Visiting Kansas City and Need Suggestions (St. Louis: home, college, buses)

[MarketStEl]

Originally Posted by Floorist

Has Gates cleaned up their buildings? Last time I was in one, several years back it was nasty. But the food was good. If you are out in the burbs, avoid Zarda (fast food BBQ). And I am NOT wrong about downeown being unsafe. There are pockets of gangs all over.

Where are these gangs?

What struck me about downtown on my return trip back in June was how utterly bereft it was of traffic — vehicular or pedestrian — during the day. Mostly RideKC buses, and a few cars. And the streetcar on Main Street, of course.

We stayed in a luxe apartment building I recognized as the old Traders National Bank headquarters (built 1960). The conversion added a rooftop pool with a great view of the surroundings.

There was some life in the P&L District in the evening and a jumpin' daiquiri bar (which I concluded was a Thing among Black Kansas Citians; this bar had a sister location on Metcalf Avenue around 91st in Overland Park, and we visited a third, with a name that brought back memories, in the Jazz District).

And my bf and I walked to the Municipal Auditorium, then to a bar on the edge of Quality Hill, without any incident.

Maybe there's life when something's going on at the T-Mobile Center, or Municipal Auditorium, or Bartle Hall, but I sure saw little of it in the Downtown Loop. The Crossroads was a different story.

[sub]

One can find gangs literally anywhere, I’ve even heard about them in the Ozark backwoods. We used to go to downtown KC quite frequently when we lived there and never had a problem.
For visitors, I concur with the Crown Center/Union Station idea then ride the streetcar to the city market. It’s easy to do over a weekend. Check out the Plaza if possible.
The platform of the Liberty Memorial is great for photos.

[Jakz34]

I appreciate everybody's response and all the feedback I got, it will truly help as we embark on our journey to KC. So my wife apparently got an Airbnb in Roeland Park. Can anybody tell me about it in relation to the questions in my original post?

[KC_Retiree]

Originally Posted by Jakz34

I appreciate everybody's response and all the feedback I got, it will truly help as we embark on our journey to KC. So my wife apparently got an Airbnb in Roeland Park. Can anybody tell me about it in relation to the questions in my original post?

I use to live in Roeland Park (albeit quite a long time ago). It's OK and pretty central. Some of the apartments on the north side of Roeland Park have a rough reputation but the community is generally safe. It's a good kick-off point for the downtown area in that you can take Roe north and get on I-35 very easily (just a few minutes away). That's where the Liberty Memorial and Union Station are. Relatively easy trip to Arrowhead from there too - I-35 to I-70 via I-670. For a trip to the Plaza, just take Roe south to Johnson Drive, follow east, get on Shawnee Mission Parkway and you'll be there in minutes.

About half a mile or so to the south of Roeland Park's main commercial area, downtown Mission Kansas along Johnson Drive has some decent restaurants and breweries and is rather quaint. Directly east on County Line Road about 5-10 minutes (aka 47th Street) is one of KC's more famous BBQ joints; the original KC Joe's BBQ which is in a gas station. Good food but there can be long waits. You won't be too far from SW Boulevard which has some of KC's better Mexican food joints and another BBQ (Rosedale). Enjoy your stay.

[Jakz34]

Originally Posted by KC_Retiree

I use to live in Roeland Park (albeit quite a long time ago). It's OK and pretty central. Some of the apartments on the north side of Roeland Park have a rough reputation but the community is generally safe. It's a good kick-off point for the downtown area in that you can take Roe north and get on I-35 very easily (just a few minutes away). That's where the Liberty Memorial and Union Station are. Relatively easy trip to Arrowhead from there too - I-35 to I-70 via I-670. For a trip to the Plaza, just take Roe south to Johnson Drive, follow east, get on Shawnee Mission Parkway and you'll be there in minutes.

About half a mile or so to the south of Roeland Park's main commercial area, downtown Mission Kansas along Johnson Drive has some decent restaurants and breweries and is rather quaint. Directly east on County Line Road about 5-10 minutes (aka 47th Street) is one of KC's more famous BBQ joints; the original KC Joe's BBQ which is in a gas station. Good food but there can be long waits. You won't be too far from SW Boulevard which has some of KC's better Mexican food joints and another BBQ (Rosedale). Enjoy your stay.

Wow, thanks for all the details! We are staying on Ash and it looks like the house is closer to 55th Street, looks close to R Park? Is that a good area?

[KC_Retiree]

Originally Posted by Jakz34

Wow, thanks for all the details! We are staying on Ash and it looks like the house is closer to 55th Street, looks close to R Park? Is that a good area?

Yea that's just north of the city of Mission. Should be a solid middle class area.

[MRG Dallas]

Originally Posted by Jakz34

We are visiting Kansas City on November 18 and staying through November 21. We are going to the Chiefs game on the 20th.

