Streetcar to the riverfront

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Re: Streetcar to the riverfront

Post by KCPowercat »

DaveKCMO wrote: Thu Sep 10, 2020 12:22 pm
normalthings wrote: Thu Sep 10, 2020 11:54 am
alejandro46 wrote: Thu Sep 10, 2020 11:22 am The problem is long term, we built to Berkley and then what? End of line- there are no expansion opportunities down there.
Well, dave always says rail is dead after river to UMKC....... IMHO, aside from east/west streetcar, any wider-reaching system should be comprised of lightrail and not streetcar. My vision is a Northland LRT line that runs down HOA down ok to CC and then out east or south or maybe even west.
I don't think I used that word, but it's very unlikely given our land use and resulting low property values. Thus, regional funding would be the next method and you'll get all of the expected geographical infighting that will make any route choice... well, it won't be pretty.

Let's give this latest win some time to soak in. It's been a long slog.
PortKC using that land better will make this a lot bigger win for me and now that they have a connection they shouldn't need to provide so much parking.
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Re: Streetcar to the riverfront

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DaveKCMO wrote: Thu Sep 10, 2020 12:59 pm
WoodDraw wrote: Thu Sep 10, 2020 12:45 pm I’m a bit confused on the funding. What’s the source of the local match and will the new properties contribute to the tdd? Will port kc issue the bonds? New vehicles?
Starts on page 14: https://kcstreetcar.org/wp-content/uplo ... -18-Mo.pdf
Thank you. I don’t know if you know the answer to this, but how is the city bike and pedestrian funds looking if it’s not part of the match? Imagine the city won’t be swimming in money for a couple years.
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Re: Streetcar to the riverfront

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KCPowercat wrote: Thu Sep 10, 2020 12:15 pm
GRID wrote: Thu Sep 10, 2020 12:08 pm
KCPowercat wrote: Thu Sep 10, 2020 11:31 am I hate to be a debbie downer on this but I'm only really excited for the bike/ped path addition. Feel like the streetcar part is just going to add length to my trip.
Didn't think about that. If you catch the streetcar on the south river market stop, it will go to riverfront and back.

I honestly don't get the extension. The river front has very little room for major development and the development that is going in seems to be suburban style stuff that is way to low density to justify such an expense and it's only going to the foot of the grand bridge basically.
I think this is the biggest chance to improve upon. Let's NOT make it suburban style stuff. Not that I want to make this a new affordable housing bloc but we have a chance to create a lot of good housing here with higher density with this rail investment. That's been the big point on KC urban twitter since this announcement
If it went all the way to the casino and the casino was a true destination casino/resort hotel, not the joke that is there now and the riverfront was densely developed that would be different, but this makes little sense to me. Should have spent the money help push the line south of UMKC or across the MO river.
I agree and this does lay the foundation to get to the casino for an attraction and a park and ride. The Isle was just bought and new owners promise a huge improvement.
I just don't see either one of those happening to the degree it needs to. The casino might get some minor upgrades and if lucky a small hotel in ten years. That should be KC's primary destination casino, especially for out of towners. A whole new casino needs to be built along with a large high end hotel. Just don't see it happening. And I just don't know if the Port Authority can force more dense development to happen. They are probably hand tied with whatever developers will build and they re barely building high density stuff in the downtown core. I think it will just build out just like it's already started.

I think making recreation a bigger priority down there would drive far more ridership than anything. The city could do some major recreation improvements down there (levee trails, better connections from Berkley to other trails, conversion of portion of ASB bridge to ped bridge or whole new pedestrian bridge (which could also carry streetcar to NKC). There just doesn't seem to be any real grand plans to much outside of a few suburban style apartment complexes and a low grade facelift of the casino.
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Re: Streetcar to the riverfront

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land use on the riverfront is definitely still an ongoing discussion. If you drop the end of the line at that casino land who knows what investment a casino company would make.
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Re: Streetcar to the riverfront

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Berkely's suburbanism is deeper than just what developers are building. The area is laid out like an office park. It never had a chance.

