I spent way too much time this weekend driving through massive freeway infrastructure with a trip to Omaha and back so allow me to vent at the start of this post. I actually counted a section of I-80 which had 14 lanes........
It's amazing how "system to system" interchanges, ie. I-80 to I-480, really take up a lot of space and require massive viaducts which cost a lot of money to maintain and replace.
The Federal Highway Trust Fund is going broke and the easy, knee jerk excuse is the fact that gas taxes have not gone up since 1993 and vehicles are more fuel efficient. However, I feel part of the reason why our infrastructure is crumbling was over-building and over planning and our policy makers didn't do a good job of overseeing transportation designers and planners. Now it costs so much to replace what we have and no one is asking if we are spending taxpayer money on infrastructure which might have a negative return on investment.
This is St. Joseph, Missouri which has a metro area population right near 127,000 people. Don't get me wrong, the engineer in me loves the double decked viaduct right on top of the Missouri River and all the ramps and merges. It breaks up the trip but I wonder if it really was necessary to be an interstate highway versus an urban parkway or arterial.
It's a viscous cycle that I don't think FHWA or the engineering profession really comprehends. The voters don't seem to want to pay more for the product being put out by FHWA and government doesn't evolve to the market like the private sector has to. FHWA isn't going out of business like companies who didn't change with the culture (Montgomery Wards™, Woolworth™, Palm™).
Anyways, the Kansas City Downtown freeway loop has had issues from day 1. I think it all started with the original 1947 concept layout. I found a 1985 study of the loop and pulled the conclusions for you to review. You can download the whole report at the bottom of the post.
I so wanted to editorialize like Beavis and Butthead watching a music video but didn't with the exception of one section.
Some of these traffic and accident issues went away with the construction of the mega bridges and viaducts of I-670 (if all of those viaducts were built in the late 1980's, I wonder what the cost to replace them will be in the 2030's?).
One thing I noticed is that they did remove some of the odd ramps that needed removal near I-70 and Oak/Locust. I tried showing them with blue arrows. I did find it interesting that there still were a lot of buildings in Columbus Park including some between Independence Avenue and I-70 in the aerial in the green box. I think the black dots denote accident locations.
Here is one of the recommendations in a simple map format.
You can download the whole report here and read at your pleasure.
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