Should Main & Grand be widened through P&L Distr.

[FangKC]

With all the construction for the P&L District that is going on, should the City take this opportunity to widen both Grand and Main St. from 12th to Truman Road?

I'm not advocating adding more traffic lanes. Since the Sprint Center will front the east side of Grand, wouldn't it be a good time to put some sort of divide island on Grand for those two blocks where landscaping (trees with lights in them) and sculpture could be placed? I'm thinking of something similar to what's on 47th St. through the Plaza--especially with those groovy old-fashioned street lamps. It would also be a good time to put in angled parking on those blocks. With the extra width could come wider easements next to the sidewalks that would allow for trees to be allowed to grow larger--creating a leafy canopy along those blocks.

The entire east side of Grand from E. 12th to Truman Road will be cleared of buildings, and the west side from E. 13th St. to Truman Road will be as well.

Main between 12th and Truman Rd. has always seemed kind of narrow to me. It could also benefit from a landscaped divider island

The entire east side of Main will be cleared of buildings from 12th to Truman Road, as well as the west side of Main between 13th and 14th. It could also benefit from wider easements and space for larger trees.

[Tosspot]

Well I do know that the Urban Society is lobbying for diagonal, angle-in parking along Baltimore Street. The extent that this affects the P&L District, I'm not entirely sure.

[Long]

No.

[moderne]

Yes. Islands can be lifesavers for those of us with injuries and physical disabilities when we have to hobble across a busy street and cannot make it across before the light changes.

[Long]

I think islands might isolate drivers into their own lanes more and make them drive faster, making the street more dangerous to pedestrians.

Islands and angle-in parking are both suburban features. . . and angle-in parking can be more of a hazard. Sure, to parallel park you have to stop in traffic and back up, but at least you can still see the traffic behind you. With angle-in, a lot of times you're backing out blind because of the large vehicle parked beside you.

The sidewalks need to be a comfortable width, but not so wide that you start to lose the feeling of having buildings right up against you. Maybe some of them need to be a couple feet wider than they were, but nothing drastic.

[Long]

And can someone tell me why street trees are nice? Most of them I've seen are these pathetic stunted little twigs. Looking at old pictures of downtown, guess what I see? No trees. Nice light fixtures, but no trees.

[Tosspot]

Long,

I have never really thought of angle-in parking as being a trait of suburbia. On the contrary, this mode of parking is employed, as you probably already know, throughout the River Market; not to mention the copious small towns that employ angle-in parking throughout their downtown "Main Street" thoroughfares.

About the trees-- what I find worse are the half-assed landscaping appeasements littered throughout parking lots in suburbia--specifically the sad and pathetic little trees in the Rosana Square parking lagoon in JoCo. They are placed there to give the appearance that we are interested in a humane environment and habitat.

[Gladstoner]

Medians would be good on both Grand and Main. They are principle streets, and medians would serve as a gateway into the CBD and would add to defining the P&L district. Hopefully, it would help Grand live up to its name instead of being the blighted and endangered corridor that it currently is. The median on 47th st. in the Plaza would work.

I would prefer that plantings were modest; shrubs and flowers would do better than trees. I like trees, but not when they block the view above. I hate it when I drive in a scenic area (California for instance) and then have to contend with an endless row of large bushes or trees planted in the median for beautification. I want to see mountains, not oversized corn rows. Same goes for buildings.

Distinctive lamp posts would be nice. I'm not sure the old-style lamps would work in P&L, though.

Angled spaces would be nice, but I hope we don't end up with a situation where such parking spots would actually be easy to find, if you know what I mean. I wouldn't even waste my time looking for one. If anything, angled spaces would give the area a "town square feel" more than actually being practical.

[staubio]

Keep in mind that every additional foot of width creates a great sense of seperation between the sides of the street. We need to encourage an environment where people can see and interact with things on all sides. If you peer across a street that has angled parking, a median and a couple of traffic lanes in both directions, you are looking a long way. A median probably doesn't realy strike a disabled person as a cozy little enclave in the middle of the street, either.

Diagnoally parked cars don't function the same way in seperating the pedestrian from the street, either.

I say keep the streets as narrow as possible. The Plaza is a bad example. I think the streets are far too wide there. Keep traffic slow through the district, put in interesting or stylized crosswalks, light things exceptionally well and let the people move across as quickly as possible, over the smallest distance possible.

[Tosspot]

Staub-- my chief complaint about the Plaza is that it's streets are WAY too wide-- a remnant of the car-happy booming twenties. When you regularly see pedestrians running across the street to avoid getting runover by cars, as can be seen every day on the Plaza, you know the streets have been overengineered.

[KCN]

I agree about the Plaza. I realize a hotspot like that is going to have a lot of car traffic with visitors and such, but it really is a pain when you want to cross the street, plus you've got all those horse carriages on the streets. Car traffic really should be discouraged and kept on the outlying thoroughfares. Not that this is possible when you have to drive through the plaza to get to a parking garage.