1. What areas in KC should be avoided?

2. Are hotels around the stadium worth staying at?

3. What's the best way to get to the stadium on game day?

4. What should we see/visit on Nov 18/19 before the game?

5. Any other good info?

Give us a report back on this thread of your visit/experiences, if you will. I enjoy reading the suggestions and experiences especially since I have been away from my beloved hometown for quite awhile.

GO CHIEFS

[GraniteStater]

I was back in the city recently recently and enjoyed my stay for four days, by far the biggest negative is just how spread out everything is and the amount of driving required to go anywhere (one forgets the scale of it after having been gone 15+ years). They should change the name of the metro area to Kansas Asphalt City.

[MarketStEl]

Originally Posted by GraniteStater

I was back in the city recently recently and enjoyed my stay for four days, by far the biggest negative is just how spread out everything is and the amount of driving required to go anywhere (one forgets the scale of it after having been gone 15+ years). They should change the name of the metro area to Kansas Asphalt City.

That's the biggest reason I didn't move back after college. The streetcar is a step in the right direction, but it's only a step. And Clay Chastain has given LRT like they have in St. Louis a bad name.

The buses are completely free to ride, but they don't run often enough and still don't cover many parts of the metropolitan area, or cover them only sketchily.

There are two statistics about traffic in KC that the pave-the-Earth crowd loves to trot out:

• According to the annual TomTom Traffic Index, Kansas City drivers spend less time in congested traffic than those in any other 2-million-plus urban area in North America. Of the 390 metro areas listed on the index, Kansas City ranks 383d. (The city center as TomTom defines it is more congested, though: where it takes only 8.5 minutes to travel 10 km in the metro, whose drivers spend 69 hours a year on average in congested traffic, it takes two minutes longer to do so in the city center, where drivers spend 84 hours a year on average in congested traffic [350th out of 390].)
  
• I believe that Kansas City still has more freeway lane-miles per capita (actually, per 1,000 inhabitants) than any other city in the United States. And sure enough, according to Federal Highway Administration data posted here, it still does: 1.262 freeway lane miles per 1,000 residents.

I maintain that the boulevard and arterial street network contributes more to the low congestion than the freeways do — when I commuted from my Oak Park (east side Kansas City, MO) home to The Kansas City Star in what's now the Crossroads, I drove on boulevards exclusively, and I don't think that the presence of Bruce Watkins Drive would have cut the time significantly — but the pave-the-Earth crowd would tell you the freeways matter.

But in any case, as I wrote in an article that has yet to appear on Phillymag.com, KC rather than LA should be trotted out as the capital of sprawl.

[KC_Retiree]

Originally Posted by MarketStEl

That's the biggest reason I didn't move back after college. The streetcar is a step in the right direction, but it's only a step. And Clay Chastain has given LRT like they have in St. Louis a bad name.

The buses are completely free to ride, but they don't run often enough and still don't cover many parts of the metropolitan area, or cover them only sketchily.

There are two statistics about traffic in KC that the pave-the-Earth crowd loves to trot out:

• According to the annual TomTom Traffic Index, Kansas City drivers spend less time in congested traffic than those in any other 2-million-plus urban area in North America. Of the 390 metro areas listed on the index, Kansas City ranks 383d. (The city center as TomTom defines it is more congested, though: where it takes only 8.5 minutes to travel 10 km in the metro, whose drivers spend 69 hours a year on average in congested traffic, it takes two minutes longer to do so in the city center, where drivers spend 84 hours a year on average in congested traffic [350th out of 390].)
  
• I believe that Kansas City still has more freeway lane-miles per capita (actually, per 1,000 inhabitants) than any other city in the United States. And sure enough, according to Federal Highway Administration data posted here, it still does: 1.262 freeway lane miles per 1,000 residents.

I maintain that the boulevard and arterial street network contributes more to the low congestion than the freeways do — when I commuted from my Oak Park (east side Kansas City, MO) home to The Kansas City Star in what's now the Crossroads, I drove on boulevards exclusively, and I don't think that the presence of Bruce Watkins Drive would have cut the time significantly — but the pave-the-Earth crowd would tell you the freeways matter.

But in any case, as I wrote in an article that has yet to appear on Phillymag.com, KC rather than LA should be trotted out as the capital of sprawl.

I would visit a few Texas cities before I crown KC as the capital of sprawl. That said, I retired in KC because I believed there was a change in attitudes towards sprawl (and public transportation) but I am disappointed after a couple of years that there is really very little momentum to make downtown vibrant again. Far too many KC white collar jobs are concentrated in the suburbs and while there is a downtown living renaissance, even that seems to be losing momentum (a momentum loss fueled by the most unlikely of sources). The attitudes expressed on KC social media regarding a new downtown stadium are just sad to read. Most of the many detractors of a downtown stadium are absolutely unaware of any progress made downtown and echo one of the poster's here erroneous belief that downtown is dangerous.

As I said earlier, I think Texas cities still out-sprawl KC but KC's suburban attitude may be second to none.