Over the past few weeks, I have developed a design for a North Loop Transit Station including a stretch of mix-use downtown development and greenspace inspired by the San Antonio Riverwalk. Coming to this conclusion took research in why a transit hub is needed. What was found within the classes research was that with the Buck O’Neil Bridge built, the number of automobiles running through the North Loop is significantly less then the rest of the loop making a it great candidate for a BRT transit only passageway.
The new uses that could go on the new urban land next to the highway can include a pedestrianized focus as the area just north is Kansas City’s River Market. It would cohesively run together connecting the bridge of pedestrian walking development within downtown and bus transportation throughout the greater metro area. I personally see a great mix of housing to the east and more commercial development throughout the middle and West of the North Loop. Keeping a lot of the green space is also important as there is already a big impact of the Urban Heat Island Effect throughout the area and having a park like structure around the pedestrian development would improve activity.
Within the next 20 years Kansas City is estimated to grow along with the rise of AI and technological advancements. Opening the North Loop to become not only a transit hub, but a prime place to test or use new high speed forms of transportation like a light rail. Of course this may be more than 20 years in the future, but eventually have a rail from east to west coast cutting right through Kansas City would bring a new realm of possibilities. For now, having a few main line of buses spanning from the KCI Airport all the way down to South Lee’s Summit or Spanning from Olathe to Blue Springs would give opportunities to residents they may not have had before. These opportunities could be more job openings as they don’t have to stay within their town, seeing family, etc.
The housing market within Kansas City is just like anywhere else in 2025, expensive and scarce. Within the North Loop I believe we can utilize the existing landscaping and build housing on the flat interstate ground. Building multi-family housing to the East side where there is already a park and neighborhood would densify and create a connection between the neighborhoods that were once divided by the highway. Living near the North Loop especially if the transit hub is bult would give you access to the whole metro area by just walking a few blocks. You would have access to small businesses and new development would include places like a grocery store, and essentials all while being far enough away where noise wouldn’t be a problem.
The North Loop has several development opportunities where the land and its people could benefit greatly instead of being underutilized by its one use… for cars. I see the North Loop being turned into a destination where people alike can gather and explore our great metro area.
My final project was called “Close the Loop”. The name has a double meaning, referring to the closure of the North Loop to car traffic as well as “closing the loop” on past injustices caused by the section of highway.
My goals were:
Conversion of North Loop to a busway, reusing existing bridges to reduce cost, and reconfiguring ramps where necessary
Pedestrianization of downtown core, and the addition of parking garages to accommodate removal of street parking and surface parking lots
Construction of a new transit center at Delaware and 6th St, above North Loop, with the lower level being a busway for express buses, the upper level on Delaware serving the streetcar and north-south local buses, and 6th Street serving east-west local buses
Bringing the Heart of America Bridge at grade at Independence Ave
Spurring development along 6th St and Independence Ave: the busway will accommodate delivery vehicles with loading zones
Spur infill development elsewhere throughout the site
Phasing
My development phasing was radial, starting from the transit center itself at 6th and Delaware, and expanding out from there. I figured that the area around the transit center would be the main catalyst of development, and infill would follow soon after. Additionally, I proposed some additional housing developments in the early stages to address immediate needs, especially towards the Columbus Park neighborhood.
Land Use
I focused commercial development near the busway and residential development in the more historically residential neighborhoods like Columbus Park and Quality Hill. Parking structures are located on the near the proposed pedestrianized areas of downtown.
Circulation
For pedestrian and private vehicle circulation, I focused on maintaining connections for cars (adding a couple ramps to maintain highway access, for instance) while enhancing the pedestrian experience (dedicating several blocks to pedestrians). I aimed to create a balanced circulation plan that preserves access to all modes where necessary while also prioritizing safety and economic development.
The addition of busways, along with the anticipated NorthRail expansion to the streetcar, creates a unique transit circulation system downtown. The blue lines indicate routes with dedicated transit right-of-way, while excluding most bus routes, since these often change for a variety of reasons and cannot be assumed static for purposes of a transit center. In addition, with my transit center proposal, many local bus routes may be rerouted, as the transit center enables local buses to stop on 6th and Delaware.
