Central business district traffic circulation study: Kansas City, Missouri

Institute of Transportation Engineers. ITE Journal, Feb 2001 by Meredith, Jere, Prem, Clyde

The number of intersections that were identified as having a potential for being congested ranged between a low of 14 to a high of 23 for the eight scenarios tested. This range was considered to be small compared to the large number of intersections (over 130) in the CBD. Also, congestion is accounted for in the VHT. Therefore, this factor was not considered to be strong enough to limit consideration of a specific scenario in the initial selection process.

FACTORS INFLUENCING TRAFFIC CIRCULATION CHANGES

The ability to make traffic circulation changes may be constrained by a number of factors, including functional and physical constraints. Street segments were reviewed to determine reasons in terms of function that would limit the conversion from one-way to two-way traffic operation. This functional review included determining access to major generators and the desire for one-way traffic circulation around major traffic generators and public buildings. The locations of direct freeway access that could be negatively impacted by converting to two-way traffic operation were also identified. Major traffic generators included the Battle Hall Convention Center, the new Federal Building, Civic Mall, City Hall and County Building. Streets with functional issues were dropped from further consideration.

Second, the physical components of the streets (widths, intersections, deliveries, transit stops) were examined to determine the feasibility of converting the remaining streets to two-way traffic. Narrower streets will result in losses of onstreet parking, loading-zone impacts and transit-route impacts. Following a review of all the alternatives, various streets were identified as being potentially feasible for further study of conversion to two-way traffic flow.

REFINED CIRCULATION PLANS

Based upon the review of the eight initial scenarios, the functional constraints and the physical constraints, three refined traffic circulation plans were developed to represent a range of feasible circulation options. Each of these three plans represents a circulation system that could be implemented in the CBD; however, each plan would provide different traffic circulation characteristics. The selection of a recommended plan will depend on the importance placed on one attribute vs. another and the costs of the changes. The plans are summarized in Table 2 and are described below.

(1) Potentially Feasible, (2) Garment and Financial District, (3) Garment District

The three remaining plans include all or parts of the streets that were indicated as being potentially feasible with respect to a lack of functional or physical constraints. Based on the second-level analysis, these plans were developed as hybrids of Scenarios 2, 5 and 8, The Potentially Feasible plan includes the most amount of changes. The Garment Area and Financial Area plan contains the fewest amount of changes. The third and fourth plans are named for the districts) that a majority of the changes are within.

The three refined plans were tested in the traffic model to obtain measures of VMT and VHT and compared to the Future Base conditions. The results were factored to represent the changes in miles and in hours over an annual basis. Generally speaking, it was found that the greater the number of streets converted to two-way, the lesser the amount of VMT and the greater the amount of VHT However, an exception was noted in the Garment District Plan. These results are described below.