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Agreed that the streetcar from River Market to Union Station, which is being built now, is not going to suffice. And the extension lines being talked about really won't be adequate either. Streetcars are slow.
KC needs a regional mass transit system, several of which have been proposed (DC-style subway from Bannister to River Market; commuter rail from suburbia to Union Station; grade separation of a faster streetcar along the Brookside Trolley Trail to Waldo--light rail, basically). I fear that the downtown streetcar will "lock" policy along a bad paradigm for decades. Streetcars jangling through crowds of conventioneers at 5mph in downtown KC will not help unite people and jobs from Independence or Lenexa or Rosedale or Lee's Summit (or even the new Cerner facility at Bannister).
I know we've gotten a bit off topic since this thread is about the task force recommendation for KCI (which I support either way). I don't fly that often (2 times a year max), so the current configuration of the airport doesn't really bother me. Would I support a new, modern airport....Yes. Do I think it's a top priority for the City right now...No. I would rather the City leaders focus more on getting downtown to the next level, which would include more residents, more business and more conventions. But this all probably does tie into having a new, modern airport or at least an airport that functions better. Some of these gripes about KCI could be fixed for a relatively small amount in the meantime it seems. Most of the Yelp negative reviews were complaints about not having enough outlets to charge phones/tablets and lack of food choices and of course the weird screening area (that's a bigger issue) and I'm not sure how you "fix" in post 9/11.
I think this is a great attitude, you say you don't fly much, the airport is not really a high priority for you, but you support he idea and understand its potential benefits and seem open to reasonable solutions. Most people in KC take a very selfish hard stance on issues like KCI and don't even try to see the bigger picture. There is a lot more wrong with KCI than the lack of charging outlets and it makes no sense to try to "fix" KCI by spending 1/2 to 3/4 of the cost of a new terminal to just put a band-aid on a few issues that will only last a few years. I would agree that KC has higher priority issues than KCI, but funding and improving KCI is very much a stand alone independent situation. It really has almost no impact on the general fund and taxing situation of the city. That's why the city should move forward with airport improvement in conjunction with other needed improvements (transit, parks, infrastructure, downtown hotels, schools, whatever).
I didn't realize it has been so long since a new hotel went up downtown. KC doesn't have a JW Marriott? I stayed at the new JWM in downtown Indianapolis a couple years ago. That's a sweet hotel
Yea and the bigger hotels it does have are pretty dated. It's sad for example that the Crown Center Hyatt was downgraded to a Sherraton, but the building was getting old and probably needed 20-30 million in improvements to keep the Hyatt flag. The downtown Marriott is a bit dated, but at least is a large hotel near the convention center. I beleive Crown Center is putting some money into the Weston to try to keep the Weston flag, they almost lost it a few years ago. And that's about it. There are several smaller hotels, some quite nice (President, Crowne Plaza etc), but yea, KC really needs some fresh modern hotels downtown. The new crossroads marriott property will be very nice and it's the first new construction mid level hotel in downtown in decades.
But KC is still WAY short on hotel rooms in and round downtown compared to almost any city over 1.5 million. It's too bad the new cordish condo tower doesn't include a hotel. That building should be much taller with a contemporary business hotel on top (200-300 room hyatt, W, Four Seasons etc). The city should have made that happen as part of the subsidy they gave cordish. And KC should have another major convention hotel UC by now with at least 1000 rooms to compliment a W type biz hotel and other hotels like the crossroads hotels. This would add a couple thousand hotel rooms to downtown and help close the gap some on the lack of hotel rooms. And it would make downtown KC far more lively as a nice side benefit. 2000 more hotel rooms within walking distance of the P&L district would also reduce the city's subsidy to that by making it more financially sustainable.
Agreed that the streetcar from River Market to Union Station, which is being built now, is not going to suffice. And the extension lines being talked about really won't be adequate either. Streetcars are slow.
KC needs a regional mass transit system, several of which have been proposed (DC-style subway from Bannister to River Market; commuter rail from suburbia to Union Station; grade separation of a faster streetcar along the Brookside Trolley Trail to Waldo--light rail, basically). I fear that the downtown streetcar will "lock" policy along a bad paradigm for decades. Streetcars jangling through crowds of conventioneers at 5mph in downtown KC will not help unite people and jobs from Independence or Lenexa or Rosedale or Lee's Summit (or even the new Cerner facility at Bannister).
