OFFICIAL - Pennway Point

[dnweava]

I would put that stretch of I-35 on the top of my removal/relocation list ahead of either the north or south loop. It's just hideous and devisive.

Agreed. I've always thought that should be a higher priority to remove than the north loop. Reroute 35 to 435 around the city, no need for it to go through downtown.

[TheLastGentleman]

Removing 35 is important but north loop is still by far the most egregious piece of freeway in the city. I don’t think anything comes close tbh

[TheUrbanRoo]

1000% north loop is more egregious, simply because River Market & the river are much more lucrative assets to connect to downtown

[Jblanco]

1000% north loop is more egregious, simply because River Market & the river are much more lucrative assets to connect to downtown

I've been saying this forever. And it's not even close.
If there was development on all 4 corners of Main and Truman the park wouldn't be worth doing at all.
The interstate isn't that much distance (1 block). The north loop is three blocks of distance on every major south-to-north street and looks like Berlin immediately after WWII.

[alejandro46]

The fact it is a freeway in the urban core is bad, but also North Loop is also deficient from a safety perspective as a freeway. The on/off ramps are too short and too narrowly spaced, the merge lanes are not to standard, and the interchange to 29/35 on the east end is too curved heading onto 70 and results in a bad merge into far left lane eastbound.

This stretch of 35 is bad but it also would be likely needed to be relocated further west across the rr tracks vs. completely removed which would be astronomically expensive.

Do I think it should be done in the next 100 years, yes of course but that's never been actually discussed or studied by the government as far as I know. But I think KCMO can (and actively is) finding ways to affordably improve the connectivity and built environment under the freeway and they recently received a fed grant to do just that.

[dnweava]

As someone who lived literally a block from the north loop, and used to work across the street from the 35 viaduct near SW,.35 is 100x worse and you can't change my mind.

You can be standing at 7th/walnut looking towards city market and not even realize you are looking over the highway as it's sunken from some angles. 35 towers over the neighborhood and the raised traffic is far louder when a block away. Under the viaduct is also dirty, dark and sketchy feeling.

Sure they both need removed, but 35 is far worse in terms of how it effects the adjacent blocks. Hell, the north loop is lined by freaking surface lots, how about infilling this first.

[langosta]

35 will get rebuilt or moved but I seriously doubt it gets removed in my lifetime. I doubt Northloop goes by 2040 either.

[TheUrbanRoo]

I doubt Northloop goes by 2040 either.

Disagree heavily on that

[smh]

I doubt Northloop goes by 2040 either.

Disagree heavily on that

Please elaborate. I WANT TO BELIEVE

[TheUrbanRoo]

I doubt Northloop goes by 2040 either.

Disagree heavily on that

Please elaborate. I WANT TO BELIEVE

I'll message u my thoughts. I don't wanna start a nuclear war on a theoretical topic!

[Cratedigger]

Roo I love your optimism

[Highlander]

35 will get rebuilt or moved but I seriously doubt it gets removed in my lifetime. I doubt Northloop goes by 2040 either.

Somebody needs to create a map and show a potential track for a rerouted I-35. I just see very few alternatives to the present route without tearing down a lot of existing infrastructure. The only possible reroute would be into the west bottoms before it reaches the hill on which Cambridge Drive is located. That might work but the 670 - 35 interchange would need to be rebuilt on the edge of the cliffs overlooking the west bottoms and a number of businesses would be destroyed. Furthermore SW Trafficway would still have to get to I670 so there would be little gained. There are some band aids that could be applied such as closing the Broadway entrance to SW Trafficway/I-35 and creating some new urban land on the west side of Penn Valley Park but I don't see a healthy cost/benefit to closing or rerouting I-35.

[KCPowercat]

Same track, go underground.

[alejandro46]

35 will get rebuilt or moved but I seriously doubt it gets removed in my lifetime. I doubt Northloop goes by 2040 either.

Somebody needs to create a map and show a potential track for a rerouted I-35. I just see very few alternatives to the present route without tearing down a lot of existing infrastructure. The only possible reroute would be into the west bottoms before it reaches the hill on which Cambridge Drive is located. That might work but the 670 - 35 interchange would need to be rebuilt on the edge of the cliffs overlooking the west bottoms and a number of businesses would be destroyed. Furthermore SW Trafficway would still have to get to I670 so there would be little gained. There are some band aids that could be applied such as closing the Broadway entrance to SW Trafficway/I-35 and creating some new urban land on the west side of Penn Valley Park but I don't see a healthy cost/benefit to closing or rerouting I-35.

Hypothetical maps have been posted on here before. There’s open space to follow Beardsley and the railroad tracks West and meet back up with 35 near Cambridge/imperial brewing.

[dnweava]

35 will get rebuilt or moved but I seriously doubt it gets removed in my lifetime. I doubt Northloop goes by 2040 either.

Somebody needs to create a map and show a potential track for a rerouted I-35. I just see very few alternatives to the present route without tearing down a lot of existing infrastructure. The only possible reroute would be into the west bottoms before it reaches the hill on which Cambridge Drive is located. That might work but the 670 - 35 interchange would need to be rebuilt on the edge of the cliffs overlooking the west bottoms and a number of businesses would be destroyed. Furthermore SW Trafficway would still have to get to I670 so there would be little gained. There are some band aids that could be applied such as closing the Broadway entrance to SW Trafficway/I-35 and creating some new urban land on the west side of Penn Valley Park but I don't see a healthy cost/benefit to closing or rerouting I-35.

