For this semester’s final project, we were responsible for choosing a key location along the Parks and Boulevards System, within the 1940 boundaries of Kansas City. My site is located on the southern end of Gillham Park, from Brush Creek Boulevard to Emanuel Cleaver II Boulevard, between Troost Avenue and Campbell Street. It is an important artery for residesnts in the surrounding areas, including the Hyde Park, Southmoreland, and Rockhill neighborhoods, as well as the Midtown Wesport area. Currently, however, the park itself lacks important North-South connectivity, causing a major disconnect within the Parks and Boulevards System.

To connect this area completely to the rest of Kansas City’s system, Gillham park has been extended to connect to Emanuel Cleaver II Boulevard, ultimately linking Emanuel Cleaver, Brush Creek Boulevard and Armour Boulevard together.

Below is the site plan for this area, which differentiates between new and existing structures. The main focus of this plan is to rid the area of the undersireable developments, including the apartment homes along Harrison and Campbell Streets, and the poor commercial variety along Troost, and redevelop this area in such a way that would reflect both the historic context of the surrounding neighborhood, as well as acknowledge the cultural presence from surrounding institutions.

By extending Gillham Park, this plan has added an additional 156,000 square feet of space to Kansas City’s park inventory. On top of that, a proposed half mile of pathway, and addiontial 1.5 miles of bike trail would connect pedestrians nearly two miles from Emanuel Cleaver to Armour Boulevard. To support the increase in pedestrian activity, the portion of the Troost Corridor from north of Brush Creek Boulevard to Emanuel Cleaver has been redeveloped to include a healthy mix of retail, office, and residential, with a heavy focus on mixed use developments.

An important aspect of this design focuses on the historic context of this area as a whole. With the Rockhill and Southmoreland Neighborhood just to the west, this area is home to a number of historic charactristics, from the unique building styles and materials, all the way down to the historic stone walls that surround the majority of the adjacent homes. Using this as a means of connecting this area to the rest of Kansas City as a whole was done through the bike trail that runs from Emanuel Cleaver, north to Armour Boulevard. In researching some of the history of this area, I came across some historic photographs depicting an old wagon trail that ran through both Gillham Park and Hyde Park

 

The bike trail begins at the intersection of Emanuel Cleaver and Campbell Streets, and traces the Western edge of Gillham Park and Hyde Park. The image below depicts the interaction between neighboring bike trails in the surrounding area.  With the Brush Creek Trail just to the South, it acts as an East-West connector to the Trolley Track Trail, which continues into the southern portion of Kansas City

 

As a whole, this plan was designed to serve as a resource for the neighoring residents, to better connect them with the surrounding area.  By creating this connection within the Parks and Boulevards System, this area would indefinitely experience a high influx of both residential and commercial activity. With a cultural presence on Troost from the Nelson Atkins Museum and the adjacent institutions, it would serve as a potential catalyst for future development and revitlization of the Troost Corridor.

 

Kansas City Parks and Boulevards system was conceived of in a time when people did not have to think about ways to incorporate active living into their daily lives- they just lived actively, and no one had to plan for it. At the time the boulevard system was envisioned the car was a technological marvel and though fascinating most people thought they could never afford one and therefore no one foresaw the impact that that single invention would have on society, the built environment and the planet as a whole. With the explosion of vehicles on the roads, the invention of air-conditioning and other technological wonders that have made life easier but at the same time have made life more sedentary. Today we are challenged with finding ways to become more active and live healthier lives.

One way path to active living that is becoming increasingly more popular is the use of Smart-phone applications and technology like “Fit-Bit” to motivate, track and increase physical activity. This wave of technology became one of my inspirations for this semesters project. I started asking questions: What if through the use of well designed applications caught on in a big way and Kansas City got active in a completely different fashion? What would the demands become of an actively living society? What would that look like for Parks & Boulevards in 20 years?

I imagine people biking, walking and riding buses or other transit to work, school and for fun. These people know their neighbors and spend time outdoors together as a community. They are eating healthier, planting gardens and spending less money on fast food and investing more in environment. They are connected across communities in ways that are entirely different from how we experience the city. What are the things these people would require in order to support this lifestyle?

To answer those questions I created an overlay that focuses on elements of active living that could work anywhere in the city. Those elements are transportation, environment, physical health, technology and safety. At random, I chose a place within the 1940’s boundaries of Kansas City (it just looked interesting on the map) and by the time I realized I’d probably picked one of the hardest nodes in the city to test my theory on. I’d already done too much work to back out! But I quickly concluded that if the overlay could work here it can be done anywhere in the city.