Don't get me wrong, I fully support the streetcar. It just seems like KC is focusing on the streetcar as the answer to its transit problems and putting all its eggs in that basket. I'm still not sold on streetcar technology for much more than a few blocks. It's not really the type of transit for trips more than a mile or two max. The lines can be longer, but people will only use portions of them for short trips. They are just so slow (slower than buses) and not much more capacity than a bus, especially an articulated bus. Capacity issues also keep streetcars from helping with large events and venues. (a streetcar line will totally fail after sprint center events for example).
I am keeping an open mind though because planners of the streetcar line say it can be upgraded to light rail in the future. If that's the case, then someday, portions of the system could be upgraded to separate it from auto traffic to speed it up, purchase larger trains and the same line could be extended to further out locations. Nobody will want to take a streetcar all the way into the city from a suburban or even some city neighborhoods. It will take FOREVER especially in KC where you have no traffic and parking is plentiful. People will drive and the streetcars will be a bust. But streetcars are perfect for distributing people around the city such as between the river market and downtown, downtown and crown center or maybe even between crown center and the plaza.
Streetcar lines are an extremely effective catalyst for urban infill and transit oriented development, probably even more so than light rail due to their low profile (less intrusive to urban areas) and more access (stops), it's just that they need to be part of a more comprehensive regional system like you said. Look at other cities with successful streetcar lines (Seattle, portland, philly, toronto, vancouver, san francisco, cleveland etc), they also have other transit technology that the streetcars compliment (mainly light rail and commuter rail). Same with most cities that have streetcars under construction (St Louis, Washington DC, Dallas, Atlanta, Charlotte etc). Cincy and KC are expecting an awful lot out of streetcar technology alone. Streetcars alone just connect neighborhoods and are for very short trips.
While way behind on transit, I honestly think that KC is heading in the right direction now after decades of studies. If the city builds out the proposed streetcar network, it will have a robust transit connection between neighborhoods, something many cities with light and heavy rail are just now getting around to doing. But KC will also need to build some sort of regional transit system which should include light rail to densely populated Johnson County, light rail and or commuter rail (or hybrid such as what is on the table now) for Jackson County, and high level BRT or commuter service for the more sparsely populated Northland and Wyandotte County areas. To get this thread back on topic. KCI needs BRT or coach bus service to Downtown/Plaza. KCI is way too far and the I-29 corridor is not dense enough to support rail transit. A direct commuter bus from downtown and plaza to KCI such as the pics below (Baltimore and Denver airport buses) would work very well in KC's situation and would only be a 15-20 minute trip (vs 30-40 minutes for light rail and god only knows how long for streetcar).
Yea and the bigger hotels it does have are pretty dated. It's sad for example that the Crown Center Hyatt was downgraded to a Sherraton, but the building was getting old and probably needed 20-30 million in improvements to keep the Hyatt flag. The downtown Marriott is a bit dated, but at least is a large hotel near the convention center. I beleive Crown Center is putting some money into the Weston to try to keep the Weston flag, they almost lost it a few years ago. And that's about it. There are several smaller hotels, some quite nice (President, Crowne Plaza etc), but yea, KC really needs some fresh modern hotels downtown. The new crossroads marriott property will be very nice and it's the first new construction mid level hotel in downtown in decades.
But KC is still WAY short on hotel rooms in and round downtown compared to almost any city over 1.5 million. It's too bad the new cordish condo tower doesn't include a hotel. That building should be much taller with a contemporary business hotel on top (200-300 room hyatt, W, Four Seasons etc). The city should have made that happen as part of the subsidy they gave cordish. And KC should have another major convention hotel UC by now with at least 1000 rooms to compliment a W type biz hotel and other hotels like the crossroads hotels. This would add a couple thousand hotel rooms to downtown and help close the gap some on the lack of hotel rooms. And it would make downtown KC far more lively as a nice side benefit. 2000 more hotel rooms within walking distance of the P&L district would also reduce the city's subsidy to that by making it more financially sustainable.
I believe KC is in the running for the RNC convention in two years. I would think a lack of decent hotel rooms downtown would ruin any chances.
Perhaps I should have said "needs a [better] regional mass transit system."
Kansas City has a hodgepodge now -- the KCATA buses plus a few Johnson County routes. The systems need to be rationalized and made more efficient. There are far too many buses in some places, and not nearly enough in other places. Better transit would mean short-line buses scheduled to connect to mid-distance trains for an optimal outcome.
