OFFICIAL - Buck O'Neil Bridge

[dukuboy1]

Well, a major overhaul to the East loop and I29/I35 on that side is needed badly. especially if stadium goes over there. Then if the North Loop is removed even more work. Luckily they have some land to work with on that East loop and by taking away jenky on ramps and such should help but there needs to be some major work done. The Loop concept is fine but it can barley handle the traffic it has now, especially during "rush hour" or if an event is downtown. And you are hosed if there is a wreck. Needs a re-work for sure and as the Northland grows you'll need even more road improvements further up the line.

[moderne]

The east loop should have all exits removed and the north loop freeway decommissioned and turned into a boulevard. The boulevard on each end would have high capacity interchanges to/from the freeway system and function as the main freeway access into DT. Sort of like in Denver how
Speer and Colfax are the transition from freeway to DT grid.

[langosta]

The east loop should have all exits removed and the north loop freeway decommissioned and turned into a boulevard. The boulevard on each end would have high capacity interchanges to/from the freeway system and function as the main freeway access into DT. Sort of like in Denver how
Speer and Colfax are the transition from freeway to DT grid.

I like the idea of a BLVD that runs below Main and Grand as to not obstruct transit on those corridors.

[dnweava]

I have not heard that access to I-70 from HOA would be eliminated? That would just end up with trucks exiting on some other loop exit and going through loop surface streets to get to HOA and NKC industrial areas adjoining Burlington.

Final Concept section
https://www.downtownkc.org/wp-content/u ... educed.pdf

Trucks/highway connection traffic wouldn't want to use 9 anymore, they would go to Bond bridge or new Buck.

Extremely nieve if you think all that truck traffic will take a different route. All you are doing is putting all that traffic on neighborhood streets.

[KCPowercat]

Why would a truck take a route that doesn't go to the highway they want to go to.

I don't see them driving down main right now. Wonder why?

[KC_Ari]

The issue is more what someone else brought up, the HoA is most convenient for trucks coming from the south to get to the multitude of businesses off of Burlington in NKC.

[KCPowercat]

The issue is more what someone else brought up, the HoA is most convenient for trucks coming from the south to get to the multitude of businesses off of Burlington in NKC.

That's why a no truck restriction would.be part of it. Going up 35 to armour isn't that much out of the way

[FangKC]

KC seeks firms that could help preserve, display parts of old Buck O'Neil Bridge

Kansas City is on the hunt for design professionals who can repurpose pieces of the existing Buck O'Neil Bridge, with months to go before the historic structure is torn down as part of a $257 million replacement project.

A city request for proposals issued earlier this month seeks firms that could help stand up and manage a Buck O'Neil Bridge Reuse Program. The initiative would use steel from the three-arch bridge, which the Missouri Department of Transportation will demolish. The materials would be incorporated in "creative, thoughtful, culturally and socially significant and sensitive ways," potentially throughout the city, to honor the 67-year-old bridge and namesake John "Buck" O'Neil.
...

https://www.bizjournals.com/kansascity/ ... ition.html

[moderne]

Put an arch over Broadway to link the two sides of PVP. Probably too massive and overwhelming in scale though.

[Cratedigger]

Put an arch over Broadway to link the two sides of PVP. Probably too massive and overwhelming in scale though.

Exactly. Only place where I could imagine something this large would be a Riverfront to Columbus park bridge

[FangKC]

[moderne]

The angle of the photo severely foreshortens the actual length of the span. I predict that then new BOB will be the most popular river bridge in town due to it's accessibility to a large population and that it is the only river bridge that was designed with a ped sidewalk. HOA sidewalk was added later and is on wrong side of bridge for walking interest. BOB will birth countless I phone images of sunsets, sunrises, air shows, skylines, even though the bridge itself will never merit being in an image.

[Belvidere]

Columbus Park is already suffering from a significant truck traffic through the neighborhood. The next time you come into Columbus Park, notice how many cars are parked part way on the sidewalk. It's because they've been sideswiped so many times. Trucks are headed to 3rd Street and beyond, and they speed through the neighborhood, often looking at phones/dashboard nav instead of where they are going.