The node I selected is the convergence point for 7 significant roads; Linwood Boulevard, Hardesty, East 31st Street, Highway 40, Stadium Drive, Emanuel Cleaver II Boulevard and Van Brunt Boulevard. It’s pretty much ground zero for the terrifying road epidemic in Kansas City. The community has been divided by Highway 70 and some parts of it have been cut off completely from their original neighborhoods. Many of the homes are in poor condition and there are several schools in the area that have been closed for good.

But the place has excellent bones!

I didn’t realize it until I spent time there but this place has enormous potential that will not be hard to tap into. The foundation is solid. It being the convergence point of many heavily used roads makes it an ideal place for redevelopment in general. It has perfect access to Highway 70 and Highway 40 (which serves as the portal to the city coming in from the east). It also has a lot of park and green ways, old trees and astounding topography. This intersection has a moderate population that is made up of three neighborhoods; Boulevard Village, Knoches Park, and South Blue Valley Neighborhoods. It already has an active transit stop and the McDonald’s that sits in the midst of it all seems to act as a community center. It has great zoning and landuse already in place and with that comes a smattering of businesses both local and corporate and close proximity to the VA hospital. With lots of empty space it is just begging to be activated in the community.

I do not own a car. I gave up driving more than a year ago as an experiment that has turned into a lifestyle in which I go everywhere in my life with a bike and my feet. I tell you this because I want you to know that I am engaged in the transit system in many ways and am invested in having it be a better experience for all of us. With that in mind, The first thing I tackled was the hot mess of a mess that is that intersection. The convergence of these roads is confusing, scary, inefficient and people drive way too fast through that area. Boulevards are great with their wide and gentle winding roads and I’m sure they were lovely from a horse and carriage or a car that went about as fast as one, but today with top speeds being much higher those fabulous roads inspire speeds to be tested… And people do. So, maintain the integrity of the Boulevards, slow people down and try to confuse them less, became the goals for this phase of applying the overlay. I played with many options but the one that works the best is an oval shaped roundabout. Roundabouts slow traffic down by nature of design, so it will make the area safer for those of us who don’t drive and for those who do. They also look nice and give drivers more options for connection than the current street design does. The oval shape allows for all of the current streets to connect while maintaining the structure and design of the Boulevards.

The next idea has to do with the bus stop and the park that is connected to. Turn the bus stop into something useable and interesting. Bus ridding and waiting doesn’t have to be annoying, uncomfortable or boring. We should start creating active bus stops and integrate them into the fabric of the community. 1) Bus stops need to have Wi-Fi -if not the entire park. 2) Stops should be solar heated and cooled 3) Support multiple forms of transportation uses 4) be attached to an interesting and attractive playground or at least a swing set whenever possible.

The park itself can be so many interesting things like a playground for all ages and a community garden with a running track around and through it for starters. It is a beautiful green space that could be the heart of this hub.

The third idea, and from my pedestrian bus riding perspective, and the most crucial is a crosswalk. Currently the crosswalk is right in the middle of the tangle of roads. It is also up quite a steep hill especially for someone in a wheel chair and the sidewalks are not complete or useable for someone who is impaired in anyway. Where people are crossing instead is directly from the bus stop, across traffic and medians and winding up in MacDonald’s parking lot. This doesn’t work. I watched several people almost get hit and a man in a wheel chair navigating across the street where I am proposing a pedestrian crossing, at which, there are currently no lights. But there aren’t any reasonable options at the moment. My suggestion is a crosswalk with stop lights at the intersection of Linwood Boulevard and Van Brunt and add in thick, impassable shrubbery in the way of the current natural path to encourage people to use a safer route.

 With some investment this place can bloom into a true hub of active living in Kansas City.

As more and more investment is made in the area, businesses and developments will pour back into the space allowing for more improvements to the area. Improvements such as: reopening schools, farmers markets, theaters and business catering to healthy living. Perhaps we will evolve beyond fast food and a  health and wellness community center can replace the McDonalds that currently resides on the most connected corner with the some of the best street views in the city. And that’s just the beginning…

 

 

For the  2015 JC NicholsPrize project we were assigned to choose an area from the 1950’s boundaries of Kansas City, Missouri Parks and Boulevards system and create a new plan for the 21st Century. The location I chose is the interchange between Broadway, Southwest Trafficway, and I-35. I Chose this ocation because I wanted to try and make a feasable plan for the removal of I-35, and bring life back to the Westside neighborhood that had been blocked off by the massive wall created that is I-35.

