KCRag Forum

Bruce Watkins was built much later than Southwest Trafficway (although the city cleared the land for Watkins back in the early 1970s). When Watkins was finally built in the 1990s the intention was a highway. The surface crossings and stoplights were actually put in _at neighborhood insistence_ not as part of the original plan.

You can see today that there is significant space (for highway retrofit) between the northbound and southbound roadways where the surface intersections happen, because the original plan was a limited access highway.

herrfrank wrote:The surface crossings and stoplights were actually put in _at neighborhood insistence_ not as part of the original plan.

that's a huge understatement

they were put in because of a lawsuit

I am sure many of the folks on this forum would be able to quickly find actual traffic counts. Regardless, without them I would wager that SW Tfkwy moves a shitload more cars per day than other, nearby N/S streets and would wreak havoc on those if it were weakened.

And its those traffic counts that is making QT lick it chops to get a chance and capture.

It's not really that SW Trafficway moves more than Main/Broadway/etc. Clearly that's true. It's that there seems to be excess capacity that could be handled by those streets if the decision was made to do a road diet on the Trafficway.

The trouble with those other alternatives are the connections to other streets, from the south and west and then from the north. Traffic from Ward Parkway flows very nicely into the direction of the trafficway and southbound flows nicely into WP. Going from I-35 to the trafficway is a breeze. Going to Broadway is somewhat similar but then you get the logjam at the Plaza.

I'd be worried that if you don't put it on a diet people will assume it's ok to make it faster. I don't feel much sympathy for people worried about travel times, there are so many different ways to get around this city.

grovester wrote:I'd be worried that if you don't put it on a diet people will assume it's ok to make it faster. I don't feel much sympathy for people worried about travel times, there are so many different ways to get around this city.

...and all of them are fast.

DaveKCMO wrote:

grovester wrote:I'd be worried that if you don't put it on a diet people will assume it's ok to make it faster. I don't feel much sympathy for people worried about travel times, there are so many different ways to get around this city.

...and all of them are fast.

by speed limit, absolutely.

one can keep the speed limit the same and change the speed of a road by the design.

SW Tfwy has no left turns except at a couple select places. Main has tons. SW Tfwy has no bus only lane during peak hours. Sw Tfwy doesn't have on street parking. If the two had the same speed limit Main would run substantially slower.

SW Tfwy as a quick through street with 6 lanes has future value in another area. It would be the perfect place for dedicated bus express lane on it and then down Shawnee Mission Parkway that's also utility prepared to lay track. busses today, available for trains in the future. we can't sell out the city's future as a whole to put a road diet on a key corridor.

we're going to need rail segments that are more like light rail with 45mph travel and this is the perfect street to have space banked for this purpose

if it wasnt a half mile between main and sw trafficway, i'd think sw trafficway would be the perfect location to run at grade light rail. (or cut and cover light rail with minimal commercial disruption), and restore sw trafficway to a nice normal blvd.

warwickland wrote:if it wasnt a half mile between main and sw trafficway, i'd think sw trafficway would be the perfect location to run at grade light rail. (or cut and cover light rail with minimal commercial disruption), and restore sw trafficway to a nice normal blvd.

this model was done alongside Wash U for StL Metrolink. they didn't have the space for both systems without impacting the neighborhood or college, neither made sense.

So after sitting on the vacant land for 50 years waiting for the perfect development opportunity, KC Life has finally figured out what to do with their block at 33rd and Jefferson: a giant gas station. This is not of course for the surrounding residential neighborhoods but rather to serve the adjacent traffic sewer SW Tfwy and all its northland suburban auto commuters. Fortunately they need an upzoning to get it done and the surrounding neighborhoods are all breaking out the pitchforks.

Oops duplicate - feel free to kill.

Whoa! You're back!

While I can see the appeal of the traffic counts here for that QT, I've got to hope it's killed and a better plan is pitched.

And welcome back, Lenexa

Welcome back! And what a terrible idea for a gas station.

KCMax wrote:Whoa! You're back!

Yeah saw the Rag come up in a twitter feed and remembered to come back and give it a look. Appears to be all the same threads and posters as four years ago. Did I miss anything?

LenexatoKCMO wrote:

KCMax wrote:Whoa! You're back!

Yeah saw the Rag come up in a twitter feed and remembered to come back and give it a look. Appears to be all the same threads and posters as four years ago. Did I miss anything?

We did it. We finally got a Ross Dress 4 Less.

Took me a minute to remember the demands for Ross. I have to admit that my absence from the Rag led me to overlook this development. Did the addition prove to be a game changer for whatever suburban outpost it went into?

There are a couple new faces. Some old faces disappeared, and others moved to Denver.