Hey, Hey, Kansas City
Monday, September 17, 2012 | Charles Marohn Last week on my whirlwind tour of the country (Minnesota, Illinois, Massachusetts, New York, Washington DC, Kansas City, Salt Lake City, Naples, Miami then back home to Minnesota), I wrote a short piece about traffic in Kansas City called Streets with no cars. Besides the U2 fans that caught the subtle reference, I was inundated with feedback from two types of people. The first felt the piece was an accurate description of a place they know and are frustrated with. The second thought I was totally out of line.
I was actually rather surprised because I didn't think my observations that KC streets were overly wide, unnecessarily one way, lacked on street parking and facilitated traffic speeds that were excessive was either novel or earth shattering. If fact, if truth be told, I wrote the piece really late at night, was very tired and was more than a little ashamed that I did not have a deeper insight to share. Our readers here have heard this all before and I myself get bored preaching to the choir (not to mention the boredom of the actual choir).
So when my piece was picked up all over the place and feedback started pouring in from new locations, it reminded me that our choir is not a huge percentage of the overall population and that we might need to explain things over and over again as new people find us. Let me start with a smattering of the feedback.
From the people that thought I was accurate in my observations:
Charles, great piece on Kansas City. As a Kansas Citian, I applaud you for calling our city out on it's debilitating planning blunder of the post-WWII era.
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This is an excellent piece. It is a problem facing many, if not most, Midwestern cities, and the nation as a whole. Many pockets of truth here.... and Kansas City as the site for the next New Partners for Smart Growth conference, next February, an essential read for us all.
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Sounds like the Kansas City I know. This is my home town and some years ago, it was deemed, by the Sierra Club I believe, as being in the top 5 most negatively impacted by sprawl metro areas (c. 1.6 million pop) in the country. I was just there 2 weeks ago. I can confirm there is a lot of traffic in the suburbs (though not so much downtown) and more big roads are being constructed to cater to the seemingly ever-expanding suburbs.
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It isn't as if the condition of our built environment is a reflection of our values as much as it is a stubborn legacy of our misguided efforts to "save" downtown in the era of suburbanization. KC led the way in embracing every urban renewal plan we could get our hands on, aggressively welcoming freeways that choked our business district and designing a street grid to serve those freeways.
From the people who thought otherwise:
...maybe he should've stuck around KC longer or been out during rush hour.
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Or asked a local. Because, you know, there are no greater authorities about any place than two conventioneers in town for a couple of days.
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Is he really advocating making all intersections downtown uncontrolled? That's the crazy.
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Chuck, when you put this kind of effort into your blog it's hard for any of us to take you seriously. If you are such an expert you should have access to that data, or at least know where to find it.
That's like me saying "I'm willing to bet that the Royals have a lower OBP that the Yankee's. Far lower. Anyone who has access to such data please prove me right or wrong."
Also, learn what commas are used for.
That last comment was my favorite. I'm notoriously bad with commas, mostly because of how I self edit my work. I put them essentially where I would pause if I were speaking because I edit my work by reading it aloud. Like a speech. It drives my wife -- a professional writer -- crazy because I have commas all over the place. Oh well, at least I would have known to put a comma after "saying". Just sayin'.
There is so much here to talk about, but I want to focus on just one thing today and that is the observation that there is no traffic to speak of in the downtown. At least no volume anywhere near the relation to the amount of infrastructure.
Kansas City recently completed a Greater Downtown Area Plan (adopted in March 2010). I've read it and it is excellent. Later this week I want to go through and point out some of the great things in it and discuss some of the challenges KC faces in implementing it, but for now I'm going to focus on this excerpt from page 45:
I have to say kudos to Kansas City for including this in their plan. I think this initiative could be expanded much more broadly, but this is a really good start. And the logic behind it is solid too. The overall goals of the plan include "doubling the downtown population" (I love specific, measurable goals like that), increasing employment downtown and creating a walkable downtown. This is all good and all necessary.
