OFFICIAL - Main Street Streetcar Extension

Transportation topics in KC
flyingember
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Re: Phase 2 streetcar to UMKC

Post by flyingember »

beautyfromashes wrote: Wed May 19, 2021 4:11 pm N-S lights are timed longer. I assume this is to get people from the wealthy suburbs (Brookside, MH, etc) to DT office jobs.
More or less, yes. The entire road grid south of Truman is designed to get people downtown fast.

In Midtown and the east side south of Truman there's a N-S major street every four blocks, every 0.2 miles or so.

The E-W streets are spaced twice that at about 0.4 miles apart.
It's very well done as a hierarchy where your neighborhood street is 25mph slow, the E-W major is a little faster with less parking on it and the N-S street should be express. When you're walking you're going maybe 4-5 blocks at most to a transit stop.



Even before modes shifted to bus and car Main should have longer light cycles to allow vehicles to move N-S much faster. In the peak car era Main had for many years (and still might) a two hour peak use lane. 7-9 it was three lanes NB, 4-6 it was three lanes SB.

So in that model, to emphasize transit usage as the main mode, the street will give up lanes for the changing mode and the light cycles will still prioritize N-S traffic.

After all, there's a notable street three blocks in both directions cars can shift to. If transit use is the goal we have to induce demand away from cars on Main.

One really easy way would be a small tranit only section between 27th and Pershing. Allow local traffic to the Condos but force cars onto Grand and Broadway and Gillham

Main from the city market to UMKC should probably become a 20mph car zone too
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beautyfromashes
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Re: Phase 2 streetcar to UMKC

Post by beautyfromashes »

Thanks for the background and clarification. So, if we decreased the speed on all all major NS major roads and cut lanes to them while maintaining EW traffic, timing lights to prioritize those directions, what would happen on a development and activity basis? Can you encourage or discourage development merely with traffic structural changes?
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Re: Phase 2 streetcar to UMKC

Post by flyingember »

beautyfromashes wrote: Wed May 19, 2021 5:00 pm Thanks for the background and clarification. So, if we decreased the speed on all all major NS major roads and cut lanes to them while maintaining EW traffic, timing lights to prioritize those directions, what would happen on a development and activity basis? Can you encourage or discourage development merely with traffic structural changes?
I read your idea as de-emphasizing roads like Ward Parkway to SW Tfwy making it easy to travel to downtown from Prairie Village at the expense of midtown functioning as a self contained neighborhood.

There's KC Star advertisements from the early 1950s that had businesses saying how I-70 would make it easy for more people to shop at their urban store while living further away. But we know what happened is people opened up stores closer to where people lived.

You have to look at the whole network as bi-directional. It's why our transit system has made change after change and barely moved the needle, because it's only looking as people going into downtown.

Remove a car lane for a bus lane and it makes some people happy to ride the bus now that it moves faster. For others they'll find a new job that's easier to reach, in the suburbs.

We have to change transportation from the outside in if looking big. The biggest change we could do today is to look at the hundreds of edge neighborhoods and focus on bike connections and reduce car trips to school, a nearby restaurant and the like. It's the key first step to transit working is getting people looking to go a little further without their car and -not- looking at getting people to move to where transit is or replacing that one long-distance trip with a bus ride

Half of all trips are three miles or shorter.

Redoing one road is simple in comparison. Moving traffic from Main to Broadway can be done today with little impact to the point Main should have a streetcar only lane and any decision otherwise is continuing car dependency and reducing the value of the streetcar.
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beautyfromashes
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Re: Phase 2 streetcar to UMKC

Post by beautyfromashes »

My goal with your example would be to deemphasize WP and SW to make transit a viable option to PV and to also make the neighborhoods that those “highways” plow through more vibrant, walkable and pedestrian friendly. There is something lost when you speed travel to the suburbs. You have to give up vibrancy in the true first ring suburbs: Midtown, East Side, Ind Ave, etc.
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Re: Phase 2 streetcar to UMKC

Post by DaveKCMO »

Details have been posted about the Main Street Rail TDD: https://kcstreetcar.org/about-streetcar ... -rail-tdd/

Sales tax takes effect in July. Special assessments appear on tax bills at the end of the year. You can use the assessment calculator to estimate what yours will be.

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Re: Phase 2 streetcar to UMKC

Post by KCPowercat »

DaveKCMO wrote: Thu May 20, 2021 12:39 pm Details have been posted about the Main Street Rail TDD: https://kcstreetcar.org/about-streetcar ... -rail-tdd/

Sales tax takes effect in July. Special assessments appear on tax bills at the end of the year. You can use the assessment calculator to estimate what yours will be.