Delivery access was a major feature of my plan, detailed more in my previous blog post concerning development.
Precedent
I had inspiration from a number of cities, both within and outside of the US:
I used Barcelona’s concept of superblocks to pedestrianize downtown while preserving car circulation
Denver’s Union Station inspired the lower-level busway in my transit center proposal
Tremont Ave in New York City inspired me to allow truck access on the busway
Ontario’s busways inspired much of my design, providing a precedent for dedicated right-of-way busways
Infrastructure Reuse
My design was able to reuse many existing bridges and rights-of-way, which lowered the cost of the proposal.
Bi-State Corridor
The busway greatly benefits the Bi-State Corridor initiative, providing a quick route from KCK to Independence.
Cost/Implementation
Costs of similar projects were used to forecast costs of each element of the infrastructure project. Development costs were separate and not included in this estimate, since they would be primarily on the private side.
The primary issue the North Loop has faced over the past several decades has been depopulation, due in no small part to the effects of outdated highway infrastructure. We have seen massive losses in potential economic value through underused valuable land, not only with the highway footprint itself, but also adjacent blocks deprived of much of their value through the negative effects of the infrastructure.
It’s important to note that there are real economic benefits to any piece of infrastructure, and that must be taken into consideration – the removal of a highway, without careful thought, could end up helping some groups while hurting others. I will detail this point more in my next blog.
For future land use, I considered the effects of my proposed busway, and how commercial development might fit the downtown core and transportation-adjacent areas better, while areas such as Columbus Park might call for more residential infill. I also looked at past land use and aimed to match the character of both past and present.
The recent trend of increased development is continued exponentially with my plan, and catalyzed through “keystone” developments such as the transit center and massive housing developments towards Columbus Park.
A key factor in catalyzing development in the North Loop is the accommodation of commercial deliveries.
The largest piece of this is my proposed delivery corridor along the busway. This corridor would provide dedicated access to deliver goods to what would become a massive commercial corridor along the former highway. The unique topography of the corridor makes this work quite well, with the possibility of loading bays on the delivery route, which would align with the lower level of the commercial developments, one floor below the street-level first floors.
In addition, the pedestrianization of some downtown streets would prove beneficial for delivery vehicles, eliminating conflicts for parking spaces and providing easier access for vehicles permitted to enter the pedestrianized zone.
Kansas City’s Downtown Loop was a project of immense proportions when it was built. It was also a project of immense implications. Implications about where people who lived or worked downtown would go once it tore through their neighborhoods. Implications about the types of people planners wanted to attract to downtown. And implications about what was more valuable: vibrant, financially formidable neighborhoods, or convenience for an ever-growing population of suburbanites.
Belvidere Hollow, an historically Black neighborhood, was one of the freeway’s first victims. The neighborhood, while disenfranchised, provided housing, community, and business.
Belvidere Hollow’s destruction. Aside from making way for the freeway, the neighborhood was also razed to build a park. After suffering years of neglect, the park was sold back to the city in 2019 and was commissioned as the site for a psychiatric hospital in 2024.
The North Loop was the first part of this larger development, and it remains today an enormous influence over the character of downtown. The North Loop mainly serves people that don’t live downtown, or among those that do, those who work outside it. While this is good for providing job opportunities for people across the metro, it creates problems for the area. Whole swaths of housing, businesses, and historic structures were razed to make way for the Intercity Freeway; the name given to the North Loop at its inception. And in order to accommodate all the new car traffic anticipated, downtown would have to raze more buildings in favor of surface parking lots and garages. Instead of creating or maintaining neighborhoods where people can walk to what they need, and can have job opportunities near their homes, the city (and the nation) adopted a model of building things further and further away from each other.
The famous “Junction” at 9th and Main, now destroyed to realign the streets and make way for the Intercity Freeway.
