area tell me that traffic is the biggest reason why they may not choose the east burbs. The arterial streets are also overcrowded compared to other parts of the city.

The area is booming now, can you imagine how it would grow if the traffic wansn't so bad?

It is getting better and more and more office parks etc are going up and the new Triangle will improve some things, but the growth is more than the improvements.

Anybody have thoughts on this?
ShowME
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Eastern Jackson County's biggest problem???

Post by ShowME »

Does MoDot have any plans on widening I-470 from I-70 to 50 hwy? That stretch just really sucks. BTW I don't know if it was you Gridlock or KC but do either one of you have any new info on 97.3 FM changing formats? Thanks..
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DiggityDawg
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Eastern Jackson County's biggest problem???

Post by DiggityDawg »

You might wanna check the boards at www.gatewaycityradio.com - there's a lotta BS there, but some good info as well.
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Eastern Jackson County's biggest problem???

Post by ShowME »

Thanks Dawg!
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bahua
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Eastern Jackson County's biggest problem???

Post by bahua »

Or, people could just forsake the suburbs, and move back into town.
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Eastern Jackson County's biggest problem???

Post by Cyburbia »

I'm surprised nobody mentions aesthetics. Blue Springs has new architectural and sign regulations in place, but there's no amortization provisions; development along MO 7 will look gawd-awful for quite a while. From I-70, Grain Valley doesn't look much different than Kingdom City; tons of high-rise signs dominate the viewscape.

If there's one nice thing you have to say about JoCo, it's that communities there have very strict sign and landscape regulations. Commercial districts in Olathe, Lenexa, OP and even Shawnee are all much easier on the eyes than Blue Springs, Lee's Summit, or Grain Valley.
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dangerboy
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Eastern Jackson County's biggest problem???

Post by dangerboy »

a big problem is that there are few arterial streets other than the highways. 39th Street is only 4 lanes between LS Road and Little Blue, it needs to be four lanes all the way from I-435 to 7 Hwy. And some of the new development needs to be distributed to the other arterial roads like 23rd St. or 40 Hwy.

Seems like the cities out there just focus on throwing up a highway exit and some outer roads, and not connecting anything. One reason JoCo has done so well is that have focused on basic infrastructure. There is a four lane arterial street every 1 to 1.5 miles (Nall, Metcalf, Flum, etc. or 75th, 95th, College, 119th, etc). If there is an accident or tie up somewhere you can just hop over to another road and keep going.

Plus, in JoCo they try to choose where they want development and then build the roads ahead of time. There is a much more proactive attitude. Look at that mess at E. 39th and 291 in Indep. They approved all of that massive retail development without building sufficient infrastructure, then seemed shocked when it became gridlocked. Now the state has to come in after the fact to improve the roads to handle the traffic that any moron could have predicted.
KCgridlock

Eastern Jackson County's biggest problem???

Post by KCgridlock »

I agree with most of what you say, but in Eastern Jackson County's defence: JoCo has existing 1 mile section roads that served the predomidatley flat farmland that used to be JoCo. It was relatively easy to go in a buy up 50 more feet of right of way and widen those streets as they still do way out south. Jackson Counties existing road system was (and much still is) extremely curvy and hilly winding around rolling forests, flood planes, major lakes and limstone bluffs. It's extremely expensive (and for the most part impossible) to create the same road system in eastern Jackson that JoCo has. That has been one of JoCo's driving forces in development. Why do you think JoCo has ignored all I-435 corridor near the KS river for so long and now they are having some of the same problems as devlelopment occurs there. Plus Jackson County has far more issues such as having to maintain older bridges etc in addition to new stuff. There are more bridges in downtown KCMO alone than all of JoCo. Not that Jackson County could do better though.
KCgridlock

Eastern Jackson County's biggest problem???

Post by KCgridlock »

I agree on the signs thing though.
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