Car ownership has started its long, slow decline, and the city wants to encourage younger people (the demographic that is on the front edge of the decline in car ownership) to move to KC. The car will remain king for the forseeable future, but the city should plan alternate transit for the future in order to remain competitive with its peer cities.
Back to the OT, I am not a proponent of the big box airport terminal. I think a DFW-retrofit of existing terminals A, B, and C would satisfy the demolition peanut gallery. I fly 150k miles per year and LOVE that I can land at MCI and be on I-29 in 5 minutes.
Back to the OT, I am not a proponent of the big box airport terminal. I think a DFW-retrofit of existing terminals A, B, and C would satisfy the demolition peanut gallery. I fly 150k miles per year and LOVE that I can land at MCI and be on I-29 in 5 minutes.
Trying to keep this civil, so hopefully you understand I'm just giving another point of view and we can debate this topic respectfully.
I fully understand your point of view, but I would like to bring up a few things.
First off, have you ever lived in another city and used another airport as your "home airport"? You may have, but I thought I would ask. I think it makes a huge difference to fly into random airports and use rental cars, ground transit etc vs using an airport on a regular basis and being very familiar with "how" to efficiently use the airport.
I say this because I was a frequent flyer while living in KC and when I lived there, I actually said a lot of the same things locals say. Even though I still pretty much hated the airport because it was crowded, has no services etc, I always thought that other airports were just a pain to use. Now that I'm a frequent flyer out of BWI (and occasionally National and Dulles), I hate KCI with a passion and never understood why I liked it in the first place. I now know for a fact that KCI just doesn't work especially for an airport that only has 10 million passengers a year.
First off, I can be on the freeway in the same amount of time from BWI as KCI. Almost no difference what so ever. BWI "might" be 1-2 minutes longer if you are at a far gate, but KCI's garages can be a PITA and add time, I'll get to that in a second.
BWI has about three times the traffic that KCI does. But it is just as easy to use, if not easier. The parking situation has a similar set up, but BWI is MUCH better and here is why.
Both BWI and KCI have garage parking that is for short term parking and a daily max for $22. Same price as KCI. That alone is odd, parking in KC the same price as east coast? That's what happens when you have no transit options and a monopoly. So anyway, here is the difference. BWI parking is very easy to use and is very close to all gates. As you enter the garage, you enter via ramps directly to the level of the garage you want and there are signs telling you how many spaces per level available. The garage always has plenty of parking. You then just walk across a skywalk to the terminal. At KCI, you have three garages, but their use is not evenly dispersed. The terminal B garage is often full while the other garages are not so busy. So your options are often driving around the B garage looking for a space or worse parking in another garage and taking a bus to the correct terminal. Why anybody would pay $22 a day and do that is beyond me but people do. I don't typically pay $22 a day for parking and park in offsite surface lots, but if you do want to pay $22 a day to park, the situation at BWI and KCI are the same, only you get to use a much nicer terminal in the process.
BWI also has a huge offside garage that is $12 a day. KCI doesn't even have this option at all, you can find some covered parking at the parking spot or something, but there isn't much of that available.
The economy satellite lots of BWI and MCI are the same. KCI is $7 a day. BWI is $8 a day. But again, I prefer BWI, the main reason being that all buses depart (very frequently) from the terminal and BWI uses full size airport buses for parking. KCI's buses are small and get very crowded. I have never seen a major airport use a bus that size to move people with baggage. Even if it's not crowded, the bigger buses are just easier to use when you have luggage. The blue and red buses at KCI are silly and should be more like the rental car buses at KCI. And if you use different airlines at KCI, that can really screw things up since the buses from each terminal only go to specific lots.
So honestly, the parking and is better and time it takes to get off the plane and into a car (be it your own car or somebody picking you up) is the same. I also don't think catching a flight at BWI takes all that much longer, but MCI can be very unpredictable. If it gets busy at MCI, they can't open more TSA lines. At BWI, they can. At any airport including KCI, I like to give myself 30 minutes of buffer time just in case the TSA lines are longer than the typical 5-10 minutes I usually wait in any airport. At KCI you are stuck in a cattle pen if you do get through security in 2 minutes. At BWI, if there is no line, I can go to Chipoltle, grab a paper, walk around the terminal, use a nice restroom etc.
Again just my point of view.
And DFW can not be duplicated at KCI. The "idea" of the horse shoe terminals are similar, but DFW's terminals are a MUCH larger foot print. They actually have the room to do what they did and create large concourse and large secure areas. MCI does not have this room. Half of KCI's few restaurants are already up in the rafters. I don't think people realize that you can't just do what DFW did. I would be totally on board with doing what DFW if it were possible. But one of their terminals is probably twice as busy as all of KCI. Those are huge terminals compared to KC which are basically curved hallways.
