Kansas City does not equal easy commute (Grandview, Overland: hotels, college)

[famusdarlin]

According to this article and recent research.

When it comes to commuting in KC, blame sprawl for crawls - KansasCity.com (http://www.kansascity.com/2010/10/24/2348600/when-it-comes-to-commuting-in.html - broken link)

[aragx6]

Wow, worse than Atlanta, huh? That's awful because I've driven plenty in Atlanta and it isn't pleasant!

I'm surprised they didn't mention the effect that long highway commutes have on the rate of collision casualties. That's what always bothered me the most about my long Chicago commute.

[northbound74]

The article is a good one, but then there's the danger factor of driving. That's when the suburbanite's eyes glaze over. Thier obsession with safety gets trumped.
Those people love to complain about Westport being dangerous forget that you're more likely to die driving on a suburban freeway than you are walking around Westport.... or even Prospect for that matter.
We should advocate avoiding all freeways, QT toquitos, Westport, Shawnee Hy-Vee stores, diesel fumes, playing football, Olathe hotels, and making rich celebrities mad.

[cp1969]

I have no idea how they came up with this but it directly contradicts my personal experience. KC is a piece of cake compared to LA, Chicago, Atlanta, Miami, and Dallas.

Who sponsored this study, Clay Chastain?

[BostonToKC]

Originally Posted by cp1969

I have no idea how they came up with this but it directly contradicts my personal experience. KC is a piece of cake compared to LA, Chicago, Atlanta, Miami, and Dallas.

Who sponsored this study, Clay Chastain?

Agreed. I recently moved back to Boston (which truly has difficult commutes), and apart from a few trouble spots on I-35 and I-70, commuting in the KC area is very easy.

[kcmo]

Trust me, people drive just as far, if not further in more, congested cities. I would say the average commute for the 15-20 people I know in my office is one hour to 1.5 hours each way and the and I it seems like there actually more people that live further away than what I experienced in KC.

That list is total BS. Kansas City has absolutely no idea what a terrible commute is like.

Imagine it taking 1 hour to go from the Grandview Triangle to Lenexa, every single day. Taking transit typically takes even longer.

While I hate the way KC people drive, I miss the complete lack of traffic and wide open freeways, even during rush hour.

[midwest4567]

Originally Posted by northbound74

The article is a good one, but then there's the danger factor of driving.
We should advocate avoiding all freeways, QT toquitos, Westport, Shawnee Hy-Vee stores, diesel fumes, playing football, Olathe hotels, and making rich celebrities mad.

If I had a dime for every driver coming off SM Parkway northbound and then turning left into the HyVee parking lot without yielding to oncoming traffic..
There are a lot of upper middle class subdivisions in that immediate area, but so many of the drivers in Shawnee act like complete trailer trash. I don't see the bad manners a few miles away in similarly busy streets in Overland Park or Prairie Village.

[famusdarlin]

I wonder if this is the case because in Kansas City EVERYONE has a commute? I mean, very few people live in walking distance of thier job. Not really disputing just wondering if this is about averages, not one person having the absolute longest commute in America.

[RadioSilence]

I question the formula used for this piece. I know it's not a question of a stressful commute, but a question of the total number of hours spent commuting. But a person can still drive from Olathe to downtown Kansas City in a reasonable amount of time during rush hour. The same distance in D.C. or Atlanta probably takes twice as long.

[kcmo]

The study is simply oversimplified. Like most of these types of studies.

The studies that show KC to be the 78th most congested are just as over simplified. While KC doesn't have DC type traffic, it's still more congested than Wichita or Omaha, but because of the highway miles metro KC has, on paper the metro area would appear to be essentially wide open prarie. They don't take into account that 80% of the traffic in metro KC uses 30% of the area's freeway system. So while 8 miles of 435 on the south side has 200,000 cars a day, 50 miles of 435 on the north side has 20,000 cars a day. When some college in Texas does the math they don't understand that and just average everything out.

I would put KC about where its population is as far as congestion and traffic delay. 30th.