Wichita - Downtown

[Doady]

Imagine how much taller somethings could be brought to US cities like Wichita if they had proper bus systems. Wichita's bus system got around 1.3 million boardings (unlinked trips) in 2019. Compare that to another urban area on the plains with 600,000+ people, Winnipeg, which has a bus system that got around 70 million boardings (48 million linked trips) in 2019. That's around 200,000 boardings per weekday instead of 4,200 boardings per weekday.

Imagine how much taller Wichita's downtown could be, how much more jobs and living spaces can be added in its downtown, if tens of thousands of downtown workers used transit instead of driving and their parking spaces could be removed. Imagine how much street-level retail could thrive, how much busier those sidewalks could be instead of so empty. And Wichita seems not one of those US cities with a freeway cutting through and destroyed its historic downtown, so you can't use that excuse either.

I've said before not only about there is so much potential in these downtowns, but also how it is unfulfilled due to lack of transit, and these photos and Wichita illustrates both aspects so well.