This pattern created a downtown that is today inhospitable in many places. Buildings appear to retreat from the highway, almost fearful that they may join their fallen comrades. The patterns of people have changed as well. Young families with children are few and far between downtown, barring the occasional visitors to the River Market. There are also very few elderly people. They and their parents have long-since moved away to the suburbs, never to return. The age group that dominates downtown is young professionals, and to a certain extent this group is male-dominated, perhaps because of the job opportunities in tech and finance that swallowed up downtowns beginning in the latter half of the 20th century.
Population totals and population by sex differ greatly in the downtown area vs the metro as a whole.
In more recent years, though, Kansas City has recognized the value of walkable communities and dense development, and the dangers posed by infrastructure like urban freeways. In the last 15 years, several efforts have been made to revitalize downtown, including the KC streetcar and new planning documents like the Downtown Area Plan (2019) and the KC Spirit Playbook (2023).
Infill and loft development has also been incentivized with measures like Tax Increment Financing (TIF) districts, and these have seen marked success increasing those developments.
Maps showing change in loft developments across downtown Kansas City, Missouri. (Kansas City and How it Grew 1822-2011, Shortridge, James R.)
Some aspects of this new growth have seen pushback, however. For many, downtown is still not affordable to live in, for example. While its decline may not have been a result of gentrification, there is still a price barrier to entry for many who wish to move there.
A key aspect of this is lack of affordable housing. The snowball effect of downtown’s decline (from the installation of the highway, demolition of buildings for parking, and the subsequent disinvestment in the now undesirable area) perhaps unsurprisingly came with a destruction of housing units.
Tenure of downtown housing units 1940 – 2020.
Because most of the housing in downtown was rental, the gap between rented and owned housing came very close to closing following this destruction, albeit for the wrong reasons. The above curve is the same basic shape found in other figures regarding housing and population. A sharp decline mid-century, followed by a recent gradual upturn.
Total Housing Units by Year Structure Built by Survey Year for Studied Census Tracts.
The above figure is perhaps the most interesting find of this section of the research that went into this project. The number of housing units built 1939 or before appears to increase after the survey year. How might this be possible? Although some margin for error in data collection can be counted against it, this phenomenon could also be showing adaptive reuse of buildings built before 1939 that were previously condemned or were under a different use such as offices or factories (i.e. lofts).
The shape of downtown, and the north loop in particular depends on our understanding of the existing conditions there presently. The two topics addressed above, history and demographics, give us various calls to action. There is the need to reintroduce housing, especially at an affordable rate and in places people want to live and work. There is the need to attract different groups of people, especially different ages of people, like the elderly and young families with children. Making downtown livable for them is key to making it hospitable for everyone. Addressing the history of the place is also key. Reconnecting the neighborhoods that have been torn apart, and revitalizing what is left, are both highly important aspects of this project, and history has an enormous role to play in informing our decisions for that going forward. A better downtown is only possible when we recognize what we’ve lost and what we have to work with .
These is my developmental opportunity blog. It is a draft toward final. I started with a map and made a proposal based on that which shows the three sketches above. The first sketch is a historical context of the map of North Loop which shows the what is now and will be in the future. The second sketch is parking context which is the development of spaces with the highway and the last sketch is an Entrance context which shows the accessibility of the streets and parking as well as the buildings.
Within the North Loop, I was assigned to study the surrounding Trees and Landscape. Overall, the condition of trees was surprising, but still not as good as one would hope. When it came to the landscape condition along the highway… one can only guess that, yes, it was dangerous.
Trees:
Tree Cover Diagram of the North Loop
The Tree Cover Map above shows how much of the surrounding area is covered by trees. Within my research I have noticed that trees provide a number of benefits to the community (besides giving the planet AIR). Benefits Include:
Shade/Cooling (helps fight the Urban Heat Island Effect)
Places to sit or lay (especially when paired with street furniture)
Walls/Protection (against major roads or other dangerous areas)
Creates a sense of place (makes a place feel comforting)
Makes a Facade (blocks eyesores or inspires nicer development)
Illustration looking North onto City Market Park
When it comes to trees around the North Loop I found that places with trees are in places that aren’t very practical for pedestrians. City Market Park (shown above) is tucked away behind the city market and faces 3rd street. Personally, I never even knew that City Market Park was there when I was in person walking around. To get to it you either need to go behind all the stores, enter through 3rd street, which isn’t pedestrian activated as well as 5th street, or walk past a fenced off parking lot on 5th street. This makes this park unable to be densely populated.
