THEPHANTOM* || Producer, Vocalist || Urbanist

Why your city died. Why You’re stuck in Traffic.

I just read an article here that just messed up my life. Apparently, in Olathe, KS, a suburb of Kansas City, their traffic conjestion is so bad on the highways and interstates that they are considering a quasi-mass transit system of buses to drive along SHOULDERS - yes, shoulders - when regular traffic gets under 35 MPH. More on this soon…For now, let’s break some things down.

Sprawl is the curse that is responsible for the apocalyptic decline of civic life, over-weight cities, road rage, stranded elderly, homogenous housing, class and race segregation…I could go on. It is the filth of the previous century that stemmed from misguided federal regulations, racism, classism and the chase of the supposed “American Dream”.

Sprawl is the factor that paved the way for decaying urban-cores and bankrupt municipalities. Since we’ve, especially here in my hometown of Kansas City, MO, spread outward so much, we’re having to pay to maintain our massive “Metro”. The city of Kansas City is currently experiencing a multi-million dollar deficit because of this phenomenon. The problem lies within transportation.

Kansas City was built upon the trolley system. In fact we at one point had the most extensive trolley systems in America. We were only topped by New York City and Chicago. The trolley system offered a quick way for riders to get around to different parts, that weren’t in walking distance. It was cheap and encouraged civic life. In fact, when the trolley may have fallen off of the track, the riders as well as the gripman (the equivalent of a driver) would put it back on! The trolleys were great for businesses who capitalized on the fact that folks could get off of the trolley and shop for whatever they desired.

I mentioned previously that KC had one of the most foremost trolley systems. One day, POOF!, it disappeared. Folks often wonder why. Well, the answer is quite simple: the tracks were sold to a huge buyer. You want to know who that huge buyer was? General Motors! They unraveled a perfectly sustainable system to capitalize on the rise of the demand for the automobile. They figured hey, this mass transit thing is keeping us from making the big bucks. To their credit, the automobile industry played a critical role in lifted the US from the Great Depression, although KC didn’t really suffer as bad as most cities because of the Pendergast Machine’s rampant corruption (that’s another post though).

NOTE: Now don’t get me wrong, people have a natural tendency to move outward. This truth is especially manifested in this whole concept of exploring, conquering and developing. This shouldn’t be apposed.

To make a long story short, the automobile is what led to our current condition of sprawling outward from very dense urban-cores. Because we COULD spread out, we did. The federal government aided what was called “white flight”. One reason they did this was to avoid “legacy costs” in maintaining the infrastructure of older parts of town. This led and many other factors, I won’t get into now for the sake of brevity, gave rise to “Suburbs”. This flight left minorities and the poor stranded in the urban-core.

And now we come full circle to the article. The interstate system was created to initially serve as a way to connect each city with one another to easily transport weaponry in case of a national crises. In fact, they were designed so that a military jet could land and take off on it’s surface. Today, they are primarily used by average, everyday citizens who whether they know it or are not are often times dependent upon it to survive.

Now, here’s what we have at this point. Leading into the 60s, 70s and 80s the country was becoming less industrial and service-oriented. Meaning old warehouses were no longer needed as huge corporate multiplexes could operate on the fringes of the city. Location no longer mattered. Since demographic shifts enabled the suburbs to be favored locations for these corporate spaces, coupled with the reality that its cheaper to build than to rehabilitate, that’s where they went.

This doesn’t sound too bad. HERE’s where things get hectic. These suburban environments are all create a situation where a car is necessary. It is the SOLE method of transportation, not just because people love to drive, it is the ONLY logical way of getting around. The streets are often times the size of six lane highways, thus discouraging pedestrian life. The suburban grids are illogical to direction as most of them wind without discretion. You can’t walk, ride a bike, ride a bus, or use any other alternate form of transportation.

Everyone drives and they do so on the same few “collector streets” that serve as the conduits between places and the highways. For instance, in Overland Park and Leawood we have HUGE collector streets such as, Metcalf, Nall, Roe. These streets are, in some places, up to six and eight lanes in width.

Highways and Interstates are a problem. What’s the best way to solve congestion? Adding more lanes, right!? WRONG. It’s taken these idiotic “transit officials” this long to realize that adding more lanes for cars to use are, not only making us broke, it’s ridiculous! How wide can we possibly go? It is encouraging that they’re seeing that a mass transit system is a smarter way to go because it “gets more people out of cars”. If you take one thing from this post, please make it this: “WHEN CITIES ADD LANES TO INTERSTATES AND HIGHWAYS, MORE PEOPLE USE THEM.”

When people on Main St. in Kansas City know that it’s busy at a certain point during the day, they don’t say, man we should make this darn street wide. They use SIDE STREETS! They say, “dude skip this I’m taking, Gillham or Troost, or Broadway. They get there using the side streets. These don’t really exist on the fringes, which is why TRAFFIC is so bad — especially during rush hours in the morning and evening.