My first order of business was to find the best location to reroute I-35. Below in Image 1 I chose to connect it northwest to the interchange of I-70 and I-670. I also adding a few other minor changes with the rerutefurther north. By rerouting I-35, the Westside neighborhood is opened back up to the Crossroads Arts District and Penn Valley Park. And is allowed to infill the land with new residential housing. The estimated cost for this portion of the project is around $328,000,000.

The next phase of the plan is the transition from changing Southwest Trafficway to a Parkway, and adding infill housing to the Westside South neighborhood. The two and a half block area where the interchange was at I added a new multi-family housing neighborhood to increase the population density but still protect views by keeping the structures under 4 stories. A new loft was added next to Annies with underground parking and a statue was added to be a landmark for George Kessler. And finally the lake was raised to help control flood water, and the creek valley was raised even higher to allow a better sight angle for pedestrians and to provide a beautiful waterfall for an added element to the the lake.

Below in Image 2 you can see the plan for the model area and where detailed changes were made. Also in Image 2 is the addition of a streetcar line running along Penn Valley Parkway, and the bus line as well as the UMKC Concervatory shuttle along Broadway with a stop at the southeast corner of 26th street. For bike lanes, the current signed bike route along Penn Dr. has been made faster and safer with the addition of Jefferson street so the riders do not have to cross the new Parkway they can ride two blocks further north and cross under the bridge. I have also added bike lanes along Broadway and Penn Valley Parkway.

The housing in the plan would add  385,900 square feet of residential housing at an estimated cost of $31,643,800. The commercial adittions would have an increase of 53,600 square feet at an estimated cost of $4,824,000. Seen below in Image 3 is the Land-usemap showing the location of the different building types.

With the removal of I-35 the Westside neighborhood is reconnected to the Crossroads Arts District and Penn Valley Park and creates a more healthy and livable environment where walkability and all modes of transportation are welcomed.

Kansas City’s most popular place is the Plaza. When it’s summertime, it’s a evening stroll in the shadow of the district’s many towers. Come Fall, it’s the Art Fair, then soon it’s the holidays and the Plaza Lights. Kansas Citians love the Plaza — for many of them, it’s the real heart of the city — even more than downtown.

Sadly, while the Plaza is be one of the most popular and best-designed spaces in the city, some of the space directly adjacent to the great district is very poorly designed and, consequently, avoided by visitors. Perhaps even worse is that the space includes major elements of the Parks and Boulevards System, including Brookside Blvd, Emanuel Cleaver Blvd., Ward Pkwy, Mill Creek Park and more.

Above is a birds-eye view taken from Google Earth. If you blow it up (click on it), then you’ll be able to see the Plaza’s iconic Giralda Tower on the left-hand side. North follows Main Street out of frame.

The space between the tower and where buildings resume to the east of Brookside Blvd is a crucial crossing point into the Plaza from points east. The closest and most prominent of the these is the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, the lawn of which you can just make out in the top-left corner of the photo above.

You wouldn’t be faulted for thinking that visitors on foot might want to cross from the Plaza to the Nelson or vice versa on a Saturday afternoon. And yet we’ve created a pretty terrible space for that.

This is 47th Street/Emanuel Cleaver (left to right) at the intersection of Main/Brookside Blvd. (As the names changes of the streets might suggest, this is a key coming-together point.) The streets are a minimum of six lanes wide.  There are left turn lanes in all directions and even a couple channelized right-turn lanes (northwest and southeast corners of the intersection). While this makes for a more comfortable ride in a car, it’s awful if you’re on foot — you have to cross 100 ft. in any direction in this intersection. What’s worse is that, up until very recently, the most minimal style of crosswalk striping was used.

The result? Crossing as a pedestrian at maybe one of the most important intersections in the city is a scary, dangerous experience.

The heavily car-oriented design of the adjacent streets means that we get a situation like this — two boulevards (Emanuel Cleaver and Brookside) creating a physical (and really, psychological) disconnection in one of the city’s otherwise great neighborhoods:

That’s not all, though. While the south end of Mill Creek Park (across the street to the north of the tennis courts) is a pleasant, inviting space, we’ve put a fenced-in set of tennis courts (owned by the parks department) to the south of them, denying the opportunity for an excellent public space connecting the park to Brush Creek on the south.

(Right now, buses from all over the city converge around the tennis courts. If someone wants to transfer from one bus to another, they have to around the tennis courts to find their next stop.)

How do you address these issues?

What about with this?