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Re: Streetcar to the riverfront

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Parking is by far the most expensive part of building residential. The huge unused garage by Kemper is the only reason it's getting surrounded by new construction (developers can take advantage of a huge existing barely used garage). I think the only way this works is if the streetcar went the full length of the park with like two stops down there and very little parking was needed along with high density buildings. 7-15 stories. Now you are creating a dense community that is dependent on the streetcar.

It makes pretty much zero sense to spend tens of millions of dollars to extend the streetcar to a handful of parking garage wrapped (or worse, surface parking lot) suburban apartment complexes.

Maybe this can still be done, but the Port Authority needs to really step up their game. Regular apartment developers will come in and quickly fill that area up with cheap low rise apartments with lots of parking.
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Re: Streetcar to the riverfront

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That rendering proves my point. That is not going to generate a lot of transit ridership.
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Re: Streetcar to the riverfront

Post by flyingember »

normalthings wrote: Thu Sep 10, 2020 11:54 am
alejandro46 wrote: Thu Sep 10, 2020 11:22 am The problem is long term, we built to Berkley and then what? End of line- there are no expansion opportunities down there.
Well, dave always says rail is dead after river to UMKC....... IMHO, aside from east/west streetcar, any wider-reaching system should be comprised of lightrail and not streetcar. My vision is a Northland LRT line that runs down HOA down ok to CC and then out east or south or maybe even west.
The streetcar *is* light rail in terms of the cost.

Houston uses the CAF Urbos 3 70% low floor on their light rail system. Same trains. Salt Lake City uses Houston's other train type on their streetcar system. So it's not the trains that make it a streetcar.

They have mixed street running vehicles in a traffic lane on their light rail system. Their downtown stop spacing is exactly the same as the starter line on a per mile status. So it's not the stop spacing or track style that makes it a streetcar.

We built a light rail system with frequent stops and call it a streetcar.


You don't get much cost savings with a dedicated lane or stops further apart, the pieces that would make it more like classic light rail in a hybrid system. The same amount of track needs to be laid.
Last edited by flyingember on Thu Sep 10, 2020 2:23 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Streetcar to the riverfront

Post by flyingember »

GRID wrote: Thu Sep 10, 2020 1:31 pm That rendering proves my point. That is not going to generate a lot of transit ridership.
That rendering is under scaled and dramatically out of date, the three approved plans have more space for people than it shows being built.
GRID wrote: Thu Sep 10, 2020 1:20 pm There just doesn't seem to be any real grand plans to much outside of a few suburban style apartment complexes and a low grade facelift of the casino.
None of them are suburban style, there would be a lot more parking lots and the hotel wouldn't be sharing parking with the apartments and the dog bar business in suburban style.
Last edited by flyingember on Thu Sep 10, 2020 2:25 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: Streetcar to the riverfront

Post by normalthings »

GRID wrote: Thu Sep 10, 2020 1:20 pm
KCPowercat wrote: Thu Sep 10, 2020 12:15 pm
GRID wrote: Thu Sep 10, 2020 12:08 pm

Didn't think about that. If you catch the streetcar on the south river market stop, it will go to riverfront and back.

I honestly don't get the extension. The river front has very little room for major development and the development that is going in seems to be suburban style stuff that is way to low density to justify such an expense and it's only going to the foot of the grand bridge basically.
I think this is the biggest chance to improve upon. Let's NOT make it suburban style stuff. Not that I want to make this a new affordable housing bloc but we have a chance to create a lot of good housing here with higher density with this rail investment. That's been the big point on KC urban twitter since this announcement
If it went all the way to the casino and the casino was a true destination casino/resort hotel, not the joke that is there now and the riverfront was densely developed that would be different, but this makes little sense to me. Should have spent the money help push the line south of UMKC or across the MO river.
I agree and this does lay the foundation to get to the casino for an attraction and a park and ride. The Isle was just bought and new owners promise a huge improvement.
I just don't see either one of those happening to the degree it needs to. The casino might get some minor upgrades and if lucky a small hotel in ten years. That should be KC's primary destination casino, especially for out of towners. A whole new casino needs to be built along with a large high end hotel. Just don't see it happening. And I just don't know if the Port Authority can force more dense development to happen. They are probably hand tied with whatever developers will build and they re barely building high density stuff in the downtown core. I think it will just build out just like it's already started.

