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Is KC really going to remove i-70 downtown?

Started by silverback1065, February 18, 2017, 06:31:31 PM

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sparker

A.  Seems like someone's buying in to the teardown agenda.
B.  The "3rd lane" on 405 is a slip lane between exits; the only area with more than 2 through lanes is the Fremont   
     Bridge.
C.  Removing the Marquam will create more problems than it solves; unless 205 is expanded to 6-8 lanes along its
     entire route, an efficient and through I-5 is necessary to expedite regional through traffic.
D.  If we're going to keep talking about Portland issues, it would be be appropriate to start a thread in NW and return     
     this thread to KC where it belongs!


silverback1065


SteveG1988

Quote from: silverback1065 on February 27, 2017, 08:19:19 AM
i agree, keep it to kc!

The discussion on the other roads serves to poke holes in the thinking of the author.

For example NJ29 along the trenton water front, it floods often enough because it's a flood plain. it wouldn't be usable land for homes.



I think the main arguement about rerouting i70 in KC is the viaduct. one half of it is at the Century Mark for age.
Roads Clinched

I55,I82,I84(E&W)I88(W),I87(N),I81,I64,I74(W),I72,I57,I24,I65,I59,I12,I71,I77,I76(E&W),I70,I79,I85,I86(W),I27,I16,I97,I96,I43,I41,

silverback1065

it sounds like just about every elevated freeway in the us is about due to be rebuilt, and noone has money for it.  i-229 in st joseph is another debate on whether it should be replaced or removed.

AlexandriaVA

I have a nagging suspicion that many urban freeways in the Great Plains region are woefully over-capacity for the majority of the time (save for rush hours M-F). Surface-level boulevards will probably meet commuting demands and greatly reduce the liability to state-level DOT.

silverback1065


kphoger

Quote from: the OP
Is KC really going to remove I-70 downtown?

Maybe.
Keep right except to pass.  Yes.  You.
Visit scenic Orleans County, NY!
Male pronouns, please.

Quote from: Philip K. DickIf you can control the meaning of words, you can control the people who must use them.

The Ghostbuster

If they do, they had better have an alternative that doesn't make congestion on the surrounding roads worse.

coatimundi

Quote from: silverback1065 on February 27, 2017, 04:12:15 PM
610 likely will never happen, i think that idea is purely on blogs

You mean 10 in New Orleans?
No, there have been studies and the mayor has talked about the idea. It is typically high on the list of potential tear-downs from the groups that advocate tearing freeways down. Personally, I just think that'll accelerate gentrification in Treme.

And how about Shadeland Avenue in Indy? That certainly doesn't need to be a freeway. But then, it's not like the east side of Indy is experiencing a land crunch.

Add I-180 in Illinois to the list of no impact removals.

silverback1065

Quote from: coatimundi on February 27, 2017, 07:21:45 PM
Quote from: silverback1065 on February 27, 2017, 04:12:15 PM
610 likely will never happen, i think that idea is purely on blogs

You mean 10 in New Orleans?
No, there have been studies and the mayor has talked about the idea. It is typically high on the list of potential tear-downs from the groups that advocate tearing freeways down. Personally, I just think that'll accelerate gentrification in Treme.

And how about Shadeland Avenue in Indy? That certainly doesn't need to be a freeway. But then, it's not like the east side of Indy is experiencing a land crunch.

Add I-180 in Illinois to the list of no impact removals.

i think all of those mentioned should be removed.  indy wasted a lot of money last year doing a pavement rehab on the whole thing.  those exits waste so much land.  I dont know why that wasnt incorporated into i-465 back in the day.  noone uses that thing anyway with 465 a mile or 2 away

mvak36

Saw this in the KC Star this week: http://www.kansascity.com/opinion/editorials/article139727088.html

Seems like they support the removal of the North Loop. IMO, I still don't think it's a good idea.
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froggie

Quote from: TheStrangerWhich part of the 80 mile 210?  (Unless you meant say the south end of 2 past I-5)

In this case, "LA" likely refers to Louisiana, not Los Angeles.

Anthony_JK

#37
Quote from: coatimundi on February 27, 2017, 12:57:35 PM

I'm not sure of the status, but there's also been a proposal to remove the Claiborne Avenue viaduct in New Orleans, restoring the avenue to its former glory. I would also like to see that. I-10 could just be routed onto I-610, and a spur could be created to reach the GNO bridge.


Sorry, but HELL TO THE NO on removing the Claiborne Elevated portion of I-10.

First, it handles nearly 120K of traffic from downtown NOLA/Superdome/French Quarter/NOCharity/Westbank Expressway east. You're going to plop all that into a 6-lane Claiborne Avenue boulevard and drive that through Treme?? Really???

Second, I-610 already handles enough traffic as a "bypass" without adding the orphaned traffic using the Ponchatrain Expressway to reach it.

