Kansas needs a Major League team (Wichita, Kansas City: hotels, colleges, buses)
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Let's wait and see how the Thunder (local hockey team) does at IBA. The success of drawing fans to IBA will speak as to the potential of a D-League team. Since the team really tanked this year, and they just moved into the arena, next year will be the telling year. If IBA can't draw fans to a Thunder game, the D-League would be a disaster.
My hope is that WSU continues to succeed at basketball. Koch Arena is one of the more underrated places to watch a game. If you've never been to a Shocker game, even if you're not a college b-ball fan, you're missing out.
IMO, college basketball is much, much more entertaining to watch than NBA basketball (by the way, I'm a K-State fan- GO CATS!)
IMO, Kansas deserves to have some sort of Major League team. I don't count to KC Wizards, since MLS isn't really that popular. I mean a team in the Big 4 Leagues. Any team. Population isn't much of a problem anymore. There's almost 2 million people in Wichita's TV market. I would prefer an NBA team, but it really doesn't matter what team we could get. Any team would be fine for me.
Kansas has 2 pro teams they already support that happen to be across an imaginary line. Chiefs and Royals....although the Royals are borderline given the disaster that is MLB economics.
With that said, not sure why KS has to have a team within their state as opposed to 5-10miles over the border. Is this going to be like light rail where we have to have it so that we can be like the other big cities?
Is this going to be like light rail where we have to have it so that we can be like the other big cities?
Where do you come up with this? LRT would really help KC rebuild its urban fabric, create transit oriented development and connect the urban core together regardless of what other towns are doing.
Although a lot can be learned from the other big cities.
Trust me, when it comes to transit, KC is not in the same leagues as most towns and even if KC ever did built a starter line system, they would still be 20 years behind because every other town will be on their 3rd or 4th expansion by then. Most already are.
As for the OP. Kansas has major league teams. The Royals, Chiefs, Wizards etc. The KC metro is the largest area in Kansas. Just the KS side of KC alone is nearly twice the size of Wichita (KS's largest city).
Plus the Jayhawks. I recently had a flight out of BWI and walked by a gate with a KC bound flight. Pretty obvious since 20% of the waiting passengers were wearing KU stuff. Sorry, that is just weird. Get some normal street clothes Kansas people. haha.
Where do you come up with this? LRT would really help KC rebuild its urban fabric, create transit oriented development and connect the urban core together regardless of what other towns are doing.
Although a lot can be learned from the other big cities.
Trust me, when it comes to transit, KC is not in the same leagues as most towns and even if KC ever did built a starter line system, they would still be 20 years behind because every other town will be on their 3rd or 4th expansion by then. Most already are.
As for the OP. Kansas has major league teams. The Royals, Chiefs, Wizards etc. The KC metro is the largest area in Kansas. Just the KS side of KC alone is nearly twice the size of Wichita (KS's largest city).
Plus the Jayhawks. I recently had a flight out of BWI and walked by a gate with a KC bound flight. Pretty obvious since 20% of the waiting passengers were wearing KU stuff. Sorry, that is just weird. Get some normal street clothes Kansas people. haha.
Lol, you're right about KU. It's ridiculous how intense the KU-K-State rivalry gets. I read this on a guy's shirt a few days ago; "University of Kansas: Putting the KSU in c****ucker"
Lol, you're right about KU. It's ridiculous how intense the KU-K-State rivalry gets. I read this on a guy's shirt a few days ago; "University of Kansas: Putting the KSU in c****ucker"
Ahaha that's histerical.
Hey we Kansas "people" like wearing sports clothing. Get it while the gettin is good hahaha. **** I live in Missouri what am i talkn bout.
Incorrect. We had a talk about this a week or so ago. KS side of KC with ~800k to Wichita's ~600k.
Kansas side of KC.
Douglas County 116,383
Johnson County 542,737
Leavenworth County 75,227
Wyandotte County 155,085
Franklin County 26,441
Miami County 30,969
946,842 residents live in the closest counties to KC. (so 40% larger than Wichita?)
If you look at who is within 1 hour of KC, you can add another 300k with Topeka and others.
So the sports market of KC or those that can and do drive to KC regularly for a sporting events is over 1.2 million and that is the Kansas side alone. The MO side is obviously even bigger.
Generally, the sports teams in KC draw from about an hour of KC. A small percent comes from much further and on weekends they get a little more from out of town, but 95% of the fans come from the KC/Topeka/StJoe/Lawrence area, a population of 2.7 million people.
How many people live within an hour of Wichita? Hardly enough to support major league sports. Especially since KC barely does it with 2.7 million within 60 miles.
Where do you come up with this? LRT would really help KC rebuild its urban fabric, create transit oriented development and connect the urban core together regardless of what other towns are doing.
Although a lot can be learned from the other big cities.
Trust me, when it comes to transit, KC is not in the same leagues as most towns and even if KC ever did built a starter line system, they would still be 20 years behind because every other town will be on their 3rd or 4th expansion by then. Most already are.
