KCRag Forum

What is the reasoning behind adding them later versus at the same time?

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pash wrote:It's time for people to get tired of bitching about it. Thus Public Works will continue its de facto policy of taking away your right to cross the street at intersections with uncontrolled cross traffic.

This is where city code conflicts with reality more than it's bad planning.
A crosswalk is *supposed* to mean all cars slow down and yield for pedestrians though it's worded as the pedestrian not having to yield to cars...

It looks like that hasn't been touched since 1984 so there's clear room for improvement.

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I was driving down Santa Monica Blvd in LA several years ago and a car screeched to a halt in front of me and I had no idea why. It's a wide blvd... then saw on opposite side a pedestrian was waiting to cross, wasn't even in the street. There was a sign at the crosswalk... $300 fine if not yielding to pedestrians. KC needs a high fine like that but need to start with well painted checkered or large striped crosswalks.

earthling wrote:I was driving down Santa Monica Blvd in LA several years ago and a car screeched to a halt in front of me and I had no idea why. It's a wide blvd... then saw on opposite side a pedestrian was waiting to cross, wasn't even in the street. There was a sign at the crosswalk... $300 fine if not yielding to pedestrians. KC needs a high fine like that but need to start with well painted checkered or large striped crosswalks.

Similarly, in Portland cars will stop for you if you even breathe in the direction of a crossing. Could be a stiff penalty, but in that city I've always attributed to the larger culture of walking and the greater odds that the driver of the car has been a pedestrian at some point in the day.

KCPowercat wrote:What is the reasoning behind adding them later versus at the same time?

don't want to mess with the federal funding and modot. i don't blame them.

I read an article in Citylab that stated the problem with most designers of city throughfares is that they are trained for highways and moving car traffic, and not pedestrians, or creating pleasant streets for humans.

http://www.citylab.com/cityfixer/2016/0 ... ls/479343/

http://www.citylab.com/design/2014/10/w ... ow/381117/

pash wrote:It's time for people to get tired of bitching about it. Thus Public Works will get away with perpetuating its de facto policy of taking away your right to cross the street at intersections with uncontrolled cross traffic.

Why not blame the body that is responsible - the City Council. That body approves the budget, sets policy, approves ordinances the departments follow, and provides the guidance to the departments. Public Works has some power but that is the power the City Council gives it.

FangKC wrote:I read an article in Citylab that stated the problem with most designers of city throughfares is that they are trained for highways and moving car traffic, and not pedestrians, or creating pleasant streets for humans.

http://www.citylab.com/cityfixer/2016/0 ... ls/479343/

http://www.citylab.com/design/2014/10/w ... ow/381117/

My experience supports this theory. I had a transportation engineering professor who liked to refer to "pesky peds". Most of the roadway design exercises I can recall were greenfield suburban/rural stroads or highways. I'm not sure if urban design was considered "below" us or just thought to be not in demand. Most universities gear their curriculum to provide the types of engineers they are told are in demand, so they are a de facto mirror of current market trends. I've been out of school for a decade or so, so maybe things are different now.

pash wrote:"Tammy the Toyota-driver, a long day in the corporate doldrums behind her, hesitates—before, as quickly as it arrived, the faint, flickering impulse of humanity, of civilization, of near-recognition of the significance those white stripes you're treading on departs her mind, and she guns it towards Overland Park."

You are hilarious!

Eon Blue wrote:

FangKC wrote:I read an article in Citylab that stated the problem with most designers of city throughfares is that they are trained for highways and moving car traffic, and not pedestrians, or creating pleasant streets for humans.

http://www.citylab.com/cityfixer/2016/0 ... ls/479343/

http://www.citylab.com/design/2014/10/w ... ow/381117/

My experience supports this theory. I had a transportation engineering professor who liked to refer to "pesky peds". Most of the roadway design exercises I can recall were greenfield suburban/rural stroads or highways. I'm not sure if urban design was considered "below" us or just thought to be not in demand. Most universities gear their curriculum to provide the types of engineers they are told are in demand, so they are a de facto mirror of current market trends. I've been out of school for a decade or so, so maybe things are different now.

Perhaps we should import some European city street designers, since they are experienced creating decent pedestrian--oriented streets that also move traffic and handle mass transit.

The width of traffic lanes argument is true. I know that the wider the lane of a street, the faster I tend to drive on it. The narrower the street, the slower I go. Cars should be secondary to people in more dense urban areas. Pedestrians must be prioritized because humans are more fragile than cars, and a speeding car can do a lot of damage. It doesn't make a lot of sense to allow cars to move so fast through urban areas anyway, because if you watch drivers, they tend to speed from one stoplight to the next, and then sit. A slower-moving car that they passed catches up to them at the light. It doesn't really make sense to speed from one stoplight to another anyway.

FangKC wrote:A slower-moving car that they passed catches up to them at the light. It doesn't really make sense to speed from one stoplight to another anyway.

There's some roads that you can never really go fast and get anywhere.

Burlington through NKC has nearly perfectly timed signals to the point if you go the speed limit that you might hit one red light at Armour and that's it. Going even 5mph over the timing is off just enough you're more likely to wait at a light.

This isn't true during heavy traffic but any other time it is.

Crosswalks across Grand at 17th were going in last Thursday. Haven't had a chance to ensure they were completed, but it's possibly a good sign.

bspecht wrote:Crosswalks across Grand at 17th were going in last Thursday. Haven't had a chance to ensure they were completed, but it's possibly a good sign.

And just in time for the street to be restriped?

quite sure they figured out a way to paint these crosswalks without affecting the plan. they wouldn't have done it otherwise.

DaveKCMO wrote:quite sure they figured out a way to paint these crosswalks without affecting the plan. they wouldn't have done it otherwise.

I love the optimism!

DaveKCMO wrote:quite sure they figured out a way to paint these crosswalks without affecting the plan. they wouldn't have done it otherwise.

I don't know. Unless times have changed one team may not know what another team is doing. Even when both are in the same department.

keep hearing 'late june' construction start for the full 'downtown bike loop' project.

not sure what will happen to the viaduct over 670 though: http://www.kansascity.com/opinion/opn-c ... 62362.html

Modot is really going to extreme measures to not make grand grand... Now even wrecking their own bridges!?!?