I think making recreation a bigger priority down there would drive far more ridership than anything. The city could do some major recreation improvements down there (levee trails, better connections from Berkley to other trails, conversion of portion of ASB bridge to ped bridge or whole new pedestrian bridge (which could also carry streetcar to NKC). There just doesn't seem to be any real grand plans to much outside of a few suburban style apartment complexes and a low grade facelift of the casino.
I was told there was some discussion on moving the casino to the west side of the Bond Bridge. Not sure how far those got but it does seem to me that the new owner is willing to spend big (as they have said publicly).
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Re: Streetcar to the riverfront

Post by normalthings »

TheLastGentleman wrote: Thu Sep 10, 2020 1:28 pm Berkely's suburbanism is deeper than just what developers are building. The area is laid out like an office park. It never had a chance.

Image
Is that not one of their outdated plans?

Their newer stuff shows denser uses and the pipeline projects have been denser uses (ex. the 2-10 floor buildings).
Image
Last edited by normalthings on Thu Sep 10, 2020 2:28 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Streetcar to the riverfront

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normalthings wrote: Thu Sep 10, 2020 2:25 pm
GRID wrote: Thu Sep 10, 2020 1:20 pm
KCPowercat wrote: Thu Sep 10, 2020 12:15 pm

I think this is the biggest chance to improve upon. Let's NOT make it suburban style stuff. Not that I want to make this a new affordable housing bloc but we have a chance to create a lot of good housing here with higher density with this rail investment. That's been the big point on KC urban twitter since this announcement


I agree and this does lay the foundation to get to the casino for an attraction and a park and ride. The Isle was just bought and new owners promise a huge improvement.
I just don't see either one of those happening to the degree it needs to. The casino might get some minor upgrades and if lucky a small hotel in ten years. That should be KC's primary destination casino, especially for out of towners. A whole new casino needs to be built along with a large high end hotel. Just don't see it happening. And I just don't know if the Port Authority can force more dense development to happen. They are probably hand tied with whatever developers will build and they re barely building high density stuff in the downtown core. I think it will just build out just like it's already started.

I think making recreation a bigger priority down there would drive far more ridership than anything. The city could do some major recreation improvements down there (levee trails, better connections from Berkley to other trails, conversion of portion of ASB bridge to ped bridge or whole new pedestrian bridge (which could also carry streetcar to NKC). There just doesn't seem to be any real grand plans to much outside of a few suburban style apartment complexes and a low grade facelift of the casino.
I was told there was some discussion on moving the casino to the west side of the Bond Bridge. Not sure how far those got but it does seem to me that the new owner is willing to spend big (as they have said publicly).
Hopefully with the announcement people will push for denser development, since their is limited space
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Re: Streetcar to the riverfront

Post by Riverite »

GRID wrote: Thu Sep 10, 2020 1:20 pm
KCPowercat wrote: Thu Sep 10, 2020 12:15 pm
GRID wrote: Thu Sep 10, 2020 12:08 pm

Didn't think about that. If you catch the streetcar on the south river market stop, it will go to riverfront and back.

I honestly don't get the extension. The river front has very little room for major development and the development that is going in seems to be suburban style stuff that is way to low density to justify such an expense and it's only going to the foot of the grand bridge basically.
I think this is the biggest chance to improve upon. Let's NOT make it suburban style stuff. Not that I want to make this a new affordable housing bloc but we have a chance to create a lot of good housing here with higher density with this rail investment. That's been the big point on KC urban twitter since this announcement
If it went all the way to the casino and the casino was a true destination casino/resort hotel, not the joke that is there now and the riverfront was densely developed that would be different, but this makes little sense to me. Should have spent the money help push the line south of UMKC or across the MO river.
I agree and this does lay the foundation to get to the casino for an attraction and a park and ride. The Isle was just bought and new owners promise a huge improvement.
I just don't see either one of those happening to the degree it needs to. The casino might get some minor upgrades and if lucky a small hotel in ten years. That should be KC's primary destination casino, especially for out of towners. A whole new casino needs to be built along with a large high end hotel. Just don't see it happening. And I just don't know if the Port Authority can force more dense development to happen. They are probably hand tied with whatever developers will build and they re barely building high density stuff in the downtown core. I think it will just build out just like it's already started.