Third, you're creating a serious "wrong way" terminus for hidden I-910 (and ultimately I-49 South), heading northwest to reach I-10 on "southbound" I-49 (and south on "northbound").

I sympathize with the people of Treme who got rooked when the Claiborne Elevated was built originally with no concern toward their neighborhood, but it's there now and a critical artery that simply shouldn't be removed. They need to get with the Evangeline Corridor Initiative here in Lafayette and find a way to integrate it better, not remove it and further divide it through a choked-up "boulevard".

OK....off my soapbox.



[I know, only tangentally related to the OP on I-70 in Denver, but I had to vent. FTR, I feel the same way about that project, though I would support a depressed/capped freeway rather than a "boulevard".]

Plutonic Panda

These freeway removal activist are out of touch.

froggie

Quote from: compdude787That is not true. Houston has expanded its freeway network more than any other city over the past two decades, but has seen its traffic congestion increase at a much lower rate than any other city.

You obviously haven't paid any attention to the Katy Freeway debacle...

Bobby5280

I must have missed something. How is the Katy Freeway expansion a debacle?

Plutonic Panda

Quote from: Bobby5280 on April 07, 2017, 09:54:09 PM
I must have missed something. How is the Katy Freeway expansion a debacle?
yeaj Id like to know as well. The number of congested hours on the freeway has been greatly reduced since its expansion.

froggie

Other way around.  Katy Freeway congestion is worse now than it was before the expansion.

silverback1065

i think induced demand is something that people over use, they think that every widening project will cause this.

compdude787

Quote from: silverback1065 on April 08, 2017, 11:36:47 AM
i think induced demand is something that people over use, they think that every widening project will cause this.

Agreed. The only time when there is more congestion on a freeway after it's been widened is because people who would formerly take other routes to get to their destination, leave earlier or later, or take the bus, have now shifted back to the freeway. This merely goes to show that you still didn't give the freeway enough capacity.

Bobby5280

Quote from: froggieOther way around.  Katy Freeway congestion is worse now than it was before the expansion.

I don't agree with this entirely. The expanded freeway has far greater capacity than it did prior to the expansion. I've driven on it numerous times and found it one of the easier drives in Houston. As far as traffic congestion goes there are far worse places. Persistent congestion on the Katy Freeway can be blamed on some factors other than the road.

First of all metro Houston, like several metro areas in Texas, are adding population far faster than just about all the rest of the nation. These highway expansion projects can't keep up with the increasing traffic demands.

Much of Houston has an antiquated street grid. The layout of streets and driveways into businesses are mostly uncontrolled. Newer developments limit the number of connections to major streets and greatly limit driveways that spill traffic directly out on the major streets. Without any filtering controls on traffic movement you get all sorts of surface level gridlock. People run red lights, get into accidents or create other tie ups. Cars trying to leave a freeway like I-10 get stuck on exit ramps. Then the back-ups clog more and more lanes of the freeway itself. This is the essence of Houston style suburban traffic jams. Houston needs to do as much to its surface street network as what is being done to its freeways.

Freeways connecting to the Katy freeway, like I-610, aren't as wide. Neither is I-10 East of the I-610 interchange. That creates a bottleneck. The massive construction project at the I-10, I-610 and US-290 junction creates its own tie ups.

Duke87

Quote from: froggie on April 08, 2017, 07:17:21 AM
Other way around.  Katy Freeway congestion is worse now than it was before the expansion.

By what measure? Average travel time for an individual, or total person-hours of delay?
If you always take the same road, you will never see anything new.

jakeroot

Quote from: compdude787 on April 08, 2017, 01:09:59 PM
Quote from: silverback1065 on April 08, 2017, 11:36:47 AM
i think induced demand is something that people over use, they think that every widening project will cause this.

Agreed. The only time when there is more congestion on a freeway after it's been widened is because people who would formerly take other routes to get to their destination, leave earlier or later, or take the bus, have now shifted back to the freeway. This merely goes to show that you still didn't give the freeway enough capacity.

[facepalm]

That IS induced demand! Think of all the people that use the 405 towards Bellevue, who may not have pre-toll lanes? The congestion hasn't been reduced because the road is still operating above-capacity. That capacity is higher, yes, but there's still congestion: people stopped using the 405 because it was outrageously busy, but returned to it post-widening because there was more capacity (having decided it was easier to use the 405 than whatever mode of transport they switched to). And the idea that you "didn't give the freeway enough capacity" is ludicrous. If you widened a freeway every time the population grew, most freeways would be 20 lanes in each direction, which is obviously retarded because that costs far too much to build, never mind maintain.

Don't get me wrong: I hate bottlenecks (particularly shitty interchanges), but the idea that congestion just disappears when you fix said bottleneck is absurd. The only way to reduce congestion is to reduce the number of cars on the road. Period.

compdude787

Quote from: jakeroot on April 08, 2017, 05:17:38 PM
Quote from: compdude787 on April 08, 2017, 01:09:59 PM
Quote from: silverback1065 on April 08, 2017, 11:36:47 AM
i think induced demand is something that people over use, they think that every widening project will cause this.