You can reroute it on like 5 different routes with only changing signage. Even if it doesn't get removed, I've been advocating for 435 to renamed to 35 around the south/east sides of the loop. (and I think K10-> 435 ->I-470 should be renamed 70) to encourage cross country and truck traffic to completely avoid downtown.

You can also use 635 or the 18th Street expressways to get up to 70 to cut across the 670 viaduct from KS to MO.

Between 635, 18th expressaway, 7th st (kck) and rebuilding 35 viaduct as ground level parkway/trafficway (which could still move a lot of traffic even at street level speeds), you have more than enough capacity to get people from JOCO into downtown. We don't need freeways to get tons of people to the Plaza so people should quit being scared of removing freeways without a replacement. Spending billions to move 35 to along Beardly is completely stupid, spend that money on a public transit.

[Highlander]

35 will get rebuilt or moved but I seriously doubt it gets removed in my lifetime. I doubt Northloop goes by 2040 either.

Somebody needs to create a map and show a potential track for a rerouted I-35. I just see very few alternatives to the present route without tearing down a lot of existing infrastructure. The only possible reroute would be into the west bottoms before it reaches the hill on which Cambridge Drive is located. That might work but the 670 - 35 interchange would need to be rebuilt on the edge of the cliffs overlooking the west bottoms and a number of businesses would be destroyed. Furthermore SW Trafficway would still have to get to I670 so there would be little gained. There are some band aids that could be applied such as closing the Broadway entrance to SW Trafficway/I-35 and creating some new urban land on the west side of Penn Valley Park but I don't see a healthy cost/benefit to closing or rerouting I-35.

You can reroute it on like 5 different routes with only changing signage. Even if it doesn't get removed, I've been advocating for 435 to renamed to 35 around the south/east sides of the loop. (and I think K10-> 435 ->I-470 should be renamed 70) to encourage cross country and truck traffic to completely avoid downtown.

You can also use 635 or the 18th Street expressways to get up to 70 to cut across the 670 viaduct from KS to MO.

Between 635, 18th expressaway, 7th st (kck) and rebuilding 35 viaduct as ground level parkway/trafficway (which could still move a lot of traffic even at street level speeds), you have more than enough capacity to get people from JOCO into downtown. We don't need freeways to get tons of people to the Plaza so people should quit being scared of removing freeways without a replacement. Spending billions to move 35 to along Beardly is completely stupid, spend that money on a public transit.

Maybe at some point in the very distant future the political will to do something like this will exist. Certainly won't be in my lifetime. I'd love to see the north loop gone in my life time but the execution of the new Broadway Bridge (which took out another half a block of river market real estate) shows that the city and MODOT are not seriously considering north loop removal. They are primarily interested in moving traffic as quickly as possible even if that requires destroying more of our already-much-destroyed built environment.

[GRID]

They could not even get Kansas to take the 70 designation off the Lewis and Clark viaduct and put it the 670 viaduct where it belongs because they didn't want to lose having I-70 in downtown KCK. I don't think removing 35 is even remotely a possibility.

It's likely never going to get re-routed either and it certainly won't get tunneled. MoDot will never have the money or the desire to do that and the KS side surely won't do their side just for KCMO's benefit.

I agree, it could go away. Many of the highways downtown could go away. But KC is going the other way (such as the new 169 "freeway" bridge and flyovers when that should have been totally disconnected from the loop).

The surface streets in the center city are barely used at all. There are so many highways downtown that it's not volume that causes congestion, it's all the merges, lane changes and lane drops.

[Highlander]

The surface streets in the center city are barely used at all. There are so many highways downtown that it's not volume that causes congestion, it's all the merges, lane changes and lane drops.

Getting a little off topic BUT - do you think I670 could handle all E-W I70 traffic in KC? There's little room to ever widen 670 through downtown, and once the Cap is built, that would never be possible. I only mention that because 670 gets pretty congested and that congestion will always be an argument for keeping the north loop in place.

[GRID]

The surface streets in the center city are barely used at all. There are so many highways downtown that it's not volume that causes congestion, it's all the merges, lane changes and lane drops.

Getting a little off topic BUT - do you think I670 could handle all E-W I70 traffic in KC? There's little room to ever widen 670 through downtown, and once the Cap is built, that would never be possible. I only mention that because 670 gets pretty congested and that congestion will always be an argument for keeping the north loop in place.

Sure it could. It's not the amount of lanes that is the problem. 670 is 8 lanes. Like I said, they should have not tied 169 to the north loop. They should be discouraging through traffic from 169, not encouraging it. The entire west and north loop should go away. 169 should simply be a local route into downtown, not a freeway through downtown.

Widen the east loop to 8 lanes (while also covering it up or tunneling it) and run all through traffic through the south and east loop. Remove 90% of the exits and on ramps downtown. Don't need the exits on the east loop either unless they are redesigned as tunnel exits.

Many of those tiny exits on the loop will need to go away if a stadium goes downtown or it will be a freaking disaster during games. Will need to force all game traffic to larger further away exits like Truman, Paseo etc.

[Jblanco]

If I-35 was originally engineered and built correctly decades ago it would not be a big issue.
It was built wrong, half of it was built overhead, half of it is at ground level. This was half-assed as most of the loop was. If the entire roadway was built above ground as it should have been, there would have been little to no interruption to the West Side, and all of the lots against it could have been developed. Instead we got a silly monstrosity that divided neighborhoods and created pockets of lots that cannot be developed because much of it is at ground level.

I-35 is an important part of getting people in and out of downtown efficiently. It is also an efficient route from the northeast and east sides to midtown/westport/plaza via Southwest Trafficway. It should not be removed or re-routed. It should be completely rebuilt, all above ground with no wasted land or built underground.