KCRag Forum

considering the looks of confusion i see on many drivers faces in the loop, i think higher traffic counts of calmer drivers on a less confusing roadway would be a good thing. the few times i negotiate the loop, i think WTF is THIS? to somebody who doesnt drive the thing everyday, it doesnt seem logical. i would think all of the current and unnecessary merging and turning and looking at signs instead of the road is a problem.

and anyway, it isnt logical to assume that we will expand highways forever, doing so would constitute insanity... which is what i think of when i think of traffic "engineering." we've already gone too far, and look at what has happened.

hoa to tie into independence "blvd?"

Yeah, I don't know what they're clinging to, with the north loop. It's always a mess, has fatally dangerous exits and on-ramps, and doesn't really go anywhere that the south loop doesn't already. One might make a case for the Broadway bridge, but they'd be wrong. Anyone getting on or off the bridge has to deal with the traffic lights at its end.

I say fill that bitch in, and build some commerce!

Ok then, what about the Heart of America?

Oh and tell the citizens of the West and Northeast/East sides they have to put up with 2-4 more lanes of traffic.

maybe you should be a traffic engineer devin.

remember, they indirectly - to directly (nearly) destroyed downtown.

your philosophies arent jibin'

The HOA bridge connects downtown to city streets in NKC. I see no reason for it to need unfettered freeway access. I'd prefer walling the outside lanes off and turning them into bike/ped lanes, for easier human access to and from NKC.

^

which brings up the point that we need to focus on building cities for HUMANS TO LIVE IN, and not CARS TO GO THROUGH. specialists already had their chance with their expertise, its time for the generalists (who actually built kansas city in the first place) to come back. let the suburbs do what they want, they'll catch on eventually, but lets try to take the city back from the "engineers," and allow well rounded planners and informed citizens to have an intelligent conversation about the city and what we want it to be.

I live overlooking the north loop and the oak/locust-HOA corridor.  Since  Independence Blvd is about 15 feet below the grade of that corridor I do not see how it can be made to intersect.  And there is just not enough space to bring the oak/locust HOA down to that grade from the 70 overpass and then back up again to be level with the HOA.  I guess  Independence could be tunneled under at great expense (it would also have to pierce the approach ramps). One of the biggest challenges are the approaches to the Paseo bridge.  Both the 70 east and 35 north approaches to the bridge are one lane.  These both back up for several hours morning and evening.  An eight lane Paseo would not help this situation without widening these to 2 lanes each. I fear this would entail cutting even more into Columbus Park and the green embankments on the south side of 70.
    The only place the north loop 70 could be decked over for an entire block width without interfering with any exit/entrances the currently exist is between Walnut and Grand.
    The current landscaping has matured nicely where there is some, but much more could be done with landscaping to at least screen its blight and pollution off from downtown and the river market. 

Untangling Paseo Bridge creates even more snags

They propose widening three miles of I-29/35 from about Armour Road/Missouri 210 in the Northland to the northeast corner of the downtown freeway loop. It’s expected to go to six lanes by 2011, and possibly eight lanes sometime in the next 35 years.

The future of the landmark Paseo Bridge won’t be decided for months, but various civic interests are closely eying how the bridge will be designed and whether it will have room for pedestrians and cyclists.

The $255 million project, which could begin next year, is designed to ease travel for the many motorists who use the interstate to get to Kansas City International Airport, North Kansas City Hospital and Cerner Corp.

Traffic engineers predict the four-lane highway, traveled by 90,000 cars a day, will be bumper to bumper during rush hour unless improvements are made. They note that the accident rate on that stretch of highway already exceeds the statewide average.

Traffic is expected to get worse as the Northland grows and the I-35 corridor emerges as a primary trade route between Canada and Mexico....

Engineers think that they can blend six lanes into the loop, but they acknowledge that eight lanes could pose a problem without improvements to the northern leg of the loop. That work still needs to be funded, however. Plans to widen the corridor are laid out in a new draft environmental-impact statement being made available for comment. To the dismay of some, the document does not address key issues about the future of the Paseo Bridge, a suspension bridge that opened in 1954. It does not say whether the bridge will be preserved or demolished, or how a new bridge might be designed.

“We want to have an iconic structure,â€

they need to make this "symbolic" bridge at least 8 lanes (4 on each NB/SB ) To redo a bridge with only six lanes is very shortsighted.  I-35 will continue to see increased traffic from the Mexico / Canada trade route, along with the explosion of the Northland. 

I say build a 10 lane bridge myself, but that will take a lot of state/federal/city funds.  Besides, I-35 in NKC from the Paseo to the 210/NKC hospital, Cerner exit will have to be completly redone to accomodate this.

They can only do six lanes right now because the loop can't handle any more traffic than that.  Dumping eight lanes of traffic into the existing loop would be a mess.  However it's very likely that the bridge will have room for eight lanes but only striped for six.  This will allow them to easily add lanes after the loop gets rebuilt.

Also, www.kcicon.org is a new web site for this project, especially for the design-build process.

dangerboy wrote: They can only do six lanes right now because the loop can't handle any more traffic than that.  Dumping eight lanes of traffic into the existing loop would be a mess.  However it's very likely that the bridge will have room for eight lanes but only striped for six.  This will allow them to easily add lanes after the loop gets rebuilt.