Please chime in though. I would love to here your thoughts on this.
Perhaps I should have said "needs a [better] regional mass transit system."
Kansas City has a hodgepodge now -- the KCATA buses plus a few Johnson County routes. The systems need to be rationalized and made more efficient. There are far too many buses in some places, and not nearly enough in other places. Better transit would mean short-line buses scheduled to connect to mid-distance trains for an optimal outcome.
Car ownership has started its long, slow decline, and the city wants to encourage younger people (the demographic that is on the front edge of the decline in car ownership) to move to KC. The car will remain king for the forseeable future, but the city should plan alternate transit for the future in order to remain competitive with its peer cities.
Back to the OT, I am not a proponent of the big box airport terminal. I think a DFW-retrofit of existing terminals A, B, and C would satisfy the demolition peanut gallery. I fly 150k miles per year and LOVE that I can land at MCI and be on I-29 in 5 minutes.
The automobile is the most significant invention in the last 150 years and dwarfs all others in magnitude of benefit to life quality that it has afforded. It has been, is, and will continue to be the personal transportation of choice for the majority of Americans. Most people do not want "alternate" transit.
To the extent that there may be a decline in car ownership, it is not being driven by an ideological shift or preference. It is being driven, sadly and regrettably, by the shrinkage of our middle class as our collective wealth disappears overseas and to the coffers of a relative handful of obscenely wealthy elite. That is what is profoundly changing in America in comparison to the America that was full of promise for all that I came of age in 46 years ago.
People of means are still going to want cars and have cars, despite changes in propulsion type that are occurring and will continue to occur. This notion that there is some kind of long-term trend in people not desiring their own personal transportation vehicles is the ultimate in an attempt to apply a sour-grapes style patch over the sad truth. Each day America loses a little of what it once was and gains a little of what the third world has always been.
The idea that Kansas City should plan alternate transit for the future in order to remain competitive with its peer cities is to say....hey, look at us....we can turn back the clock just as fast as you can and reduce life quality with the best of them.
Even most of the very young, who have been programmed to drive the "new urban-ism" and anti-car dogma, will know better before they are 35 and understand this.
What else is truly changing, besides our slide into increasing poverty? The notion that there is some intrinsic value in moving large numbers of people throughout a metro area to the same central location to congregate in very large numbers. Kansas City knows better....and knows where the leading edge really is.
Last edited by CrownVic95; 05-15-2014 at 06:39 AM..
Perhaps I should have said "needs a [better] regional mass transit system."
Kansas City has a hodgepodge now -- the KCATA buses plus a few Johnson County routes. The systems need to be rationalized and made more efficient. There are far too many buses in some places, and not nearly enough in other places. Better transit would mean short-line buses scheduled to connect to mid-distance trains for an optimal outcome.
Car ownership has started its long, slow decline, and the city wants to encourage younger people (the demographic that is on the front edge of the decline in car ownership) to move to KC. The car will remain king for the forseeable future, but the city should plan alternate transit for the future in order to remain competitive with its peer cities.
Back to the OT, I am not a proponent of the big box airport terminal. I think a DFW-retrofit of existing terminals A, B, and C would satisfy the demolition peanut gallery. I fly 150k miles per year and LOVE that I can land at MCI and be on I-29 in 5 minutes.
Having had a few conversations with those working on rebranding the city and transit system, there does seem to be plans to reorganize the bus lines to work with the coming street car lines that should be introduced along with it and over the coming year. Including consolidating the Metro, Jo, Indebus, Max, Streetcar and everything else into one working system with altered services and lines that work better together.
As far as expanding it even more while having the alternative option is great, I don't see the point of rushing it. In a extremely easy to drive city with an extensive (the most extensive per capita) highway system set up for a city twice its population resulting in little to no traffic problems combined with comparatively cheap gas and car running costs; justifying lunging forward with a massive public transit system has been and will be a tough sell. There just doesn't seem to be a need for such a system. So yes while DC, Atlanta and Dallas may have or be developing an excellent public transit, but they're doing so with such intensity because its a pain in the rear driving there and and an extensive transit system is needed. I'm glad KC is developing the option for decent public transit. But as long as it remains an option and not a need, and as long as they continue to address the minor issue, I'm personally fine with the city doing it at the pace they are.
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