Agreed. The only time when there is more congestion on a freeway after it's been widened is because people who would formerly take other routes to get to their destination, leave earlier or later, or take the bus, have now shifted back to the freeway. This merely goes to show that you still didn't give the freeway enough capacity.

[facepalm]

That IS induced demand! Think of all the people that use the 405 towards Bellevue, who may not have pre-toll lanes? The congestion hasn't been reduced because the road is still operating above-capacity. That capacity is higher, yes, but there's still congestion: people stopped using the 405 because it was outrageously busy, but returned to it post-widening because there was more capacity (having decided it was easier to use the 405 than whatever mode of transport they switched to). And the idea that you "didn't give the freeway enough capacity" is ludicrous. If you widened a freeway every time the population grew, most freeways would be 20 lanes in each direction, which is obviously retarded because that costs far too much to build, never mind maintain.

Don't get me wrong: I hate bottlenecks (particularly shitty interchanges), but the idea that congestion just disappears when you fix said bottleneck is absurd. The only way to reduce congestion is to reduce the number of cars on the road. Period.

The widened section of I-405 has improved traffic as opposed to how it was before. The only part that has gotten worse is the section of I-405 where the HOV lane was just converted to the express toll lane without an additional lane being added. Now, I totally get that it's infeasible to make every freeway be like 20 lanes, but rather I support making lane expansion on freeways solely consist of adding just express toll lanes. Space is at a premium and so is freeway capacity. And by the way, I think it's easier to expand roads than to get people (especially Americans) out of their cars, especially considering the way American cities are built. After all, traffic has to get so bad on roads before people get fed up with it and take transit.

Plutonic Panda

#49
Quote from: jakeroot on April 08, 2017, 05:17:38 PM
Quote from: compdude787 on April 08, 2017, 01:09:59 PM
Quote from: silverback1065 on April 08, 2017, 11:36:47 AM
i think induced demand is something that people over use, they think that every widening project will cause this.

Agreed. The only time when there is more congestion on a freeway after it's been widened is because people who would formerly take other routes to get to their destination, leave earlier or later, or take the bus, have now shifted back to the freeway. This merely goes to show that you still didn't give the freeway enough capacity.

[facepalm]

That IS induced demand! Think of all the people that use the 405 towards Bellevue, who may not have pre-toll lanes? The congestion hasn't been reduced because the road is still operating above-capacity. That capacity is higher, yes, but there's still congestion: people stopped using the 405 because it was outrageously busy, but returned to it post-widening because there was more capacity (having decided it was easier to use the 405 than whatever mode of transport they switched to). And the idea that you "didn't give the freeway enough capacity" is ludicrous. If you widened a freeway every time the population grew, most freeways would be 20 lanes in each direction, which is obviously retarded because that costs far too much to build, never mind maintain.

Don't get me wrong: I hate bottlenecks (particularly shitty interchanges), but the idea that congestion just disappears when you fix said bottleneck is absurd. The only way to reduce congestion is to reduce the number of cars on the road. Period.

No this is not correct. How can you say that if stress has been taken off the regional system and not just that one freeway. If a freeway was widened and more cars use it taking cars off of another freeway because additional capacity was added on the newewly expanded freeway, I don't see the induced demand argument being valid on a regional scale. Nothing is inducing demand it just gave drivers a more direct route to their destination and relieved stress from another freeway.

The 405 in LA is a good example as it did reduce rush hour to an extent but is still clogged. I highly doubt anyone said oh boy look at those new lanes and decided to use it for that fact. That's a freeway I think would be good having an additional  7-10 lanes each way. Congestion would be greatly reduced.

You don't need to widen every freeway to 20 lanes each way for it to be efficient. Most will become slower during rush hour but to narrow the number of hours that happens I think many freeways in LA could solve by adding 5-6 additional lanes each way being a mixture of tolled and free lanes along with some new transit options.

Outside of rush hour, the DFW metro freeways flow extremely well for a city of 7 million. Compare that to Portland, OR! Oklahoma City doesn't really need any freeways that need to be widened except I-40 to Shawnee to six lanes and I-35 from DTOKC to Norman should be 8-10 lanes. Other than that they'd work much better if they would fix the bottlenecks and interchanges. Las Vegas freeways work pretty well except I-15 in North Vegas which backs up a lot.

My point is saying that every freeway needs 20 lanes each way to flow is vastly exaggerated. I don't expect to see an agency like Caltrans widen the 405 to 20 more lanes each way which would solve traffic congestion on that road for the next 100 years even during rush hour, but they do need to continue adding lanes to provide for a smoother commute and using the included demand argument has no weight. It doesn't factor in regional issues only focuses on the single stretch of road. Going and not adding any lanes on congested freeways is not the way to go. I support increased transit but not at the expense of freeway investment.



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