NOTE: When I say suburb in these instances, I’m generally speaking on the outer ring suburbs that are the main contributors of sprawl. The inner-ring suburbs, besides those who are encapsulated within cities, are another story. They too are suffering just as bad, if not as bad as some cities. Suburbs like Raytown, Independence, OLD Overland Park, etc. are not what I’m focusing on.

Also, if I am offending anyone with this post, I really apologize. It’s not my intension. My intension is to bring to light some of these truths that are hidden under layers and layers of pride and denial that coat the psyche’s of many Americans, including our often times idiotic law makers!

We, as citizens, must demand (yes you’re paying for it) that we no longer widen interstates. Billions, trillions have been spent on doing so. It costs, on average, $1 million per mile of highway. All for what? Arguably there is four hours of rush hour on a weekday. There is five weekdays. 4 X 5 is what? 20, right? There is 168 hours in a week. Cities are dying because of 12% of the week.

Here’s what we SHOULD do to calm traffic — and I’ll wrap with this:

Rebuild our urban-cores: A suburb is only as strong as it’s city. People are often times afraid of cities because of crime — and worries about children being victims of it. Here’s an interesting fact. Kids from 15-18 are 6X’s more likely to be in a fatal car accident than being a victim of an urban crime. Statistically it is more dangerous to having a person in this age driving, then walking down an urban street.

Suburbs love to claim the actual city as their residence. 9 times out of 10 people from a suburb of Kansas City say they’re from KC when out of town - or even in town.

The city is beautiful. Grand boulevards, culture, art, civic life. These are all things that, I believe, are the great assets of a city. The ability to walk down a street and to be a complete equal to the next man is a beautiful thing. When in a Benz it’s easier to make a class distinction between him/her and person driving an old beat up Cavalier.

Encourage Mixed-Income Communities - Although we have a LONG, LONG way to go in terms of braking down racial barriers that divide races, genders, orientations and classes, city’s for the most part DON’T discriminate as much because of income. I live in Hyde Park, in Kansas City. Within a five minute walk, I can walk by a house that’s selling for $90K and one that’s selling for over $1M. That just aint happening in South Leawood.

In these sprawling subdivisions their are certain very limited price ranges that buyers must meet to live there. You see signs that say: “Timberwoods Lake” beautiful homes ranging from 200K-300K.” This example sign is ultimately saying, “Hey, if you can’t afford this, don’t come in.”

One day my mom and I were leaving a friend of mine’s house. At the time my mom drove an old Dodge van that was in “decent” condition. The neighborhood’s homes probably sold from 400K to 500K. A person in an old van clearly shouldn’t belong in a neighborhood where folks are driving “upscale” vehicles right? Not soon after we left the subdivision a cop pulled us over saying that a person in the neighborhood called the police for “suspicious activity”. We played it off for it wasn’t surpassing. They knew nothing of our economic standing, they just knew that we didn’t fit the profile.

Build Mass Transit Systems: The ugly truth is that we’re very very spread out. The best thing to do with our tax money is to allocate it towards building a trolley or light-rail system. Not only will cities AND metros benefit, but we’re decrease our carbon foot-prints. Although I’m an advocate for better gas mileage in vehicles, I don’t think this is ultimately the way — Mass transit is.

People complain about how expensive it is but the benefits of rail lines are twenty-fold the investment. Here’s a couple reasons why: at $1M/mile for highways, we’re not only continuing to rely on scarce natural resources, we’re saying it’s okay to sprawl outwards into the hinterlands and beyond! This mentality only costs of more money.

Light-rail/Trolley/Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) stops ENCOURAGE the growth of businesses. Just as the days of old, folks get off of the cars and walk. They might say, darn, “I’m hungry and stop into a restaurant near their stop.” Pretty soon, 5, 10, 15, 20, 50, 100 business start realizing what’s going on and set up shop. Dense, mixed-use environments are created and civic life is restored. PEOPLE LOSE WEIGHT BECAUSE THEY’RE WALKING.

By the way, small business NEED OLD BUILDINGS. They can’t always afford to build new structures. We shouldn’t simply tear down abandoned buildings. One because we open up a whole new set of problems. 1) it destroys the nature of the urban environment, 2) it leaves an ugly lot 3) allows for trash dumping 4) costs more money to maintain the lot.

Jane Jacobs once said, “Old ideas sometimes need old buildings, new ideas ALWAYS need them.”

Finally, there are other factors that must be addressed to improve traffic congestion. These things include, improving education systems, encouraging mixed-use suburban environments, improving civic leadership, government leadership, reducing crime, updating and liquidating idiotic zoning codes and allocating more focus on community economic assets instead of needs. I won’t go there. I could write a whole book on these things, but until we fix our cities, this whole issue of congestion is going NOWHERE. We can either capitalize on a grand opportunity or we can continue to cater to the automobile.

Fortunately, I see that most suburbs have risen to the occasion. There are more walkable, urban-like developments popping up such as, Vision Metcalf, and even the new Town Center development on Nall just north of 119th Strete in Leawood.

Although a great start, we must not stop there. We have a long way to go. I hope you join those of us who would like to see a difference in the way our lives are lived.

Be the difference.