River MarketSidewalk- West Side of Delaware St.
Places that were densely populated by pedestrians ended up being the least “green.” Within the River market there was no trees whatsoever and designed for cars to park even though the site has hundreds of pedestrians walking throughout the area. On the sidewalk closest to the Delaware Bridge had spots where trees were supposed to go, but then were removed. This empty pothole of sidewalk then becomes a hazard for walking pedestrians (I would know as I tripped into one).
6th and Charlotte- WestIndependence and Grand- Southwest
Tree Diagram of the Heart of America Bridge and Columbus Park
On the other hand places that are very close to the highway and are potentially dangerous to pedestrians are full of trees! The diagram above shows clusters of trees within major roads, which becomes inaccessible to pedestrians, but where there are people always playing and hanging around (Columbus Park) in the top right corner there are only sparse spread out trees that provides little shade.
South Columbus Park- New Tree Plantings
What we can do to improve the trees around the north loop is… you guessed it… PLANT MORE TREES! Especially in places that would benefit the community and the planet overall!
Landscape:
Interstate Highway facing West towards Wyandotte St. Bridge
The landscape around the highway is infamously nicknamed “the ditch” for a good reason. Bridges have 15+ feet between the top of the ditch to the bottom. This is a problem when considering visibility, pedestrian traffic, and speed. When cars are within the ditch it is hard to see other traffic merging on and is hard to merge off. Pedestrians when walking near the ditch have no protection against slipping and rolling down into the highway and because there is a tunnel-like straight shot, cars are more prone to speeding as this part is marked as a 55 zone, but in my experience cars are going more towards 65 to 70 miles per hour.
Section of “The Ditch” showing steepness
The above section shows just how steep the highway is. If we were to make the North Loop friendly for pedestrians we would have to input stairs. The ideal slope for stairs is 25 to 50 degrees and the site is a 30 to 35 degree slope which is well with the range. This also puts into perspective how dangerous it is for pedestrians walking on the top. If people get curious and try to look down or get close, then that poses the risk of slipping and falling down.
Tree Barrier Placement Map
Tree Barrier Illustration- Corner of Wyandotte and 6th Street
In the meantime, I propose we create a tree barrier on the outside of the ditch. This would help the tree conditions and landscape conditions within the North Loop. As mentioned previously, trees can provide a barrier and facade to prevent people from trying to cross into the dangerous landscape conditions and making a “out of sight out of mind” mindset making people less curious about trying to look or go into said landscape anyway. Now, I hear people saying “but wouldn’t it make people MORE curious about what’s on the other side?” Possibly, but then comes the barrier part, people wouldn’t want to cross far past the trees AND it would create more apparent openings to look from the safe bridges.
Overall:
When it comes to Trees and landscape the North Loop has great potential to create a unique and inviting experience for all modes of transportation. We will be able to help the community, the planet, and other elements of the public realm if we improve these fundamental elements.
“The public realm, which includes streetscapes and public spaces, is the setting for street life and community activities. Public realm elements, including pavement, street furnishings, and public art, should reflect the community identity, evoke civic pride, support daily activities, and foster civic life in the community.” (Fairfax County Board of Supervisors, et. al., 2018, Volume II, Chapter 5, 5A)
An element of the public realm is something that is foundational to place, and which can be translated to several other places. It can make or break the hospitality of that place. It can be implemented in a variety of different ways. Some examples of elements of the public realm include street furniture, lighting, paths and sidewalks, walls, or entrances.
One thing people may not think of as an element, however, is parking. However, it is necessary, especially in this day and age, to consider it and how it affects our ability to place-make. Accomplished urban designers and theorists have already written about the different types of parking and their implications. One among them, Christopher Alexander, developed a theory of auto parking which largely focuses on reigning in the runaway parking development that began in the 20th century and continues today.
