Mobility Hubs serve a greater purpose than transportation centers for the region or the city. It is one of the key pieces that allow transportation choice to happen at a region and city level. These Mobility Hubs will give travelers access to a regional transit system that encourages high-density development, more walkability, and bike friendly access.

Mobility Hubs have the potential to help transform the region and help with TOD development. These help provide a more walkable and bike friendly environment. These Hubs will be centers of transit activity, which will attract new opportunities such as living, working and other entertainment near the Hubs that connect the region together. Having Mobility Hubs can help low income and working class individuals with employment thus taking seniors to health clinics, grocery shopping and many other activities that are need with transportation.

Main and 13^th in Grandview, Missouri has many development opportunities that can enhance high density along the main street corridor. One of the development opportunities on Main and Goode Ave is a series of buildings that include housing and urban infill mixed-use, which include a supermarket, event space, and commercial space for retail and restaurants.

This development will make the intersection of Main St. and Goode flow together as well as enhance the opportunities that the Mobility Hub offers. This development will have over 350,000 square feet of rentable space. It includes a 26,000 square foot grocery store, and roughly a 40,000 square foot box store as an anchor for the development. Its 100,000 square feet of leasable retail and restaurant space will help balance out the 350 apartment units. Funding for these apartments will have low income tax credits, section-eight vouchers, and market rate as the means of renting. These serval buildings will create pedestrian plazas and alleys that will help improve the quality of the Mobility Hub, which will be adjacent to the site on the west. This development provides high density to an area that has been sprawling.

Mobility Hubs are preceded by airports and train stations. Each of these are a central place with high activity. They are innovative and provide seamless transfers and services. But we must also note that they are unique to the area they serve.

Gardner, Kansas is surrounded by Agricultural and undeveloped land and the new mobility hub will represent this resource and the local culture through Farm-to-Table services. The mobility hub will use the new Gardner-OP Express bus line and provide an all accessible station with bike and care share accessibility.

An inspiration for the mobility hub is the Atocha Rail Station in Madrid Spain.

I had the privilege of working with the planners in Olathe on revisioning their downtown core to house a mobility hub. During the charrette we hosted at Katz Hall on the UMKC campus, I was able to sit down and talk with the planners on what they wanted to see in downtown Olathe, and the feedback I got was this:

• Higher density
• Activity after 5 pm
• Highlighting the railroad and putting passenger trains on the rail line
• More housing downtown
• Bike lanes
• More commercial and restaurants/bars/coffee shops
• Create a communal gathering space
• Give Olathe an identity

These suggestions come from the current downtown having a rail line pass right through downtown as well as housing most of its government buildings. Currently, most people travel there for work purposes and is empty after 5pm. But, it’s a historic downtown and there is so much potential. While designing the downtown area, I was able to meet almost all of their goals. The mobility hub was placed on the corner of Santa Fe St and Kansas Ave., right along the rail line providing a stop. The mobility hub also integrates bike share, bike lanes on Santa Fe, car share, and a bus terminal. I wanted the mobility hub to 1) be attractive, and 2) provide many functions. With those transportation options, the mobility hub also has a café, public restrooms, bike storage, kiosks, and charging stations. The building was also designed to have an open-air feel with multiple skylights that fall onto indoor planters providing a relaxing experience, as well as having a slanted roof for solar panels. It’s also big enough to serve as multi-use space for events or what have you. The surrounding area was also planned to support this mobility hub. Most of the surface parking lots were repurposed as lots for mixed-use structures as well as apartments. Other lots facing the rail line were used for restaurants and brew-pubs that face the railway, giving a unique experience. The pedestrian network was also carefully planned; almost all of the new buildings have publicly accessible courtyards to provide stay spaces as well as a resting place for pedestrians if they wish to shop at the first floor commercial stores. Other commercial areas were planned to have shared roads running through them to allow low traffic to pass through to pick-up or drop-off pedestrians, these areas were also meant to be exclusively for neighborhood amenities like grocery stores, pharmacies, and daycares. The design also incorporated autonomous vehicles, all of the on-street parking was repurposed for pick-up and drop-off zones to allow for a smooth traffic flow.

All in all, I had a great time working on this project and I feel like I reached a point where this plan could one day be viable. I feel it fits in with the character of the area as well as give it a new, exciting identity.