For example, here's an image of one of the streets they plan to give a road diet. Now, going from what they call four lanes (actually looks like seven lanes) to three lanes seems a little timid (I'm no fan of the center lane), it is certainly a step in the right direction. They could just as easily go down to two travel lanes with parallel parking and then a center median and not impact the (non existent) traffic flow in any appreciable way.
Grand Blvd near 18th Street. Image from Google Earth.Traffic flow projections from MoDOT seem to suggest low volumes in the downtown as well. At the NW and SE corners of the "loop" you have 34,000 and 23,000 cars per day, respectively. For some context, my little hometown of Baxter, MN, (population 8,000) has 47,000 vehicles per day go through its main intersection.
And then I'll get back to simply what my eyes saw. I'm going to release this week's SID.tv video a day early so I can include it in this post. I've called it The KC One Way Coupling. See for yourself -- this was not a one-off shot or a video that has been edited but a representative sample of what eight hours in the downtown was like.
And this is why I found half of that reaction to last week's post odd. There are obviously people who believe strongly that downtown Kansas City has a congestion problem. This is mind blowing to me and all I can suggest is that, if you are one of those people, you need to travel to a place that actually has congestion. Head out to California once and try to drive anywhere. You'll have a new appreciation for just how nicely you have it, and you'll be able to save some money too by not continuing to overbuild everything.
Oh, and share your insights with the Mid-American Regional Council. While the area's regional transportation entity - MARC -- has identified mixed use development as a long term strategy (10 or more years), their immediate strategies include increasing the number of lanes (1 to 5 years), widening roads and providing turn lanes (1 to 5 years), converting major arterials into something they call "super streets" with grade separated intersections (5 to 10 years), creating reversible traffic lanes (1 to 5 years) and building more frontage roads (5 to 10 years). It doesn't sound like they are on board with the whole road diet thing.
Or, at the very least, they are going to abscond with the money that should be invested in the downtown (which has by far the highest return on investment) and spend it on suburban commutes. Not good.
Chill out, Kansas City. I didn't say anything you didn't already know and, if I did, you have bigger problems than me. To continue this conversation, later this week I'm going to share some highlights of their excellent downtown plan as well as explain why shared space intersections are not "crazy".
If you would like more from Chuck Marohn, check out his new book, Thoughts on Building Strong Towns (Volume 1).
You can also chat with Chuck and many others about implementing a Strong Towns approach in your community by joining the Strong Towns Network. The Strong Towns Network is a social platform for those working to make their community a strong town.
Reader Comments (14)
Chuck, everyone you cite as being in the disagreement camp didn't actually disagree with you. We AGREE with you almost wholeheartedly. The problem is that you were condescending and rude in your comments to us. We welcome you back any time and would love to continue the discussion as all of us are interested in making streets places for everyone and not just for unrestricted automobile travel.
Traffic is kind of like the weather - Everyone likes to complain about it. Even in my small Indiana hometown of 19,000, people complain about traffic (there is none). Living in San Diego, people always complain about traffic and parking. However, having lived in San Francisco and Boston prior to San Diego, I know that here in San Diego we have it easy.
Downtown Indianapolis has a similar street configuration that you described for KC. San Diego has also opted for the coupled one-way streets downtown. As far as I am concerned, the sooner we can take traffic engineers out of the process of urban design, the better.
Chuck, you have made an excellent analysis of the Downtown KC street grid. The one way couplings are uneeded anywhere downtown, and as a local resident, have only seen their effectiveness after major events downtown. Otherwise, they make the commute downtown longer, and confusing. The two major roads downtown, Main and Grand, are not even close to capacity ever! Im all for a vibrant downtown and would like to see the focus change in this city from the automobile to the pedestrian. Cars are king in this town, and the people here view any attempts at changing their driving culture as an attack on their livelihood. Keep the conversation going, hopefully you change a few minds out there. And check out the grand boulevard proposal at grandblvdkc.com. Not sure if this plan has stalled or not, but a great idea nonetheless.