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So estimates just sent out by JaxCo on property taxes won't be accurate?
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beautyfromashes
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Re: Phase 2 streetcar to UMKC

Post by beautyfromashes »

I’ve had three instances already where a car is barreling towards me in the wrong lane on Main St. They need to have dividers instead of just cones to separate N-S traffic, especially since they keep moving the lanes with construction. I could see a major accident happening.
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Re: Phase 2 streetcar to UMKC

Post by DaveKCMO »

KCPowercat wrote: Thu May 20, 2021 1:25 pm So estimates just sent out by JaxCo on property taxes won't be accurate?
Those are only estimates for property taxes. Special assessments aren't legally considered taxes, so none of them will appear on that estimate you received (which is not the actual bill). If you're in a CID with a special assessment or are being assessed for any other amenity (like when the city used to bill people for sidewalks) those also don't appear on that estimate.
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KCPowercat
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Re: Phase 2 streetcar to UMKC

Post by KCPowercat »

Guess I never remember the downtown CID assessment not showing up.
herrfrank
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Re: Phase 2 streetcar to UMKC

Post by herrfrank »

Eight additional pictures of the 1957 "Country Club" streetcar, mostly Brookside and Waldo pics, at the attached link.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/Gic1KCoZ8KaDVEh79
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Eon Blue
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Re: Phase 2 streetcar to UMKC

Post by Eon Blue »

herrfrank wrote: Mon Jun 07, 2021 9:45 am Eight additional pictures of the 1957 "Country Club" streetcar, mostly Brookside and Waldo pics, at the attached link.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/Gic1KCoZ8KaDVEh79
Very cool, thanks again for sharing.
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Re: Phase 2 streetcar to UMKC

Post by shinatoo »

Those are great. Never rally thought about it being double tracked. Was it the whole length?
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normalthings
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Re: Phase 2 streetcar to UMKC

Post by normalthings »

$70 million ordinance on the council agenda this week
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DaveKCMO
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Re: Phase 2 streetcar to UMKC

Post by DaveKCMO »

shinatoo wrote: Mon Jun 07, 2021 3:20 pm Those are great. Never rally thought about it being double tracked. Was it the whole length?
I seem to recall the "Dodson" segment being single track.
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Re: Phase 2 streetcar to UMKC

Post by DaveKCMO »

normalthings wrote: Mon Jun 07, 2021 5:58 pm $70 million ordinance on the council agenda this week
Bond sale for vehicles, construction management, and long lead items.
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normalthings
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Re: Phase 2 streetcar to UMKC

Post by normalthings »

DaveKCMO wrote: Mon Jun 07, 2021 8:17 pm
shinatoo wrote: Mon Jun 07, 2021 3:20 pm Those are great. Never rally thought about it being double tracked. Was it the whole length?
I seem to recall the "Dodson" segment being single track.
I’m 99% sure you are right. I think MVR has photos of this but I can not seem to find them rn
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alejandro46
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Re: Phase 2 streetcar to UMKC

Post by alejandro46 »

herrfrank wrote: Mon Jun 07, 2021 9:45 am Eight additional pictures of the 1957 "Country Club" streetcar, mostly Brookside and Waldo pics, at the attached link.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/Gic1KCoZ8KaDVEh79
Love these picutres. Shows how intertwined the Streetcar used to be in daily life here in KCMO. Now adays, reminds me of something you'd only see in like the former Soviet Union:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ImzWURtd43g

I would still be surprised if the trolly trail gets Streetcar service, just due to lack of density, but it would be so awesome to see them once again running this historic route.
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Re: Phase 2 streetcar to UMKC

Post by langosta »

real-time arrival sign procurement (RFI, etc) has commenced
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Re: Phase 2 streetcar to UMKC

Post by DaveKCMO »

langosta wrote: Wed Jun 09, 2021 11:37 pm real-time arrival sign procurement (RFI, etc) has commenced
FYI -- the current streetcar and 1st/2nd-gen MAX signs run off of the KCATA regional radio system. New signs will be IP-based and run off of the region's GTFS feed (same as the mobile apps and Prospect MAX interactive kiosks). This feed provides higher resolution arrivals than are available over the narrowband radio network.
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Re: Phase 2 streetcar to UMKC

Post by DaveKCMO »

Council approved a bond sale on Thursday. Loar, O'Neill, and Hall voted no. This will fund the following:

- Vehicles
- Construction Management
- Early Work Packages
- Long Lead Items

http://cityclerk.kcmo.org/liveweb/Docum ... KhOfDDnR5J
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