The Kansas City Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) includes 15 counties that span 7,952 square miles in total. The biggest cities within the KC MSA are: Overland Park, Kansas City, Kansas; Olathe, and Independence. The next largest cities include: Lee’s Summit, Blue Springs, Leavenworth and Liberty. These cities are among the largest in population, in the MSA, and they closely correlate to the selected locations for mobility hubs. Almost all of these cities, and more, were picked as a location for a potential mobility hub. The factors that were taken into account when choosing these locations included: access to existing transportation, access to jobs, proximity to housing, and walkable amenities. The hub I was personally assigned is Olathe, Kansas. Olathe has approx. 134,000 people and the location for the hub is in the downtown core. It shows great potential with access to multiple close bus lines, train tracks and serving as the local government job center. There is also the possibility of increasing the density in the downtown area, whereas it’s currently still relatively small. This differs from some of the other locations such as Overland Park, Kansas, where the downtown area is relatively dense already. But other locations include Gardner, Kansas, for example; which is very suburban and has very low density. The locations for these mobility hubs were chosen based on the highest potential for creating a successful interchange of transportation systems; hopefully to better connect all 15 counties in the KC MSA.

By 2040 there will no longer be human drivers behind the wheel, it will all be self-driving.  With Uber and Car-share taking off, in the future people will less likely own a car or truck. While keeping this in mind parking lots will become prime real estate for new development. As of right now N Oak and Barry Rd lacks a gathering space for people to come and meet. The area is unfriendly to pedestrian right now, with very few sidewalks and not enough open space.

  The Northland lacks the characters of a park and boulevard system.  In the large image is a 3  miles radius of N Oak and Barry Rd. Inside the radius you will find two types of parks: Nature Parks (Green), and Neighborhood Parks (Orange). The dark blue lines represent the major highways in the area. The blues lines are proposed bike lanes that will connect N. Oak and Barry Rd in the future.

The Image in the upper left hand corner is a map of potential development sites west of N Oak and Barry Rd.  The old Metro North Mall already has plans to become a mix-use mall. To the south in red, will be a proposed entertainment area with Powerplay already existing on the site.  To the West across Hwy 169 are proposed light to median industry development. To help boost the economy, bring in better jobs, with better benefits and pay. Currently sitting on the site are multiple big boxes stores sitting vacant.   The two top maps represent surface parking in 2018 and 2040. Right now in 2018 there is 18 acres of surface parking located at N Oak and Barry Rd. By 2040 there will be at least 13 acres of surface parking or even possibly less.

The three lower pictures are the changes in parcels over time, starting with 1920 to 2040.

 The final board has some tables and figures of future forecast and projections of the populations, employment, and housing within 1 mile, 3 mile, and 5 mile radius of my site.

Kansas City is a car dominated culture. It  is obvious when you try crossing the street, on a crosswalk, and a police officer won’t stop for you (true story). It’s clear when you begin to walk to a local shop and find yourself walking on cracked and broken sidewalks- if the sidewalks exist at all.  As we move into a world where autonomous vehicles may replace the average person’s car, we need to keep one major concept in mind-commuters are pedestrians at some point in their commute.

We must plan for the pedestrian first. Secondly, we ought to consider bicycles and modes of public transit.  What we lost in our transportation revolution of the 1920’s was the prioritization of people. Infrastructure for cars created suburban sprawl, destroyed minority communities, and distanced job centers from employees.  How can we be sure that autonomous vehicles won’t do the same?

My hypothesis is that  being strategic and making incremental changes to our built environment, prior to autonomous vehicle mass production, is our method to return transportation to a people oriented focus.

1. Create cohesive sidewalk networks
2. Link bike facilities to regional amenities
3. Emphasize public transportation facilities that already exist
4. Re-purpose surface parking to income generating land uses
5.  Encourage incremental development

These strategies can work cohesively to ensure that wherever our transportation technologies go in the future, we don’t forget who the technology is intended for- people.

These strategies also make it possible to turn big box lots into sustainable hubs for transportation, work, live, and play.

Blue Ridge Crossing is currently anchored by a Walmart and a Lowes. It was created using TIF  which implies that the site was unable to support itself without public financing and that the City has determined making an investment in the area is worthwhile. I propose that within 40 years the street network is re-introduced, creating smaller parcels to reduce the burden on developers and encourage incremental development. a reducing or removal in parking requirements further reduces development costs.