A roundabout at 47th and Main, accessible to pedestrians, like Columbus Circle in New York:

And yes, move the Nichols Fountain to the middle of it. Give the fountain the prominence it deserves. (Mill Creek Park, meanwhile, would have room to expand for new, exciting uses.)

Why a roundabout? Not only is it monumental, it allows roads around it to be reduced in width because the roundabout works as left- and right-turn lane in one — six or seven lane Brookside Blvd can now become just four.

With wider crosswalks and generous crossing islands, the trip for pedestrians and cyclists is safer, too. (It’s also quite a bit more of an “event,” with the roundabout in the background.) The yellow line on the plan indicates where the Trolley Track Trail could finally pass through.

Meanwhile, why not a new public square to the south, something that might look like this (it’s photoshopped):

The public square could connect Mill Creek Park to Brush Creek. And unlike the existing tennis courts, it would be much more “plaza” than “country club,” as such a spot — so close to the action of the Plaza — should be.

For an east-west connection, why not an artisan or book fair down the middle of the street? There’s room, and this would create interest, activity, and a very real connection towards the Nelson-Atkins Museum. (Check out this precedent in Buenos Aires; also an existing proposal to put such a fair on the north side of 47th Street arbitrarily favors one side of the street, while putting high-intensity activity in the front yard of apartment-dwellers there.)

The city’s streetcar — perhaps expanding as far south as UMKC someday — would dip underground for a few hundred feet near the roundabout (dotted blue line). Crucially, most buses could now stop at one point, while interfacing easily with a streetcar “subway” station below.

 

New opportunities for development arise if the area to the southeast of the roundabout — currently rather awkwardly built on — is rearranged to better acknowledge the Plaza and become part of the event that is the roundabout.

Feasible?
In all, the idea might seem a little “out there” but it’s a vision for how the Parks and Boulevards can better serve the city that it’s supposed to connect.

 

 

If you study any subject for a day or two, you will most likely gain a basic understanding of what it’s about, and learn the key aspects (be they assets or liabilities) associated with it. But studying a subject for months broadens your perspective so much further, delving beyond the surface to discover how people and the environment are affected and finding improvements or all-together new solutions for the problems.

Examining the conditions of Kansas City’s Parks and Boulevards system for the past 4 months has helped to confirm for me that planning for the location of a tree is just as important as planning for the location of residences and businesses, in any city. My proposed intervention, near the intersection of Brookside and Volker Blvd., included not only changes to buildings and streets, but to green space as well (Frank A. Theis Park). The main idea was to increase connectivity across Brush Creek and the surrounding area, and to promote socioeconomic diversity and physical health within the area’s large young adult population.

My overall concept began to piece together for me when I came across an article that listed the 50 healthiest college towns in the U.S.. The features that each town had in common were bike trails and other public options for physical activity and recreation, and access to a variety of healthy dining options, from farmers’ markets and fruit stands to restaurants that centered around cleaner eating. Adding some of these features to my site could be part of the solution (or at least the catalyst of a solution) to bringing the Parks and Boulevards system up to date in this 21st century.

 

 

In addition to connecting and extending the existing bike trails, I focused on maximizing the efficiency and convenience of Kansas City’s public transportation system. Currently, the Bus Rapid Transit system (BRT) is very limited in its service routes. By expanding the service beyond the Main St. and Troost Ave. lines, and including the entire Parks and Boulevards system in a new initiative, ridership would increase, which in turn would help in decreasing automobile dependency.

 

 

As seen in the site plan, more infrastructure enhancements included creating more ease of vehicle and bicycle movement across Brush Creek, by extending McGee St. and Locust St. southward to Volker Blvd.; I also connected the east and west portions of E 48th St., in the process dividing Theis Park into 2 separate sections. To help the park maintain a sense of oneness in spite of the split, wild plum trees would be planted in a design that brought attention to the entrances for both sections of the park, which are directly facing each other.

 

 

And in an effort to keep in character with the artistic nature of nearby attractions (the Nelson Atkins Museum of Art and Kauffman Foundation Garden), a music/performance stage would be placed in the southern part of the park, at the bottom of a sloping hill and near the water’s edge.