Also, www.kcicon.org is a new web site for this project, especially for the design-build process.

Exactly, but this should be one of the biggest infrastructure projects in the city's history and modot once again is just going to throw KC a 60 million dollar bone while they spend litterally billions in StL.  We need to rebuild, widen, add ped/bike/transit and redevelop the corridor from 169 to the loop.  This could be a massive economic development tool for KCMO and the entire MO side of the metro area.  It would link KCMO's northland and urban core together and be one more major step in taking both the northland and downtown to the next level.

The Page Ave bridge in StL is a ten lane span with a separate bike/ped structure attached to the side, the new I-70 bridge will be a ten or 12 lane structure and includes total reconstruction and re-alignment of 70 through north StL city.  StL recently built one new bridge over the Mississippi, restored two others and has built new ones over the MO river too for Page and 370. I won't even bring up and the "rebuild" projects in StL, but in a few more years, that city would have practically rebuilt the entire system and added about 50 miles of new freeway too and I'm not talking about repaving.

Building a bridge that could expand to 8 lanes in 30 years is ridiculous.  This is going to end up being like the I-70 "rebuild" project in Blue Springs where they tear up an entire interstate corridor for two years and when they are done the fucking overpasses and interchanges are still in need of replacement, there are no axillary lanes and they didn't push the damn project east for two more miles to Adam's Dairy where a bridge designed for six lanes continues to sit and wait, all the while development pushes east and people are killed often between BS and GV due to the heavy traffic.

I have never seen a state department give a city the shaft up the ass like Modot does with KC and KC just sits back and takes it.

modot selected the design-build process so they could expedite delivery of the project and keep it under budget.  as it turns out, they've already elicited so many concerns about the process by which they'll make the final decisions -- like what kind of bridge to build -- that they could have trouble getting design-build teams to bid on the job due to the uncertainty.  what's more, the potential for legal action should modot not fully address the legitimate concerns of the columbus park neighborhood makes bidding on the project even more risky.

but there are bigger concerns than just whether modot will build an "iconic" bridge.  modot is taking a capacity-only approach.  but they can't solve congestion and safety problems by just widening this short segment of freeway since that'll just shift the problems someplace else -- like onto the downtown loop and onto intersecting arterials.  

what's needed is a comprehensive approach that includes bike/ped accommodations and enhanced transit options, plus active management of freeway capacity so they won't ever have to build the 7th and 8th lanes.  

Kansas City architectural firm and contractor have been chosen to build the new MO River pedestrian bridge in Omaha due to their experience with cable stayed bridges.  If we are to loose the graceful catenary curves of the Paseo bridge might we at least get some cables?

A design build is actually better as the project gets done in less time, however the designers, consultants, transportation departments, MARC must all be in agreement on the design.  The T-Rex project in Denver was a design build and it is almost completed in 6 years, and that includes new LRT tracks, bridges, multiple freeway expansion, and expanded drainage.

I hope that the new design incorporates better interchanges and intersections.  The current ones are terrible and the design is not up to current saftey standards.

After reviewing the initial design shown on this site, I see that they still have no clue about designing an efficient freeway.

Bill

BigBill33 wrote: After reviewing the initial design shown on this site, I see that they still have no clue about designing an efficient freeway.

can you elaborate?  what would make it a more "efficient freeway?"

(i'm not picking a fight -- and certainly not defending modot -- just curious.)

warwickland wrote: ^

which brings up the point that we need to focus on building cities for HUMANS TO LIVE IN, and not CARS TO GO THROUGH. specialists already had their chance with their expertise, its time for the generalists (who actually built kansas city in the first place) to come back. let the suburbs do what they want, they'll catch on eventually, but lets try to take the city back from the "engineers," and allow well rounded planners and informed citizens to have an intelligent conversation about the city and what we want it to be.

Warwickland....I like your comments and style, this thought is very right on! 

Nobody planned Kansas City. It grew according to people's needs and wants. The only "planning" was the street layout, and a grid is simple enough that it doesn't take a PhD in urban planning to come up with it.

i was basically thinking that the many people who had a hand in building kansas city had more on their minds than 'making car go fast' and 'making car park easy.'  they were generalists who knew well enough of many areas and how they worked together that the whole thing worked well enough. today, well, we have specialists and clueless politicians (the Glover Plan...) calling the shots and things arent jibin...

I think much of this specialization is due to efficiency and the fact that we have so many preestablished agencies for all these projects (roads- MOdot, parks/blvds-KCMO parks department, etc.  It isn't just one person with the grand scheme anymore.  We have resorted to outsourcing all these little projects to very focused and many times closed minded individuals or companies/agencies....for good and bad

enough wrote: can you elaborate?  what would make it a more "efficient freeway?"

(i'm not picking a fight -- and certainly not defending modot -- just curious.)

No offense taken, but my lawyer is bigger than your lawyer!!  

I apologize for not making my post any clearer!

I don't drive that stretch all that much but when I do there are a few things that I think could be better designed.

1.  Reduced number of on/off ramps and diverting traffic to specific interchanges
2.  Better signage
3.  On/Off ramps that do exist...don't make them quick exits off the freeway, with oncoming traffic, without proper signals
4.  With new design, incorporate smart systems into the freeway, ie. Traffic Management Systems

Bill