Urban Lab KC

04/21/2025

Don’t forget to pick up your tickets for our KC Design Week segment “From the River”!

https://www.ticketleap.events/tickets/center-for-architecture-design-kc/kc-design-week-2025-72046694

04/15/2025

We had a great time meeting with Chris and Louis on their trip to KC! Check out the interview to learn some more about UrbanLab, and the process behind the projects!

We had a chance to sit down with Urban Lab KC- an urbanist group focused on improving the urban landscape throughout Kansas City. They focus on creating grap...

12/08/2024

Currently, the south portion Ward Parkway does not benefit most road users. Traffic is reduced to one-way at a random segment and lanes are not always clearly defined. There is limited pedestrian space and crossing can be uncomfortable and even dangerous. Micromobility options additionally have no comfortable space to exist.

Strategies shown here would help address these issues for all road users. Vehicular lanes would be clearly defined with 2-way traffic established at all points. Pedestrian surface would be increased with shorter crossing distances. Micromobility options would be available to be used comfortably across the corridor which would link streetcar connections, the Trolley Track Trail, central Plaza, Loose Park (via Wornall Road, see future post), and even a potential future expansion of the Brush Creek Trail westward.

10/24/2024

The Kansas Department of Transportation is conducting a comprehensive bus study survey.

07/07/2024

The highly anticipated Kansas City Streetcar extension, stretching from downtown to the Country Club Plaza, is now 90% complete, streetcar officials announced Friday.

05/17/2024

The question is rhetorical but the answer is yes.

04/18/2024

03/19/2024

Excited to share that our graphics visualizing Kansas City parking requirements were shown at the SXSW 2024: Bigger Isn’t Better panel this year.

If you’d like to take a listen to the full discussion featuring the Parking Reform Network's Tony Jordan, EasyPark's CEO Cameron Clayton, Selika Josiah Talbott CEO of Autonomous Vehicle Consulting the link is provided below. Thank you Dante Ramos from The Atlantic for hosting!

https://schedule.sxsw.com/2024/events/PP141527

01/29/2024

Crosswalks don’t do much for pedestrians if they do nothing for drivers.

01/08/2024

This one amendment to the code could make it easier for infill development to occur in Kansas City. Point access buildings have been legal to build in most of the world, and in the US up until several decades ago.

We consulted with a number of people for this one and readjusted the slides to better represent the argument several times, so this one took a while. Hopefully, though, we will start to see some action on this front soon…

11/14/2023

This is a quick visualization of just how much space is required to be occupied by parking in majority of Kansas City, per section 88-420 of the Zoning and Development Code. It’s easy to see how the city consumes itself with parking when this model is scaled up.

10/09/2023

Here are some explorations as to what a modern sixplex apartment building could look like while still respecting the neighborhood character.