The opposition to bringing down HOA is nuanced and may not be an appealing argument to people on this forum.

When you have people who have lived here for generations, you have cultural memory, and they associate infrastructure projects with eminent domain and broken promises. Their first reaction was that their homes would be taken away. The highways did not bring prosperity. Model Cities tore down homes and buildings, and replaced them with nothing. Some of those empty lots are still here. The urban renewal effort failed. People simply don't trust. It's a very rational reaction based on experience.

It's hard to believe traffic engineering projections, and if I've learned anything, it's that people drive how they want and where they want, especially when time is money.

The older buildings do not do well during construction projects, nor does the older infrastructure. Vibrations from major projects can lead to cracked walls and shattered pipes.

Columbus Park does not want to lose its identity to the River Market, and it's little disappointing to see people advocating for such a thing. This place only survived because of its community and it's one of the main reasons people move here. Columbus Park does not have significant architecture or breathtaking views. It does have a sense of people and place, and those relationships maintain its history. If you have never experienced that, I suppose I could understand why you would think it's disposable.

As for Columbus Park being weird, I'm sure that's true.

[KCPowercat]

Appreciate the thoughts and agree their are elements to vonsider. Not everybody in Columbus park has that same opinion though. Bring isolated by highways in every direction isn't a charming neighborhood chatacteistic and I'm sure CP would retain its character with 9 highway at grade. Time to fix a mistake made by the state and city decades ago

[TheLastGentleman]

I think if a 10 lane freeway had been bulldozed straight through the church in columbus park back in the 60s, the residents of today still wouldn’t support the freeway’s removal, just because it would be change and they can’t know for sure if its removal will negatively effect them somehow. Sure, it might help them but they don’t know that.

This is why, unfortunately, I think urbanism in the core needs to be a bit hardline sometimes. At some point we need downtown and its environs to be an actual city core and not a patchwork of isolated stagnant neighborhoods, I’m sorry

[Belvidere]

You are correct, the neighborhood is not united in opposing this project. In fact, I wouldn't even characterize it as opposition. It is deep and hard-earned skepticism. When you encounter that kind of history, you go in and you work with it. You don't tell them they're stupid. You don't go into a community and tell them you know what's best for them. That sense of superiority, which quite frankly can pervade these conversations, is distressing and is becoming predictable. It will be interesting to see how you react when it happens to you.

The "hard line" is exactly what caused the problem in the first place: forcing people to accept infrastructure projects they were told would benefit them and did not.

A patchwork of neighborhoods build a community and an identity that makes a place worth living in, and is exactly why we left the suburbs. Without those relationships and that community, there's no point in living here. It's too hard. When I talk to new neighbors, the community is the reason they chose Columbus Park. We certainly don't have the best amenities. Why else would they come?

There's more than one way to do it. Could HOA come down and could that identity be maintained? Quite possibly. Are there unintended consequences to almost anything we change? Unfortunately, yes.

If you don't center people in your value system, and if you don't listen and treat them respectfully, you're no better than the ones who came before you. The people who did the Model Cities project were very sincere in thinking that was going to help.

There's a reason public engagement is so incredibly broken in Kansas City.

The one point we do agree on is the stagnation. If you want to look at an infrastructure project that has been beneficial and impressive, although freaking slow, then look to Pase Gateway. Every new stage of that project has produced tangible benefits, although it's not a priority for the city or your average urbanist. The community collaboration was extensive and deep.

I don't know if we will be allowed to continue to see those benefits. I don't know if the intended investment will ever arrive. That project is in a fragile state.

[Cratedigger]

The Paseo Gateway project is continuing to progress. Agree that there are some very neat benefits from that project for KCU, the neighborhood and even some Greenline pre-work being done.

I believe it is still on track to have some work completed by spring

[Belvidere]

They have yet to issue the RFP for Chouteau Courts. It's a brown field that has to be remediated and it's also eroding downhill. I don't know why it's not a priority, but it's not. If the Housing Authority has to ask you why you aren't getting things done, you got a problem.