Alexander’s criteria for parking mainly concern making parking lots small: “make parking lots small, serving no more than five to seven cars…”, reducing the percentage of parking in a given area: “do not allow more than nine per cent of the land in any given area to be used for parking…”, and shielding that parking from view: “put all large parking lots, or parking garages, behind some kind of natural wall, so that the cars and parking structures cannot be seen from outside.” (Alexander et al., 1977).
A small lot type at 3rd Street and Broadway Blvd.
These and more of Alexander’s theory went into my considerations for parking in the North Loop area of Kansas City, Missouri’s downtown. Developing my own theory, though, I developed six different core types of this element for study. They are:
Street parking
Angle parking
Parking garages
Parking lots
Micromobility parking
Guerilla/informal parking
Street parking is one of the older, more common, and more intuitive forms of parking. One simply drives to their destination, stops their vehicle on the edge of the street, and leaves it on foot. There are certain advantages to this form of parking. It is relatively unobtrusive to street design, at most requiring slightly more right of way width for the street. It allows for direct travel to a destination, but only if there is unoccupied parking space nearby. In a city or region where people heavily depend on cars for travel, this form of parking can run out quickly. It can have people circling blocks, adding to air pollution and increasing the likelihood of collisions.
Harrison Street & Missouri Avenue – looking west on Missouri.
The location I chose to demonstrate this type is in the Columbus Park neighborhood, at Harrison Street and Missouri Avenue – looking west on Missouri. This area is an historic development with a mix of single-family homes, small apartments, and neighborhood commercial. Parked cars are rarely a nuisance here and finding parking is usually not difficult.
Another form of street parking is angle parking, although this type can also be seen in surface lots. Historically, these have been “head-in” spaces where cars pull forward into the space. As design standards have changed, however, back-in angle parking has started to become more popular. The advantage to this specific type of parking is its relationship to safety for cyclists and pedestrians. Instead of backing into blindly into traffic and hitting cyclists (as in the case of head-in angle parking) drivers now have better visibility when leaving the space.
“Dozens of cities across the country have solved the problem simply reversing the angles. Cars now pull just past the parking space and then back into it. It is like parallel parking, but much easier. To pull out of the space, motorists look left for approaching traffic and then pull forward.” (BikeWalkKC).
The example of angle parking below, at 401 Deleware Street, looking south, shows just this. Cars proceed one way down Deleware Street, then back in to angle parking spaces. This is especially important for deleware, considering cars share that stretch of it with the streetcar. This design helps prevent collisions.
401 Delaware Street – looking south on Delaware.
Parking Garages seem to solve some of the issues of street parking too. They allow for denser concentration of parked cars, meaning people may be able to access their destination relatively close to where they park, while maintaining the urban environment. However, when not controlled, they can become more common in an area than actual buildings for humans. Not to mention too, they are costly to build, especially when building underground. Here are some estimates for reference:
A surface lot is $1,500-$10,000 per space (economical).
An above ground garage is $25,000-$35,000 per space (balanced).
An underground garage is $35,000-$50,000 per space (expensive from excavation).
(Dcparkinglot, 2024).
MARC Garage (left), former Hilton Inn Garage (bottom right), and State Street Bank and Trust Garage (top right) – 7th and Washington Streets (as viewed from 5th and Washington – looking south).
The parking garages in the pictures above consist of the MARC garage to the left, the former Hilton Inn garage on the bottom right, and the State Street Bank and Trust garage in the top right. These all cluster around 7th and Washington Streets. This area is relatively dead, even during large events downtown. Partly, this is due to vacancy (the Hilton Inn was closed and demolished in 2002 and the State Street Bank building has sat vacant for some time too). But I have to imagine that even when these were operational, the area was not much more invigorated. Parking does not directly precipitate human activity (except perhaps road rage over a stolen space). It must be carefully crafted to invite a means for people to get to their destination without destroying the place those same people want to arrive at. To quote Jeff Speck:
“the twin gods of Smooth Traffic and Ample Parking—have turned our downtowns into places that are easy to get to but not worth arriving at.” (Speck et al., 2022).
