I got to scout out another greenway today. Much like the Big Shoal Greenway, the Searcy Creek Greenway was secured prior to development years ago. It was bought for a four lane parkway and neighborhood park purposes. Part of it was built south of Parvin Road but the part north never happened. When NE 48th Street was built, the turn lanes for the intersection were installed and are still there.
I really don't understand the fascination with four lane roads in residential areas away from interstates. Wide roads lead to faster speeds and more environmental damage due to the amount of clearing and grading necessary to construct them. I am lucky I saw the light when we did the 72nd and Waukomis project and it ended up being a 2/3 lane road vs a four lane with a median.
The key is to keep traffic signals out of the area because signals is what create the need for wider roads. That's why the roundabout was installed. Areas with large amounts of residential developments do not need four lane roads until the land use changes to commercial.
The arterial street system should be like the body's artery system. The heart is the downtown or commercial cluster and the further it gets away from the heart, the smaller the artery needs to be. That thinking is how the name arterial was applied to streets.
At some point, conventional wisdom came up with this asinine idea that if you start out driving on a four lane road, the road should stay four lanes the whole length of the way for continuity of the corridor. Someone also came up with the idea that roads should be centered on a section line and not follow the topography. That works for Tulsa but in Missouri, that thinking is just silly. Do you really care if the road goes from four to two lanes then back to four as long as it efficiently gets you from A to B? Streets that follow topography are cheaper and in the end much more pleasing to drive. That's why the new NW 72nd Street swifts about 150' or so off the section line to the north as it enters into the Line Creek Valley. Topography + thoughtful design = good road.
The east-west Springfield Avenue (IL 10) in Champaign-Urbana where I went to college was a perfect example of a two lane road in residential areas that moved a lot of cars. When it got to the 4 north-south arterials which had stop lights, the road widened out to at the intersections and then tapered back to two lanes. This allowed more traffic through the green signal timing without wiping out a bunch of houses so that irresponsible college students from western and central Illinois could get home faster.
Two and three lane roads are much safer because all it takes is one person to be doing the speed limit and it slows down everyone behind him/her. Think about the next time you drive Waukomis/Green Hills versus either Barry Road or NW 68th Street and how different of an experience it is.
Anyways, back to the greenway. I uploaded and tagged some more pictures in panoramio.com here to enjoy. This is looking east from some baseball fields off NE 42nd Terrace. Some big old oaks sticking out this time of year.
If a tree falls in the creek, does it need a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and KCMO Floodplain Development Certificate?
I have to call 311 and report a code violation for someone destroying trees and violating the stream buffer preservation ordinances.
While not quite as deep as the Line Creek Valley, it still has some 20+ foot mini-valleys.
Came across what appeared to be a raccoon that froze in place. Also, I came the closest I've ever been to a fox.
The poor fox must have been on the run...
Clip credit to The Sweet.
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