The city wants to put it's largest low barrier homeless shelter at 7th and Virginia, at the current location of Hope Faith. It sounds like they have ambitious expansion plans. The RFP had no neighborhood engagement and we found out via Melissa Robinson. We have asked them to reconsider and instead put smaller low barrier shelters all over the city. That would allow each shelter to cater to the demographic in that area. There are neighborhoods who would welcome that, because of the encampments. Some of their neighbors have ended up on the street and it's not safe.

While well intended, putting a very large shelter, to serve the entire city, near public housing, refugee services, and sobriety programs, etc., is doubling down on a policy that we know doesn't work. We know consolidating vulnerable people in one area distresses that area and makes it very hard to attract investment or for that place to recover. This area needs to heal. I do not know if Kansas City is going to allow that to happen.

[KCPowercat]

You are correct, the neighborhood is not united in opposing this project. In fact, I wouldn't even characterize it as opposition. It is deep and hard-earned skepticism. When you encounter that kind of history, you go in and you work with it. You don't tell them they're stupid. You don't go into a community and tell them you know what's best for them. That sense of superiority, which quite frankly can pervade these conversations, is distressing and is becoming predictable. It will be interesting to see how you react when it happens to you.

The "hard line" is exactly what caused the problem in the first place: forcing people to accept infrastructure projects they were told would benefit them and did not.

A patchwork of neighborhoods build a community and an identity that makes a place worth living in, and is exactly why we left the suburbs. Without those relationships and that community, there's no point in living here. It's too hard. When I talk to new neighbors, the community is the reason they chose Columbus Park. We certainly don't have the best amenities. Why else would they come?

There's more than one way to do it. Could HOA come down and could that identity be maintained? Quite possibly. Are there unintended consequences to almost anything we change? Unfortunately, yes.

If you don't center people in your value system, and if you don't listen and treat them respectfully, you're no better than the ones who came before you. The people who did the Model Cities project were very sincere in thinking that was going to help.

There's a reason public engagement is so incredibly broken in Kansas City.

The one point we do agree on is the stagnation. If you want to look at an infrastructure project that has been beneficial and impressive, although freaking slow, then look to Pase Gateway. Every new stage of that project has produced tangible benefits, although it's not a priority for the city or your average urbanist. The community collaboration was extensive and deep.

I don't know if we will be allowed to continue to see those benefits. I don't know if the intended investment will ever arrive. That project is in a fragile state.

Your posts highlights the fear is the vocal old guard in CP will squash it and not be open minded for the reasons you just posted. CP 8s a great neighborhood, I have family there, but it could use some TLC and some new blood and ideas to help it out. Right now seems those new voices get ignored at meetings

[Belvidere]

I am new blood and I had to earn my place. It takes time.

We're trying to do a lot of outreach now to bring in more voices, but we need money to hire a consultant to take us through a long-term strategic plan. It would really help to have a third party that is a professional to level the playing field. That includes reaching out to folks in public housing. That's beginning to go pretty well.

Neighborhood work is very difficult and you have to treat it more like a family. You build relationships. Sometimes you fight. You forgive each other.

While members of the old guard can be stubborn, members of the new guard can be judgmental. The trick isn't to force people to submit to your will. The trick is to sit down and work with them, find a compromise, and keep going.

One thing I have learned is that people say things in meetings that they actually don't mean, when they get emotional. So I go to them after a while and I follow up. Hey when you said xyz, is that what you really meant? I can't tell you the number of times they are surprised, and then clarify what they feel. So if you're willing to do that, you can build consensus, and the next meeting ends up being more positive. In theory. Nobody gets everything they want and I've learned how to trust people when I don't get what I want. When I have lost something I was hoping to get, sometimes I eventually do get it, just to not in the sequence I wanted.

Which means...maybe I was wrong in the first place.

I recently have been working more with neighborhoods in the Historic Northeast, and I respect their leadership because they do act like a family and support each other. It's time consuming. It's definitely not easy. But I've learned a lot in the past few months and have a deep respect for the process.