I think making recreation a bigger priority down there would drive far more ridership than anything. The city could do some major recreation improvements down there (levee trails, better connections from Berkley to other trails, conversion of portion of ASB bridge to ped bridge or whole new pedestrian bridge (which could also carry streetcar to NKC). There just doesn't seem to be any real grand plans to much outside of a few suburban style apartment complexes and a low grade facelift of the casino.
I think development can be more influential than we are giving credit, but I agree they need to add more activities. Extend the trail to the west bottoms to connect them. Work on longer bike and walking trails. Make a soccer field, or something else, look how used the volleyball courts are
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Re: Streetcar to the riverfront

Post by normalthings »

Riverite wrote: Thu Sep 10, 2020 2:30 pm
GRID wrote: Thu Sep 10, 2020 1:20 pm
KCPowercat wrote: Thu Sep 10, 2020 12:15 pm

I think this is the biggest chance to improve upon. Let's NOT make it suburban style stuff. Not that I want to make this a new affordable housing bloc but we have a chance to create a lot of good housing here with higher density with this rail investment. That's been the big point on KC urban twitter since this announcement


I agree and this does lay the foundation to get to the casino for an attraction and a park and ride. The Isle was just bought and new owners promise a huge improvement.
I just don't see either one of those happening to the degree it needs to. The casino might get some minor upgrades and if lucky a small hotel in ten years. That should be KC's primary destination casino, especially for out of towners. A whole new casino needs to be built along with a large high end hotel. Just don't see it happening. And I just don't know if the Port Authority can force more dense development to happen. They are probably hand tied with whatever developers will build and they re barely building high density stuff in the downtown core. I think it will just build out just like it's already started.

I think making recreation a bigger priority down there would drive far more ridership than anything. The city could do some major recreation improvements down there (levee trails, better connections from Berkley to other trails, conversion of portion of ASB bridge to ped bridge or whole new pedestrian bridge (which could also carry streetcar to NKC). There just doesn't seem to be any real grand plans to much outside of a few suburban style apartment complexes and a low grade facelift of the casino.
I think development can be more influential than we are giving credit, but I agree they need to add more activities. Extend the trail to the west bottoms to connect them. Work on longer bike and walking trails. Make a soccer field, or something else, look how used the volleyball courts are
Soccer is a pretty low user/area game. I see pickleball and basketball being the next adds if any.

One of the biggest barriers to denser uses and development in general at RF has been developer and tenant perceptions of the area as “not downtown.” Streetcar will hopefully begin to change this.
Last edited by normalthings on Thu Sep 10, 2020 2:43 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Streetcar to the riverfront

Post by Riverite »

normalthings wrote: Thu Sep 10, 2020 2:33 pm
Riverite wrote: Thu Sep 10, 2020 2:30 pm
GRID wrote: Thu Sep 10, 2020 1:20 pm

I just don't see either one of those happening to the degree it needs to. The casino might get some minor upgrades and if lucky a small hotel in ten years. That should be KC's primary destination casino, especially for out of towners. A whole new casino needs to be built along with a large high end hotel. Just don't see it happening. And I just don't know if the Port Authority can force more dense development to happen. They are probably hand tied with whatever developers will build and they re barely building high density stuff in the downtown core. I think it will just build out just like it's already started.

I think making recreation a bigger priority down there would drive far more ridership than anything. The city could do some major recreation improvements down there (levee trails, better connections from Berkley to other trails, conversion of portion of ASB bridge to ped bridge or whole new pedestrian bridge (which could also carry streetcar to NKC). There just doesn't seem to be any real grand plans to much outside of a few suburban style apartment complexes and a low grade facelift of the casino.
I think development can be more influential than we are giving credit, but I agree they need to add more activities. Extend the trail to the west bottoms to connect them. Work on longer bike and walking trails. Make a soccer field, or something else, look how used the volleyball courts are
Soccer is a pretty low user/area game. I see pickleball and basketball being the next adds if any.
Pickle ball would be nice, wish something like chicken and pickle were down there. I liked the article the other day where they were talking about a cafe abutting the park
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Re: Streetcar to the riverfront

