KCI considers widening road sooner, new cellphone lot. Will it fix traffic issues?
A new cellphone lot and a longer third lane for incoming traffic could be among the remedies for the traffic congestion troubling Kansas City International Airport’s arrivals curb since the new terminal opened.
Airport officials said steps they have taken over the past nine months, and more recently during the Thanksgiving holiday, have significantly cut down on the traffic issues.
“We have really seen a lot of improvement in the way that the traffic flow has worked from where we were when we first opened,” Justin Meyer, deputy director of aviation marketing and air services development, said Monday. “Those massive backups were pretty commonplace on the arrivals curb and we think that we’ve seen pretty notable improvements in that.”
Since the new terminal opened at KCI on Feb. 28, traffic becomes congested off and on, causing long delays for drivers attempting to pick people up after their flights.
Early on, frustrated drivers told The Star they waited as long as one and half hours in long lines of traffic to travel just a half-mile to pick up passengers.
The improvement seen so far is due in part to enforcement, changes in airline flight schedules and passengers figuring out how to use the new terminal effectively, Meyer said.
During the City Council’s business session last week, members of the Kansas City Aviation Department presented improvements to the new terminal operations.
Melissa Cooper, the new director of aviation for Kansas City, told council members she was excited to share what was going on in the terminal right after Thanksgiving, a peak travel period which she said gives an indication of what’s working well and what still needs improvement.
At its worst, the time it took the furthest traffic to get to the arrivals curb was 10 minutes, which happened at 10 a.m. on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving, Cooper told council members. She attributed the delay to the combination of arriving and departing passengers and short staffing — contracted traffic control officers were scheduled for noon. The staffing was adjusted for Wednesday.
“We’d love to hear your feedback: Is 10 minutes an acceptable level of service for 1% of the day?” she asked council members. “Is five minutes our goal? Zero is probably not feasible but how do we keep it moving?”
The aviation department knew Thanksgiving was going to be a peak time, and many of the passengers would be experiencing the terminal for the first time because the holiday attracts a lot of infrequent travelers to the airport, Meyer told council members.
The department promoted the use of the airport’s cellphone lot, which Meyer said “really helped solve” the curb issues by keeping vehicles away until travelers had claimed their bags.
The airport also ramped up staffing to keep traffic flowing and to enforce that the arrivals curb was only for those actively loading passengers, he said. Enforcement was more aggressive, including ticketing and towing those who parked, stopped or refused to move on.
“If passengers were leaving their cars, we were ticketing,” Meyer said. “Over the 12-day period, we did issue 46 traffic violations to people that refused to move their cars or had exited their vehicle.”
Traffic control officers also handed out cards the size of a postcard that had QR codes with directions to the cellphone lot.
“It was certainly more helpful this time to be able to say you can’t be here waiting, but here’s where you need to go,” Meyer said Monday.
The airport adjusted staffing to meet demands of peak arrival times. Six people were at crosswalks and arrivals curb during the day. At peak time, staffing would double, according to a chart Meyer showed council members. The peak times were 9 to 10 a.m., 4 to 6 p.m. and 10 to 11 p.m.
At 5 p.m. on the Sunday after Thanksgiving, planes with a total of 2,500 seats arrived within the hour. If every seat was full and everyone exited to the arrival curb, that meant “essentially 40 passengers every minute stepping out on the curb,” Meyer said.
The aviation department is already looking into what can be rolled out for the upcoming peak period during the winter travel season, New Year’s and even into spring break, he said.
New cellphone lot, third lane extension?
Next year, the aviation department will study the possibility of creating a new cellphone lot for those waiting to pick up arriving travelers. The existing cellphone lot, located at 680 Brasilia Ave. near the Marriott hotel, is a multi-purpose lot that is shared with ride-hailing services like Uber and Lyft.
The aviation department has already expanded the lot once since the new terminal opened by moving some temporary barriers and barricades.
“We’re recognizing that there may need to be an even larger solution,” Meyer said. The aviation department will study what its options are, including possible locations on airport property, traffic flow and what amenities it should offer there.
The aviation department will also study to see if they could create a third lane on Northwest Cookingham Drive prior to the Paris Street exit. Currently, there are two lanes there, widening to three lanes after the exit.
The backup is primarily driven by the arrivals curb traffic, and when that occurs, drivers tend to fall in line early into the right lane. The airport is using signs to encourage drivers to use both lanes.
If the airport could add several hundred more feet of the third lane for drivers approaching the new terminal, flow could improve, Meyer said.
The department is also considering limiting access from Paris Street to the new terminal temporarily during peak times or permanently because that is where drivers are deciding to head to the parking garage, arrivals curb or departures curb, he said. The ramp creates traffic concerns and a source of congestion.
Instead, drivers would be routed to Bern Street to get back into the traffic headed to the terminal, he said.
Also next year, the aviation department intends to demolish Terminals B and C next year. The parking garages for the terminals would remain, with the parking garage at Terminal B used for employee parking.
This story was originally published December 5, 2023 at 6:00 AM.