In my study of North Loop parking, I used Kansas City Parcel Viewer to get an estimate of how much of the area was surface lots. I paired this with a study of the highway surface area. The results were as follows:
The study area measured in at around 11.5 million feet2
Parking lots took up around 1.2 million feet2
The highway (or MODOT right of way) equaled approximately 4.3 million feet2
Converting these to percentages, surface parking lots alone took up about 10% of the land area, while highways took up about 30%. These numbers don’t account for parking garages, however, nor do they fully count the highway’s area, because they can’t capture landscaping on either side of the highway lanes. Accounting for these errors, we count intuit that between these twin gods (smooth traffic and ample parking) they account for nearly 50% of the study area.
Parking lots share some of the same issues as garages, but many of them are inverse. While cheaper to build, they can take up far more surface area than garages past a certain number of spaces.
The area chosen to showcase this type is depicted below and consists of four parking lots on all corners of 7th and Main Streets. The photo was taken from the top of the Flashcube Apartments facing north/northeast. The pattern of lots actually continues out in several directions from these, creating vast swaths of underutilized, inhospitable land. This paired with the freeway (the other twin god) makes for an ocean of disconnectivity between the CBD and the River Market neighborhood.
Parking lots on corners of 7th and Main Streets as viewed from the rooftop of Flashcube Apartments (looking north/northeast).
Micromobility parking, while perhaps not conventional, is still a form of parking, and can be a way to mitigate some of the issues with parking for automobiles. Micromobility refers to bicycles, scooters, and the like, and parking for them is much the same as parking for cars, only it takes up more less space.
5th and Delaware Streets – looking west on 5th.
As shown above, this area of 5th Street near the intersection with Deleware is reserved for parking scooters and bikes. Racks are included, along with flexible delineators and street paint. This mitigates the issue of scooters and bikeshares often being left strewn haphazardly on sidewalks and streets, while also helping to slow traffic by reducing the width of the right of way for part of the street. This issue of haphazard placement is part of another form of parking I’ve termed “Guerilla Parking”
Guerilla Parking (or informal parking) is what happens when there is nowhere (or nowhere convenient) to park legitimately. In the case of the scooter shown below at the corner of 6th and Washington Streets, there were likely no other better options for the individual who was riding it.
Corner of 6th and Washington Streets – looking north.
Guerilla parking can come in many different shapes an sizes, though. Below is a picture of the parking for the Chiefs’ victory parade in 2024 taken at the corner of 26th and Jefferson Streets, looking south. This is by far an extreme case, but it just goes to show that parking will never be able to accommodate everyone if everyone must drive a car to get where they need to go.
Chiefs Parade Parking, 2024. Photo taken from 26th and Jefferson Streets, looking South.
Other more common forms of Guerilla parking including parking payment delinquency or parking in fire lanes or other restricted areas. There are several strategies we might utilize to address these issues. One initial strategy might be to better enforce the rules we’ve created surrounding illegal or delinquent parking. We might make it more convenient to pay for parking with technology. And, from a more long-range perspective, we should be reducing our dependency on automobile transportation in favor of multi-modal accommodations like transit and micromobility. We should also be infilling our downtowns to make them more walkable, and, as we build out, doing so more incrementally and more densely.
Intervening in the study area, I chose to address the egregious surface lots near Flashcube Apartments at 7th and Main streets. Applying Alexander’s Small Lot theory, I simulated building massing on one of the lots, leaving a fraction of the lot for parking. This area of the lot, a row of spaces along the building edge of Flashcube, would allow for residents, workers, and visitors to still park if need be, but regular parking could be redirected elsewhere, such as underneath Flashcube where there exists an underground garage. Transit could also be fortified to reduce the need for parking. There is a streetcar stop just outside the building. Garden walls should be paired with trees and other plantings to mask the lot from view and soften the area.
Existing Context, 7th and Main Streets.
Plan View – Reprogramming of parking lot at 701 Main Street.
Axonometric – Reprogramming of parking lot at 701 Main Street.
There exist several other opportunities for reducing or changing parking in the North Loop. Parking is a necessary amenity, and can indirectly facilitate human interaction and economic growth in an area, but its implementation should be measured and planners should be firm in limiting its use.