Post by GRID »

normalthings wrote: Thu Sep 10, 2020 2:25 pm
GRID wrote: Thu Sep 10, 2020 1:20 pm
KCPowercat wrote: Thu Sep 10, 2020 12:15 pm

I think this is the biggest chance to improve upon. Let's NOT make it suburban style stuff. Not that I want to make this a new affordable housing bloc but we have a chance to create a lot of good housing here with higher density with this rail investment. That's been the big point on KC urban twitter since this announcement


I agree and this does lay the foundation to get to the casino for an attraction and a park and ride. The Isle was just bought and new owners promise a huge improvement.
I just don't see either one of those happening to the degree it needs to. The casino might get some minor upgrades and if lucky a small hotel in ten years. That should be KC's primary destination casino, especially for out of towners. A whole new casino needs to be built along with a large high end hotel. Just don't see it happening. And I just don't know if the Port Authority can force more dense development to happen. They are probably hand tied with whatever developers will build and they re barely building high density stuff in the downtown core. I think it will just build out just like it's already started.

I think making recreation a bigger priority down there would drive far more ridership than anything. The city could do some major recreation improvements down there (levee trails, better connections from Berkley to other trails, conversion of portion of ASB bridge to ped bridge or whole new pedestrian bridge (which could also carry streetcar to NKC). There just doesn't seem to be any real grand plans to much outside of a few suburban style apartment complexes and a low grade facelift of the casino.
I was told there was some discussion on moving the casino to the west side of the Bond Bridge. Not sure how far those got but it does seem to me that the new owner is willing to spend big (as they have said publicly).
I feel like that's a terrible idea. There is plenty of room east of the 29 Bridge to build a larger, nicer casino and hotel tower. It would be really silly to move it west of the bridge which is prime land for residential or office space. There is not that much space to develop between Grand and 29/35 Bridge. It will be about 50% built out with just the existing and current under construction projects. A couple more apartment projects and you are done. It's just not a very large area. Even with a couple of ten story buildings, It's not going to generate a lot of transit use unless there are a lot less parking spots available.

There is not much that can be done. It's basically just an extension of the River Market and the Streetcar will make it feel more like a part of the River Market. Just try to develop the remaining properties as dense as possible, but really need to take the recreation down there to the next level. KC has always been undeserved by urban recreation. There is a massive demand for it, I guarantee it. The city just needs to build it. Just like every other city, the people will come to urban recreation. Keep the casino east and rebuild it and extend the streetcar to it.

I wonder how it would be extended if they decided to do that. Would it go east along the river or cross the river or will it probably never be extended.
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Re: Streetcar to the riverfront

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GRID wrote: Thu Sep 10, 2020 5:29 pm I feel like that's a terrible idea. There is plenty of room east of the 29 Bridge to build a larger, nicer casino and hotel tower. It would be really silly to move it west of the bridge which is prime land for residential or office space. There is not that much space to develop between Grand and 29/35 Bridge. It will be about 50% built out with just the existing and current under construction projects. A couple more apartment projects and you are done. It's just not a very large area. Even with a couple of ten story buildings, It's not going to generate a lot of transit use unless there are a lot less parking spots available.
This makes no sense. There's 13 parcels and 3,4,5,6,8,9,10 are still available. It's certainly not done with a couple more projects.

The current projects are using about 1/4 of the total land.

The area is 62 acres, give or take. The two apartment complexes, dog bar and hotel are about 15 acres.

The casino has 20 acres. So if there's two apartment complexes built equal in spread to the open building, there's 37 acres available.

So you can get your two complexes, an office building and a dramatically larger casino all at once and share a parking garage between the casino, streetcar and park
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Re: Streetcar to the riverfront

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You can talk acres and parcels all you want. Just look at google earth. Basically everything west of the union development will be built out and the land that can be developed east of the Union is about the same. I guess I don't see where you are coming up with all this room. There is not that much room down there between the park and the RR and all the roadway right of ways and these 4 story apartment complexes and their parking lots/garages will fill it up fast.
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Re: Streetcar to the riverfront

Post by flyingember »

They're taking part of the park for development
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Re: Streetcar to the riverfront

Post by KCPowercat »

I don't really see the need for the new stop to be added for North City Market.
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