Kansas rated 2nd on performance of state highway systems

[phlinak]

Originally Posted by kcmo

Outside of Johnson County and the turnpike, I have never thought the roads in Kansas were all that great. The turnpike has more money than they know what to do with (six lanes west of Lawrence?) and JoCo is overbuilt, they are trying to have zero congestion during rush hour. Traffic is light in metro KC to be building such extravagant highway infrastructure and a county of half million with a transit ridership of like 1000 people a day?

Parts of 35, 70, 135, the freeways around Wichita and Topeka, and KCK and much of rural Kansas does not have that great of highways.

Kansas should have awesome highways though. The turnpike, which is a huge portion of KS infrastructure is self sustaining, and the state just doesn't have a lot of rough topography, rivers etc that need massive bridges, tunnels etc. Combine that with a relatively high gas tax for a mostly rural state and the fact that most of KS secondary highways ar under local control (more state money for bigger highways) and they should have nice highways.

Missouri has better highways than they probably should have. One of the lowest gas taxes with one of the largest state highway systems in the nation. MO has way too many secondary highways and roads in the state system when they should be under local jurisdictions and funding. MO also has many large urban areas, huge bridges and far more expensive terrain to cut through, especially in parts of StL and down by Springfield Branson.

So considering what MO has to maintain and their funding situation, I think they do better with what they have than Kansas does. But I'm sure you guys all saw that one coming .

So, what's wrong with zero congestion? That sounds like the perfect commute to me.

Maybe, the whole purpose of building "such extravagant highway infrastructure" is to keep traffic in the KC metro area light. Wow, imagine that. Actually being ahead of the curve by building roads before they're needed, rather than building roads that are inadequate and obsolete before they are even completed.

[kcmo]

I understand what you are saying, but you actually can’t build yourself out of peak hour congestion, although Kansas is trying, they will ultimately fail just as places like Texas and California have failed. What you end up with is massive amounts of concrete that is barely used for 80% of the time. Johnson County has six and even eight lane surface streets that barely get busy during rush hour while the rest of the day and weekends they are just wide open. This type of development also makes it impossible to develop any sort of walkable or transit friendly areas.

Addressing congestion is fine, but you also have to look at other factors of urban planning and development. Johnson County only looks at those two hours a day where KC has a ten minute delay and they build that county around that. I guess some people like massive six lane arterial streets with double and triple turn lanes everywhere and ten lane interstates that carry 1/4 the traffic that similar interstates in other cities carry. But eventually it’s going to bite them in the butt. They will eventually have to maintain and rebuild all that and it will be expensive and they are going to actually create more congestion with this way of planning. Plenty of examples all around the county.

Regardless, Kansas roads outside of JoCo and the turnpike are nothing worth getting excited about. It's average at best and that's my honest opinion as a person that drives the entire country all the time and has spent a great deal of time in Kansas outside of suburban KC working as a traffic planner.