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Kansas City gets some tips on its downtown.

Kansas City Star
April 19, 2005
Kevin Collison

An esteemed city planner and author who helped shape the streets of San Francisco a generation ago strolled around downtown Kansas City last week and found room for improvement.

"It's not a pleasant place to walk," observed Allan B. Jacobs. "I'd look at these streets as huge opportunities to do wonderful things."

How huge?

Jacobs, professor emeritus of city planning at the University of California-Berkeley, said 25 percent to 30 percent of the developed land in most American cities is occupied by streets, a far larger proportion than parks and other public spaces. In The Kansas City Star's "Mending Our Broken Heart" downtown series, we found the percentage was even higher inside the downtown freeway loop: 35 percent.

That amount of publicly controlled real estate often goes by the wayside or worse, Jacobs said.

"If you design that public realm, you fundamentally design the city," he said. "It's a huge opportunity that city after city has wasted or given away."

Jacobs was in town last week at the invitation of the Kansas City Design Center. He spoke at a luncheon April 12 and later addressed an audience at the downtown public library.

He was San Francisco city-planning director from 1967 to 1975 before going to Berkeley. His 1995 book, Great Streets, is considered a landmark publication on the subject.

When it came to the streets of Kansas City, Jacobs believed far too much space was dedicated to cars and not enough for bicyclists, sidewalks, streetscaping and pedestrians.

"One of the things I've noticed are there aren't many trees, and I wondered why that would be," he said. "I expected more."

On a walk between the central business district and Crown Center, Jacobs estimated the width of Baltimore and Main streets out of professional habit. He calculated about 70 percent of the right of way was set aside for cars, far too large a share. Why not wider sidewalks and some room for bicyclists?

"In good downtowns, all have a shortage of parking, and there's congestion during busy periods," he said. "It's density, people living, people walking and people on streets ... the more money you spend on solving traffic problems, the less livable your city is going to be."

Jacobs supported the idea being floated by some Crossroads advocates to introduce diagonal parking on some downtown streets there, saying it slows traffic and adds parking. He also supported traffic islands as being both aesthetically and pedestrian friendly.

It's up to elected officials to take command, he said.

It was sweet music to Jonathan Kemper, president and chief executive officer of Commerce Bank and a key supporter of the Kansas City Design Center. He is in an ongoing battle with traffic engineers over new traffic signals downtown that loom across several lanes.

Now they're continuing the replacement program to Ward Parkway, he said.

"The city seems to be unable to balance its heritage of great design with modernization of its traffic signals," he said. "They're very offensive. They're designed for high-traffic arteries and have no place on a parkway. They're out of character and insensitive."

Reach Kevin Collison at (816) 234-4289 or kcollison@kcstar.com.
Copyright © 2005 The Kansas City Star Co..

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