I'm not going to overly thread drift but some cities just lack the population density. Also, I will point to AMTRAK and also the fact that Chicago has had to close light rail routes, not add to them due to low ridership. Overly developed car culture in KC is hard to overcome.
Chicago doesn't even have light rail. Pretty much tells me you are a bit over your head with this topic . Chicago has heavy rail (both commuter rail and urban rail (EL/Subway). And their system is extremely comprehensive. Chicago is one of the only major cities in the country for example that runs METRA commuter rail all day long and on weekends, so I'm sure if cutbacks were necessary, those may have been first to get hit. I do believe Chicago wants to install some form of light rail and I personally think it would be a great idea to link the Convention Center/near south side to the north side for tourists etc as it would create better transit between the museums, stadiums, convention center, grant park, the loop and Michigan Ave, navy pier plus all the new residential areas booming north and south of Grant. Way off topic. This is KC not Chicago. Look at Portland, Seattle, San Diego, Charlotte, Baltimore, St Louis, Denver, Minneapolis etc for a better comparison to KC.
BTW, many cities that now have light rail, have far lower densities than KC's proposed routes do. Metro KC and even KCMO as a city has low density stats, but the urbanized portions of KCMO and the metro are actually pretty dense or at least dense enough to support fixed transit.
KC does not need regional light rail or commuter rail. But the city does need some form of fixed rail or brt (max is not true brt) to connect Brookside to downtown NKC. Or at the the very least River Market to Plaza to help create a dense, walkable urban core and create opportunity for urban infill and redevelopment to fill in the "gaps".
Then someday spurs to the stadiums or something. But Kauffman should be downtown. 250 million to renovate that place? One mistake after another...
Chicago doesn't even have light rail. Pretty much tells me you are a bit over your head with this topic . Chicago has heavy rail (both commuter rail and urban rail (EL/Subway). And their system is extremely comprehensive. Chicago is one of the only major cities in the country for example that runs METRA commuter rail all day long and on weekends, so I'm sure if cutbacks were necessary, those may have been first to get hit. I do believe Chicago wants to install some form of light rail and I personally think it would be a great idea to link the Convention Center/near south side to the north side for tourists etc as it would create better transit between the museums, stadiums, convention center, grant park, the loop and Michigan Ave, navy pier plus all the new residential areas booming north and south of Grant. Way off topic. This is KC not Chicago. Look at Portland, Seattle, San Diego, Charlotte, Baltimore, St Louis, Denver, Minneapolis etc for a better comparison to KC.
BTW, many cities that now have light rail, have far lower densities than KC's proposed routes do. Metro KC and even KCMO as a city has low density stats, but the urbanized portions of KCMO and the metro are actually pretty dense or at least dense enough to support fixed transit.
KC does not need regional light rail or commuter rail. But the city does need some form of fixed rail or brt (max is not true brt) to connect Brookside to downtown NKC. Or at the the very least River Market to Plaza to help create a dense, walkable urban core and create opportunity for urban infill and redevelopment to fill in the "gaps".
Then someday spurs to the stadiums or something. But Kauffman should be downtown. 250 million to renovate that place? One mistake after another...
I'd appreciate your not leading off with an insult because I didn't use your exact terminology and as such you missed the core point. (People that have ridden METRA and the CTA extensively will look at you funny if you called the EL "heavy rail" so don't get all snobby on me.)
The issue comes down to ridership and cost and Chicago has had to make MAJOR cuts to CTA and they actually have centralized population with a need to go to from home to work on a DAILY basis.
Overall population density isn't the point, it's population in one spot needing to get to work in another spot and I just don't see that in KC. (And don't get me started on the wisdom of 20miles of train line to the airport which is financially unsupportable.)
I agree with your paragraph about where to run a short light rail line if you want to do some urban redevelopment but again you are ignoring a car culture, lots of parking and not much relative traffic....and bleeding money for years and years while attempting the redevelopment. But that's besides the point because while yours is a reasonable longterm play that makes *some* sense, that's not what is often being pushed around here.
You can't run rail for tourists and weekend usage, it's financially unsupportable. You need daily ridership of sufficient volume.
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Incorrect. We had a talk about this a week or so ago. KS side of KC with ~800k to Wichita's ~600k.
. Chicago has heavy rail (both commuter rail and urban rail (EL/Subway). And their system is extremely comprehensive. Chicago is one of the only major cities in the country for example that runs METRA commuter rail all day long and on weekends, so I'm sure if cutbacks were necessary, those may have been first to get hit. I do believe Chicago wants to install some form of light rail and I personally think it would be a great idea to link the Convention Center/near south side to the north side for tourists etc as it would create better transit between the museums, stadiums, convention center, grant park, the loop and Michigan Ave, navy pier plus all the new residential areas booming north and south of Grant. Way off topic. This is KC not Chicago. Look at Portland, Seattle, San Diego, Charlotte, Baltimore, St Louis, Denver, Minneapolis etc for a better comparison to KC. 