That second-to-last paragraph ("abscond with the money and spend it in JoCo") captures why downtown is empty in the first place. Most spending in this metro area is focused on making it easier to drive at 50+ at all times in the suburbs, rather than on making sensible decisions. The sheer area that is paved in this town, in relation to the actual number of automobiles (don't get me wrong, there are a ton of cars), is insane!
We are operating on the assumption that traffic should never, ever be slowed down for any reason, and any delay of any kind means we need new lanes and new interchanges. At the same time as we, as a city, get REALLY excited about some new bike lanes on one or two roads in the metro, we spend untold millions making it just a little bit faster to blast through 75th and I-35!
There are many reasons behind these decisions, but ultimately they do little or nothing to address the problems Kansas City faces. Despite amazing geography, we have ozone alerts any time the mercury tops 90, our average commute is something ridiculous, and we have a crazy number of empty buildings within five miles of our "downtown". It seems like there is a simple solution here...
Thank you so much for reporting on this traffic "issue". I own a bicycle messenger company here in town and am baffled at how many people treat me for simply riding in the right hand lane. I've been harassed many times and told to get on the sidewalk, when no other traffic was present! I was in Chicago last month for a bicycle race and even worked in the Loop for a food company up there. THAT was some traffic that people in KC never get to see. I loved riding in the congestion up there, as it felt like a real downtown. Back in KC, people still complain about not being able to speed everywhere and are shocked to see bikes in the city, like they don't know what to do. I wish that more people here would get out of their bubble of Midwest thinking and see how the real world works. We need more people friendly roads if we want more people. Simple as that
Charles -
I always cringe when you start citing traffic numbers. "At the NW and SE corners of the "loop" you have 34,000 and 23,000 cars per day...."
A. Those are numbers on the interstate loop, not the surface streets (the subject of your article).
B. You are cherry picking numbers. Immediately north of the 23,000 (which I think is on a one-way ramp from I-70 onto I-29/35) is 91,327. Immediately east and south of the 34,000 number (which again I think is a ramp volume) is 69,649 and 55,184, respectively. Any combination of the above (as you base your analysis on) blows your hometown of Baxter, MN out of the water.
C. On what planet can you characterize 91,327 vehicles per day (on one leg of the downtown loop) as "low traffic"?
With regard to your video about one-way pairs: Do you realize, because of their high vehicle traffic efficiency, one way pairs could be the answer to carrying the downtown traffic AND narrowing the roadway to provide more on-street amenities such as walking space, plaza space, street furniture, bike lanes etc., etc.? You may be right there is probably excess capacity available with the one-way pair system. But rather than trade that for two, less efficient two-way streets, narrow up the one-way streets and get the best of both worlds. Not to mention it's not easy or cheap to convert streets from one-way back to two way. It's a huge, downtown (or farther) encompassing project that will cost at least tens of millions to perhaps 100 M dollars. It's not as simple as repainting the street. I've been through this before.
Rather than bashing one-way pairs, you of all people should be embracing them. About half of the examples provided on other websites (that you contribute to) of "Great Streets" are one-way pairs. What up?
Hey Jeff. I was kind of baiting you with that so now that I've got the fish on the line....
a. Those are the interstate loops, absolutely. I think it is a fair assumption that the local traffic would be many, many factors less than this and spread out over a huge grid. That's kind of the point -- when it gets to the local streets, this is a pretty small number.
b. I plead guilty to cherry picking numbers (like I said, I knew you or someone else would bite on that). Does it "blow Baxter out of the water"? Well, double the traffic with 25 times the population is not what I was expecting, but nonetheless, no stretch of road in KC is going to show up on a top 50 list of highest traveled US corridors. Not sure what your point is with that.
c. On this planet I would not call that level of traffic on that freeway to be excessive. As you said in (a), we're talking about the freeway here, not the local street. While there is no analysis I could find on through traffic, I would assume that a large percentage of that ADT passes right by the streets of KC. The percentage that does turn off finds itself on a grid where, in any direction, there are literally dozens of lanes to choose from (albeit it on every other block due to the couplings and after sitting at unnecessary signals).
