The City of Roeland Park started as picturesque neighborhood, a stepchild of Johnsonville, KS and descendant of the Roe Family Farm. The Roe Family advocated and developed it into the suburb city for fearing that it would be annexed by Mission, KS. A local of the Kansas City Metropolitan area may recognize its existence by the swimming pool in between the pillars of a filled in limestone cave that became too unstable for mining operations. The city removed the pool in 1994.  What remains is a north slope falling into lime stone walls from 10 to 30 ft. in height with a level basin. It is a vacant site and remains to be public land with a walk-able bus site that seems to have a park and ride at the entrance for Roeland Park’s business park. A lynch diagram (figure 2) was used to analyze if the site is a feasible location for a mobility hub. The typology-morphology is based on its on its single family residential on wide shallow lots with bungalows, cape cods, and ranch style on a Curvilinear street design. It has three schools, a park, a community center, a soccer dome, and a commercial district connected to I 35 through Roe Blvd/Ave.

The commercial district offers a Walmart, Lowes, and Price Chopper that drives Roeland Park as the destination for the surrounding three miles. Walmart was supposed to move to Mission, Kansas but still remains. Recently the city combined the two Tax Increment Financing Districts (TIF) covering Lowes and Walmart into one TIF. It has six bus stop signs in the commercial district of Roe Ave but only the westbound side of Sycamore Rd and Roe Ave next to a McDonalds seems to be frequently used. Refer to Figure 1 as an example of a bus stop in Roeland Park. The fastest and most frequent bus line is the 107 during rush hour at 15 min waiting and arrival at destination, like KUMED in Westport. Any other time of the day is a wait and travel time of 30 min. to one hour. For an example, waiting an hour for the bus and an hour-long ride to the destination.   Most of the built area is single family residential with one commercial district with multifamily housing close to I 35. Its community center sits behind the price chopper and has indirect path to it. Roeland Park is recognized by its soccer dome next to community center near the cliffs where it can be seen by passing drivers on I 35. They have some child care programming and three schools. Almost zero historic buildings were preserved.

The city feels that Roe Ave is too wide, and it is dividing their neighborhoods. It has decide to budget for 2020 a walkable boulevard with road diets, pedestrian islands, protected bike lanes, tree coverage, slower speed limits, and replacement of their aging art in the medians (Planning Commission of Roeland Park Kansas & Whicita Univeristy Public Affairs Center for Urban Studies).

Their property taxes are increasing due to curb appeal, affordability, accredited schools, access to I35, and low crime rate which makes it ideal for middle class families. Also, continued maintenance on public works infrastructure is raising fees based on the amount of acreage of impervious surfaces of a property owner. The community is close to work centers like KUMED, and Shawnee Mission Medical Center.

Roeland Park is auto centric, has undeveloped public land and a lot of impervious surfaces in their commercial district. So far they do not have future plans to develop mixed use housing on Roe Ave. This is an opportunity to provide a mobility hub or a car share center on the public land (figure 2) or in Walmart’s parking lot. In figure 2, the vacant undeveloped public land with filled in limestone caves now sets as with a natural green space, some shrubs, long grass, and trees. The city is hoping to sell it to a developer who will build a hotel, zip line park, restaurants, and four parking lots equal to Price Chopper’s and Lowes parking lot capacity. They do not need any more parking especially when Roe Ave is redeveloped into a walkable streetscape.

Figure 1. Bus stop analysis for a potential mobility hub. This stop offers a frequent route into Woodside, Kansas and Kansas City, Missouri.

Figure 2. Lynch diagram of potential mobility hub for undeveloped public land where the filled in limestone caves exists.

Figure 3. Roeland Park’s commercial district impervious surface coverage surrounded by residential.