Citations:
Alexander, C., Ishikawa, S., & Silverstein, M. (2010). A pattern language: Towns, buildings, construction. Oxford Univ. Pr.
Dcparkinglot. (2024, August 20). Cost of building a parking garage. D & C Parking Lot Maintenance. https://dcplm.com/blog/cost-of-building-a-parking-garage/
This portion of the North Loop project focused on analyzing one particular element of the public realm. My element was lighting and specifically lighting fixtures. To narrow the scope of this project, I focused specifically on contrasting highway- and street-scale lighting.
My first board shows six examples of common lighting typologies across the North Loop corridor and surrounding local streets. The locations are shown on the context map in the bottom left corner. These six examples fall into one of two categories: highway lighting and street lighting. Features of each lighting type are highlighted, such as brightness, color, and range. In general, highway lighting is harsher, has a larger range, and is not fit for a local street.
My second board includes a cross-section of street- and highway-scale lighting, an intervention, and a lighting map of the North Loop. The cross-section shows the difference in scale between the lighting types, including a person, a car, and a semi for scale. The lighting map identifies the two types of lighting across a map of the North Loop corridor and surrounding local streets. Note the red outline around a section of 6th St, immediately south of the North Loop trench, that has highway-scale lighting.
My intervention, shown under the Proposed heading, is to replace the lighting on the side of the street with a sidewalk to smaller, street-scale lighting. I believe this, along with sidewalk improvements, would be an effective short-term intervention to improve the pedestrian experience near the North Loop.
I categorized building entrances within the north loop into 6. Flushed entrance is characterized as a door that is leveled with the surrounding frame or wall. Projected entrance refers to an entrance that is extended beyond the building’s façade, creating a sheltered space and serves as a transitional space. Recessed entrance, like projected entrance, serves as a transitional space, creating a sheltered space only the entrance is indented from the building’s façade. Corner entrance face the intersection of two streets and landmark entrances divert the eyes from the door to the landmark. Lastly, entrances with stairs were a common thing. Some with many steps, others with little, but also serving as a transitional space. The entrance I found visually appealing was the Financial Holding Corporation Building as the stairs gave it a ‘grand’ entrance vibe, the signage was visible, and I just like the neoclassical architecture. The entrance I felt that was welcoming and accessible was Lazzarone Pizza, big windows to allow outsiders to look inside, signage was visible, and sure there was one step, but I don’t think it was enough to hinder someone in a walker or even wheelchair from going inside.
Three of the entrances are located north of i35 in River Market and the other three entrances are located south of i35 in downtown or the Financial Business District. They’re all within a .5-mile radius from each other and one thing I want to point out is that #2 and #6, projected and stairs entrances, are about 20-30 feet from the sidewalk and 40-50 feet from the street whereas the other entrances are literally next to the sidewalk. This is known as the transitional space that I mentioned above. This might play a factor into whether a person will enter the building. Transitional spaces give people an extra space to think about whether they want to enter the building. Entrances next to the sidewalk is more a ‘now or never’ feel to that decision.
What’s makes a good entrance? Recognizable, visually appealing, accessible, safe, and functional. Fogo De Chao in the Country Club Plaza is a good representation of a good entrance. I propose, to improve the #1 have a awning or canopy and for the step to be more of a ramp.
My boundaries within the North Loop study area was basically the beginning of the Heart of America Bridge.
1960 Figure Ground
1960 of the North Loop is very Interesting as it has sporadic development. This area was for those going to work in an industrial zone or going back home to their single family home. Due to the population the North loop was made with fewer lanes and more exits.
1990 Figure Ground
In 1990 you can see that the north part was realigned between 1960 and 1990 as well as widened for the sake of increasing traffic. You can also see the beginning development of Columbus Park just to the right as buildings were taken out in place of putting sidewalks. You can also notice more development on the South side of the loop as well.
2025 Figure Ground
By 2025 development around the North Loop has completed. Columbus Park has more sidewalks, more houses have been created, and if we were to build anymore it would be dangerously close to the Interstate. Due to the growing population and other interstate context around it, the North loop is now becoming a liability as this space should be connecting neighborhoods and supporting pedestrians.