One thing you should understand about me: when it comes to local streets, I could not care less about efficiency, traffic speed or the volume handled by the hierarchical road network. You will be continually frustrated trying to understand my work through that value system. I care passionately about access, travel time and the overall productivity of a place. Those benchmarks are consistent with my value system which begins and ends with building places of measurable and sustainable value.
That's total value. For all people. Not just drivers.
Jeff, I urge to to look a San Francisco, where a number of streets that were one way that have been converting to two way, particlularly in Hayes Valley and Tenderloin. In each case, it's not a $10-100 million project, but just paint. That's all which is really required to get the ball rolling.
It's brough more life into the shopping and residential districts where it has been done, and made a big difference in the livability of those streets by slowing traffic and making them more friendly to the people who live an work in those areas. We are all pedestrians at one time or another, and each of us deserve to have decent streets to walk and live on, regardless of whether we live in a tree lined suburban cul de sac or urban neighborhood.
"One thing you should understand about me: when it comes to local streets, I could not care less about efficiency, traffic speed or the volume handled by the hierarchical road network. You will be continually frustrated trying to understand my work through that value system."
And the more you present your work in a normative rather than positive manner, the more you will be frustrated by resistance from people who either do not share or do not value your view of the urban form and community. As you know, you're not going anywhere that others haven't gone. Duany & Plater-Zyberk, Kunstler, and many, many others have long advocated for a more human-scale - I would say sane - development paradigm. My own jurisdiction adopted an award-winning New Urbanist area plan in 1995. Since that time the plan has effectively been shredded. No plan survives first contact with a developer. The developer will build what can get built & sold. They have to - they need to make money. What sells is easy traffic, green front lawns, backyard pools, and 5' side setbacks. And that's here, in a semi-progressive community in California. I imagine that in most of American Midwest, the desire for easy traffic is even stronger.
However, as much as folks like - and will defend - easy traffic, they understand and can appreciate the cost of maintaining something. And this is how to get the idea of denser development more accepted by more people & jurisdictions. Present your ideas first and foremost as part of the solution to government's future financial concerns. We're building infrastructure that we simply won't be able to afford to maintain. Roll out the numbers - in detail - to support your position. That's the positive, not the normative, argument. I know that the money is part of your argument but, here in the cheap seats, I don't see it being a strong enough part. I don't know, maybe it's because I see only the blog and haven't been able to catch your road show yet. However, really, I respectfully suggest that the money needs to be the primary part of your argument. Paint the picture - the growth ponzi scheme, roads crumbling, parks not being maintained, bare bones police force, et cetera. Then, as they're wondering "Oh my gosh! How are we going to be able to keep things going? We don't want to pay more taxes, but if we can't afford to maintain what we have...?" - that's when you gently stroke their cheek with your velvet-gloved roundhouse: "You know, denser development isn't all bad. Some places have done it really, really well. Have you seen this?" Then you show pictures of good development and explain both the financial benefits and the aesthetic & community-environmental possibilities/benefits of denser development.
The only way denser development will happen in many communities is through financial pain e.g. infrastructure costs, $12/gallon gas with the same average mileage and average salary, or some other event with a similar impact. Community aesthetics won't do it because the function & quality of life improvements are too subjective and too difficult to imagine. Pedestrian safety won't do it either. "I've never hit a pedestrian, and I never will. Neither will I get hit by a car. Someone else might be stupid enough to do that, but I won't."
Just how it looks from here.
P.S. - I have no clue how to use commas. I think I use them a lot like you do. I also use dashes a lot. I don't know how to use them either. Oh well.
@Dittohead, you make me laugh. Probably the most frequent critique I receive is that I talk too much about the numbers and don't "make it real" for people. Just proves that everyone will hear the same thing differently.