[Long]

Long,

I have never really thought of angle-in parking as being a trait of suburbia. On the contrary, this mode of parking is employed, as you probably already know, throughout the River Market; not to mention the copious small towns that employ angle-in parking throughout their downtown "Main Street" thoroughfares.

About the trees-- what I find worse are the half-assed landscaping appeasements littered throughout parking lots in suburbia--specifically the sad and pathetic little trees in the Rosana Square parking lagoon in JoCo. They are placed there to give the appearance that we are interested in a humane environment and habitat.

I don't think of River Market as being very urban either. . . it is more of the quaint old town, especially that stretch of Delaware (which is the only place that has the angle-in parking). We need to understand the differences between downtown in the "city" and the charming little downtown squares in smalltown USA.

I'm still not sold on medians. As a pedestrian on one side of the street, I don't like that "separation" between myself and the other side of the street. True, Grand is so wide that you can't help feel a lack of attachment to the sidewalk across the street, but Main Street is still narrow enough to you feel connected to the other side of the street.

Landscaping elements, in the form of street trees and landscaped medians, are suburban and small-town elements introduced to the city to make it "softer and friendlier." They are not native elements of the true urban condition.

[Tosspot]

. . . it is more of the quaint old town, especially that stretch of Delaware (which is the only place that has the angle-in parking).

There is one other stretch in the River Market that has angle-in parking-- along Walnut Street in front of Planters, near the main entrance to the City Market.

[tat2kc]

Canal St., in New Orleans, is far far wider than any street in Kansas City. Its not a result of the car crazy era, it was designed that way to accomodate street cars, horse and buggies, etc. Any street on the Plaza would easily fit on one side of Canal, with plenty of room for the median and the other lanes of traffic.

Wide streets do not mean suburban mindset.

[Tosspot]

Nowhere did I imply that wide streets are indicative of a "suburban mindset," per se. But now that you mention it, that is certainly true in the post-WWII American sprawlburb.

But anyway, the Plaza was the first shopping center that took automobility into consideration in it's design, and that is abundantly clear when trying to cross streets there. The situation in New Orleans is something different, just as crossing streets must be a even more of a dubious proposition there than here, as hard as that is to believe.

[ComandanteCero]

tat, actually a good friend of mine from NO was telling me that back in the day they were going to build a canal along that stretch of real estate, so the right of way was secured but they never got around to completing it so it got turned into, surprise surprise, Canal street.

[Long]

I didn't mean to suggest that wide streets reflect a suburban mentality. . .

They DO reflect a focus on the automobile, which isn't automatically bad.

In the city, when cars are encouraged to move slowly and traffic even starts to stack up, it is density, activity, and it is relatively safe for the pedestrian. I used to live on Broadway off 8th street in the Garment District, and walking across Broadway at 5:00 when traffic was backed up to a standstill was probably safer than when the cars are speeding through like they normally do.

But cars do become bad when they are encouraged to move quickly. Like I said above, I think islands and landscaping tend to distract drivers from their surroundings. I think people drive differently when they are up against a double yellow line than they do when they are separated by a median. The closer together everything is in the city, the better. The people and the buildings and the cars need to be right up against each other. Density. Landscaping and trees and islands are designed to provide "buffers". Buffers reduce the interaction between building and people and car, and when the car is separated from the pedestrian, it is no longer restrained from moving fast.

[staubio]

I didn't mean to suggest that wide streets reflect a suburban mentality. . .

They DO reflect a focus on the automobile, which isn't automatically bad.

In the city, when cars are encouraged to move slowly and traffic even starts to stack up, it is density, activity, and it is relatively safe for the pedestrian. I used to live on Broadway off 8th street in the Garment District, and walking across Broadway at 5:00 when traffic was backed up to a standstill was probably safer than when the cars are speeding through like they normally do.


But cars do become bad when they are encouraged to move quickly. Like I said above, I think islands and landscaping tend to distract drivers from their surroundings. I think people drive differently when they are up against a double yellow line than they do when they are separated by a median. The closer together everything is in the city, the better. The people and the buildings and the cars need to be right up against each other. Density. Landscaping and trees and islands are designed to provide "buffers". Buffers reduce the interaction between building and people and car, and when the car is separated from the pedestrian, it is no longer restrained from moving fast.

Give the man (or woman) a trophy. Right on.

[voltopt]

There is one other stretch in the River Market that has angle-in parking-- along Walnut Street in front of Planters, near the main entrance to the City Market.

also, the area along oak street between missouri and independence avenue, as it turns back to grand and wraps the little muelebach building. just to be thorough, of course.

[moderne]

I don't understand those who say street trees are anti urban, or suburban. I don't think the Champs Elysee or Unter der Linden are anti urban, quite the contrary they are immensely civilized. Widening Grand downtown and planting trees (with irrigation in the loop) from 70 to 670 to Pershing would bring the citys famed boulevard system into downtown.