My friend and colleague, Yael Abouhalkah, wrote in his column recently that the “Gateway” Interchange in Johnson County of Interstate 35, Interstate 435, and Kansas 10 — our version of the Grandview Triangle — is “the project from hell.”
He makes several scathing points, but his overarching theme is that the $600 million construction project to handle one of the most congested interchanges in the state of Kansas promotes sprawl.
Sprawl, of course, is in the eyes of the beholder. I see sprawl as desirable economic development.
And development there is mainly to the south in Edgerton. The BNSF Intermodal 1,000-acre development will open for business next year. The intermodal will transfer containers with cargo from places like Asia from railroad cars to trucks.
Not only will truck traffic increase tremendously through the Gateway triangle, but all those employed there will use those roads as well.
It is estimated that the BNSF intermodal will create more than 12,000 new jobs in Johnson County. That’s a lot of new traffic.
The interchange will expand to also handle the increased traffic along Kansas 10 to Lawrence, north to Village West in Wyandotte County, to Missouri in the east and to the redevelopment of downtown to the northeast.
In total, it is projected that the traffic will increase to 380,000 vehicles a day by 2040, compared with nearly a quarter million vehicles a day that travel through that interchange today.
The $600 million project — which will start in 2014 — is the largest undertaking in the history of the Kansas Department of Transportation.
This is something to celebrate, not bemoan.
But Yael sees things from the viewpoint of a loyal urbanite, which is a perspective that is understandable, yet not realistic. Suburbia is here to stay, like it or not. And this is where the growth will be.
When Yael writes that the Gateway interchange project is “anti-transit, anti-biking, and anti-pedestrian,” he is quite right. It is all of those things.
But Johnson County is a low-density, automobile-based suburban community. It does have more than its share of lovely bike and hiking trails. But they are there for recreation and exercise, not as modes of transportation to get to work.
How realistic is it to wish away the cars and trucks? Not very. The design and planning of Johnson County is already set in concrete, pardon the pun.
Yael also states that this kind of development “discourages racial and economic diversity.”
Here’s a news flash. Johnson County is far more ethnically and racially diverse than it was even 10 years ago. And that trend will continue, as minorities continue to move from the inner city to the suburbs.
The project from hell?
If you want to talk about hell, it is not this project that fits that bill. Rather, it is the nightmarish scenario of what that interchange would be like if the state didn’t prioritize these dramatic improvements. It would be bumper-to-bumper traffic forever. Not building the interchange will not make the traffic go away or drive businesses back to the city.
For those who drive through that interchange each day, this eventually will be the project from heaven.
| Special to The Star
Josh Anderson
5 months, 2 weeks agoI will agree with Steve on this over Yael. I drive through this interchange daily and it is a mess when you hit I35, Lackman, and K10, with everyone trying to merge on and off.
Obviously, it will take a long time to finish, but it will be well worth it. Based on their designs, I think the traffic will flow a lot better and have less merging on while people are trying to exit at the same time.
Scotty Scotty
5 months, 2 weeks agoThe problem I have with this project is not so much how it will affect the urban core. I don’t think it will. I am an urban supporter myself. Although I live in JoCo, I do so begrudgingly for the schools. If I could live where I wanted, I would be downtown, or even better, in a much larger metro. But a highway interchange isn’t going to impact peoples’ decisions to live downtown one way or another.
The problem is that this is a huge waste of money. That area, and the entire KC metro, has very little congestion. Kansas City has roughly 30% more highway lane miles per capita than the next closest metro. Congestion for 30 minutes during rush hour does not count as “overly congested.” The widening of US 69 between 35 and 435 is another example of where Kansas wasted tax payers’ money. That roadway looks practically abandoned most hours of the day, and has what I would consider a “normal” amount of mid-day traffic for a city during our rush hour. Spending our money now for what MAY be traffic problems in 25 years is foolish when there are many better uses for that money. The entire metro needs to stop spending money widening roads. There is not a traffic problem here. Go spend time in other cities and you will agree with me. Find something better to spend that money on, Kansas!
Ben Alexander
5 months, 2 weeks agoThere are many problems with this project, chiefly that Kansas can’t afford it. Right now Brownback is trying to cut $705 million from the budget, while KDOT spends close to $1 billion to build huge new interchanges on the west edges of the metro.
Another problem is that of traffic projections. The assumptions that highway engineers make in those models are incredibly self-serving; traffic will always increase to fill their latest project.
In reality, Kansas City has way too much road and way too little transit and bike/pedestrian facilities. Every bus or transportation-oriented bike facility takes people out of their cars and mitigates congestion at much lower costs than new highway development, both to KDOT and society at large.
I realize it is unrealistic to “wish away cars and trucks” in a city that owes its existence to freight. However, surely we can agree that cars and trucks are not the only answer, that a healthy metro invests in other forms of transportation? The fact that a $600 million interchange to farmland is moving forward at the same time at the Jo is facing huge cuts in service is foolish, at best.
Lastly, let’s tone down the rhetoric. Yes, the costs of owning a car amount to an added tax of living in the suburbs. No, no-one likes to sit in traffic. But at the same time, KDOT is not diabolically planning to shut out minorities in JoCo, and slowing to 35 mph for a few minutes on the highway is not a “nightmarish scenario”.
We may have different ideas of what it looks like, but we all are interested in the success of our region. Ultimately, that success will probably include new freight facilities in the suburbs and new transit and bike/ped facilities in the city. We just need to ask ourselves how best to use scarce resources, and I don’t believe the “largest undertaking in the history of KDOT” is a good idea.
Kevin Carlyle
5 months, 2 weeks agoThere’s nothing fundamentally wrong with any road or transit problem as long as
you’re up front with the reasons and have something to back those reasons up (there’s homes being built right now)
you are providing funding for the future to maintain the results.
If we want new roads we need to provide for the tax rates to keep them usable. This means more taxes to cover more roads.
If/when these new highways cause new neighborhoods we need to have our local tax rate as such that we can maintain both the old and new, accounting for the old having a decreasing value over time.
A lot of people see JoCo as not being like KC and right now as far as infrastructure, they’re right at the present time.
But with decreased money being saved for the huge repair projects in the future and less taxes coming in to cover what needs work right now we’re both failing the future and the present. JoCo can increase taxes a tiny amount now and invest it or JoCo can look forward to multi-billion dollar shock bill in the future.
Joaquin X Santiago
5 months, 2 weeks agoKansas Citians who have not lived in a big city (lived in, not just visited) have no idea how un-congested the area really is. Spend a few years in some car-dependent city like LA, Chicago, Atlanta, or Washington DC and you will realize how easy KC is as a commuter city. Then decide if trimming five or ten minutes each way is worth the expense.