My point that you quoted was not to say that the math doesn't matter, that I've abandoned that approach or that I am trying to turn our cities into a New Urbanist utopia, but that I believe America messed up when we adopted a consensus belief that traffic must move at speed in urbanized areas. The only thing efficient about the streets of Kansas City is how efficiently they waste money. Designing for what an engineer perceives as efficiency -- or holding efficiency of anything as a high value -- is just not my way of thinking.
Sweatshops and concentration camps are efficient. A society that has efficiency as a primary core value will efficiently get bad outcomes.
Charles -
Just keeping you honest with your numbers, but I appreciate the bait.
I understand your goals and am not frustrated at all by your value system. However, I am the guy in the trenches that actually has to get this stuff built. I have to reconcile all the loose ends that don't match up between the theoretical ideal and the nuts and bolts of making it work. YOU may not care about moving the auto traffic, but you are in the minority. For now.
Skip -
It's not just paint. You have to supplement every traffic signal that was set up for traffic coming from one direction to now handle traffic from two directions (or more depending on how many one-ways cross one-ways). Depending on how old the signal equipment is and the condition of the underground conduits, those modifications can range from a minimum of $50k to as much as $200k at each signal location. Throw in a railroad crossing or two at a minimum $500k each and the points really add up. The best and quickest way to change the paint stripes is to first seal coat the entire roadway (basically paint it black) then apply the new paint striping, all of which adds cost. Mobilization, traffic control, premium for night work, etc., etc. Finally, most people are not like Charles and will demand some turn lanes here and there, on-street parking, etc. Just the engineering and public involvement required to make this change for a small downtown (about 1/4 the size of Kansas City) would be somewhere between $500k - $1M. And if you want to actually move the curb lines in? Get out a big, fat checkbook.
Charles:
I think your point of view is spot-on. I'm originally from suburban St. Louis, MO and I now live in the Country Club Plaza area of KCMO. I used to work for the City of Kansas City, MO and from first hand experience I know we are trying. I've seen planners and high ranking City Officials alike tote road diets, smarter, mixed-used growth, and emphasis on human scaled development and a general shift away from "car centric" development. However as a previous poster mentioned the "Car is King" in KC. And when you try and change that (because we're not trying to take it away) people here assume it's an attack on their way of life. What they don't realize is they are denying an alternate way of life for others that don't want the suburban cookie-cutter house that sits off a 50mph + artery. Unfortunately like St. Louis KC is rather fragmented in terms of the various municipal governments in the region. In St. Louis the urban population is only 319,000, the suburban population of St. Louis is about 2.6 million. You can imagine where the money goes...the suburbs. The same thing happens here. MARC has to divide up this large pie. KCMO only has 460,000 residents, the other 1.7"ish" million people in KC are in the suburbs, so again you can imagine which basket the regional planners choose to put their eggs in so to speak. I still have many friends at the City, I myself am trying to get back into City Planning there. I'd love to assist you in collecting any traffic, pedestrian, or other types of data to help illustrate your point. Because your point is spot on and people in KC need to wake up and realize the way we do things here needs a serious re-thinking.
I also want to point something out to the poster who said our grid is designed for freeways. That is totally false. In KCMO we had a nice perfect easy to understand grid littered with about 400 miles of streetcars back in the day. Then the freeways came and destroyed a large portion of that grid, and our built environment. However in suburban KC the grid is designed for freeways. The City and it's streets were here long before the "Robert Moses era," as I like to call it, arrived.
I would also like to point out that while you're correct about the one-way streets (useless if you ask me) and the low traffic amounts, I spent everyday for the better part of a year in Downtown KC and most days the streets are busy and there are lots of people (especially in the Loop portion). Just without the constant congestion. Which is OK with me.
I feel the same way about commas too by the way :)
Oh, and BRING ON THE STREETCARS!
Thanks @JeffMorrow -- We're good, and I'm sympathetic to the tough spot you find yourself in. Keep working at it.
And thanks @Jason. We need people like you. I'm going to try and give you some more ammo today.
-Chuck
A streetcar that runs for a few blocks will solve all of Kansas City's problems.