I believe that more variety in land uses would serve a greater public of people.

Walmart has also been reducing the size of their buildings, investing in mixed use real estate, and  increasing the quality of building materials. This means that Kansas City could retain the partnership with this store – said to be a key component to this mobility hub by an anonymous KCATA employee- and  implement the strategies listed above.

This updated street network works harmoniously with smaller blocks to create a cohesive sidewalk network that reconnects the adjacent neighborhoods to the site and a more pleasant experience for users.

Downtown Leavenworth is home to many local businesses, and has remained so to this day. From bicycle shops, to surplus stores, it is clear to see how important it is to retain its local only image. Recent developments in the area are the Home 2 suites by Hilton, and the in-progress renovation of the Landing 4 theater into a B&B luxury theater. The Home 2 suits would serve visitors flying in from other parts of the country to visit relatives in the area, such as those residing in Fort Leavenworth, or even some who are incarcerated at one of the not so far penitentiary. Entertainment is one the vital elements to include in a downtown district, as such that the new B&B Theater will give residents an enjoyable pastime.

Proposed new developments are what seem to be a slightly difficult task. The new Mobility Hub will be located on the corner of southwest corner lot of Delaware and 3^rd Street, marked Lot A. This placement of the mobility hub will allow a new bus route to branch off the traffic heavy 4^th street, that becomes highway US 73 a few miles south. This hub will house many amenities for the various modes of transport. Some that are currently existing, and some that may come along within the next 20 years, such as fully autonomous vehicles. Autonomous vehicles and further advancements in vehicular technology could drastically change the way we think about traveling, parking, and vehicle ownership. In which case, the parking lot directly south of the mobility hub, will be reutilized, visualized as Lots B and E. Downtown Leavenworth is almost all paved which does not at all help with water retention which creates the possibility of better designing lots that are still needed and redeveloping those that are not.

Lot C, is yet another parking lot that could be better utilized. This parking lot, as many others do, is to be used by people shopping in the Downtown. It is also used for parking for the building to the west, The Leavenworth Youth Achievement Center. It appears as the offices are in a different building abutting the larger building. The green space to the left of the Youth Center building is also used for outdoor activities. Other activities that they partake in, are bicycle rides. This brings in the apparent absence of any sort of bicycle infrastructure in the area. A new building will be proposed and designed to bring a larger amount of amenities that the Youth Center can benefit from.

The lot on the northeast of this, designated as Lot D is a vacant lot that went unused after the Home 2 suites were constructed. Building a new structure on this lot would be challenging, in which very much needed green space would better serve people in the area, and possibly movie-goers as they wait for their film. A past proposal of re doing a sidewalk and implementing a sidewalk with a winding path, would fit very well in a redeveloped area.

Sidewalks are home to many of the different elements in the public realm. Whether it be lighting, planters, signs, or street furniture, these elements are what make sidewalks more walk-able. Though, some of these elements may not always be found and some may not be implemented as best as they could, the focus now will be on sidewalks, paving, and the variety of pedestrian pathways.

It could be said that the specific paving used in these three walking oriented elements can make them successful, unsuccessful, as well as show the amount of effort that was done to better the public walking infrastructure. Some places choose to keep the existing design style of the sidewalks and focus on only doing repairs, while others may completely change the aesthetics of them. And by doing so, this, what some would think an unnecessary change, can change the entire feel of an area.

Many cities are making the shift to the utilization of different pavement materials on crosswalks to better identify their location as well as their hierarchy on the streetscape. Some would even prefer that crosswalks be at sidewalk-level, rather than street, in order to better give pedestrians the right-of-way, which goes unnoticed by drivers.The change in paving has also been used to clearly identify gathering spaces, with the possibility to extend towards the sidewalk, utilizing the same paving to generate a path that people walking could identify and follow.

Located in the Northland of Kansas City, Missouri, not far from the airport. North Oak Traffic Way is 10.5 miles long of road that runs through North Kansas City, Kansas City, Gladstone, Village of Oaks, Oakwood, Oakwood Park, and Oakview. Barry Road is one of the few connectors that run east to west in the Northland. Located at the site are multiple commercial buildings and a church. Just within half a mile to the west is the old Metro North Mall, which is now under construction becoming Metro North Crossing a mix-use area.