A feat that would require the cooperation of the owners is the slight repurposing  of the Fountain View on the Plaza apartments, an exclusive complex that caters to wealthier clientele. Yes, making money is the main goal of most business owners’ agendas, but as I learned in my study of urban planning theory, narrowing the divide of social classes and promoting equal housing/work opportunities for all citizens is what makes a successful society. This is the purpose of equity planning,  and actually adopting and implementing the principles of equity planning is what needs to be done as we move forward in the 21st century, instead of some of the ‘all talk and no action’ planning approaches of the past. I believe that redefining the future of the areas in JC Nichols’ Country Club District should include erasing the remnants of the old ‘red-lining’ mentality, and a possible step in that direction would be to include a wider range of affordability in the Fountain View apartment complex. As a much needed bonus, the lot adjacent to the complex, which now houses News 41 headquarters, would be designed as a farmers’ market, to support local farmers and provide quality, affordable produce to consumers more concerned with community networking than commercialism; it would be in direct competition with the Whole Foods that was proposed for Oak St. just a few blocks away.

Overall, the goal of my proposal was to provide a little more freedom of choice for young adults and people in general, in varying contexts: better public transportation choices, more choices in street routes, more choices in housing, and diverse choices in entertainment and recreation. It would be a refreshing augmentation to a site in Kansas City’s Parks and Boulevards system, with the potential to add property value to surrounding sites.

In designing for the 21st century parks and boulevards, our studio took several months to analyze and gather meaningful information. This gave us a well rounded insight into many of the strengths and weaknesses of the historic system.

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My design intervention occurs at the intersection of J.C. Nichols Parkway and 43rd street. This ‘hot spot’ is the confluence of two highly trafficked districts in Kansas City.  With the shopping area of the plaza to the south, Westport entertainment district to the north, and the Saint Luke’s Hospital complex at its epicenter; the area has a history of morphing land use’s and transportation distributions.

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In order to resolve the lack of connectivity and density in the area, I envisioned a plan to break through the current edges of the site and extend Mill Creek Park into Westport. This coupled with an increase of mixed use sites and the extension of the street car could rejuvenate the current desolation that one feels when walking through the area.

 

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The plan seeks to remove the current parking lots and add green space that encompasses a new street car route that will connect to the main street line. It also incorporates 3 underground parking facilities that will increase parking 3 fold.

The proposed extension of the street car route from Union Station towards UMKC is set at about 3.5 miles. The added length that would extend the line into Westport would only add less than a 1/4 of a mile and could provide a large increase in ridership as well as a great option for commuting between midtown and downtown.

Here is an example of the changes in the built environment that I designed to maintain the typo-morphology of Westport.

 

 

 

Another part of our studio design project requirements was cost estimates and phasing. I used RM Mean calculation books and the internet to find out current estimates for demolition and construction of buildings and infrastructure.

 

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This semester pushed myself and my classmates to not only understand different methods of analysis but to use them to be able to ask the right questions.

The site that I chose began to feel like an overwhelming endeavor of bottomless problems yet there were also some very clear solutions that seemed to resonate not only with myself but with the judges during the critique.

Bridge for pedestrians.

 

When looking for inspiration to give you ideas for a new design. I believe it is good practice to never limit yourself, and always keep an open mind. Because I am interested in creating a new design for a major corridor, Image 1 caught my attention by the way it focused on a car-oriented road, and wants to encourage walk-ability, high density development, and transit.

 

Another good practice that has served me well in the inspirational process is not forgetting about the little things. There are many different elements to Parks and Boulevards, which my classmates and I have previously covered in earlier blogs. Signage is a small part of such a big system, but can be a major factor in the overall character. One as simple as seen in Image 2, can serve as just another indicator of how great a system we have.

 

Resources:

http://albanybicyclecoalition.com/2012/06/

http://go.nbm.org/site/Calendar/295729932?view=Detail&id=116461

http://www.railwaypreservation.com/vintagetrolley/los_angeles.htm

Julie Campoli discusses walkability in her latest book ‘Made for Walking’. There are 5 elements that she’s states are vital in creating walkable neighborhoods. Density, diversity, design, destination accessibility, and distance to transit.

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What she’s goes on to say is also very relevant to designing better urban spaces in the Parks and Boulevards of Kansas City,

” The five Ds make neighborhoods walkable, but a host of other attributes make them livable. Some, like open space, depend on larger systems that extend well beyond the confines of a neighborhood and require big thinking, long-term planning, and broad cooperation. Neighborhood parks are essential, but greater density demands more than that. It requires many varied, high-quality green spaces – large and small, formal and wild, for active recreation and solitude – that form a network across the metropolis and to wilderness areas beyond.”

When looking at the knuckles that our studio wants to improve upon, we have to not only use our analysis of the system as a whole but also intensive research of the particulars that each site might require. In order to nourish a diversity of high quality green spaces, large and small, we need to respond to each site’s specific qualities.