KC Light Rail

No, we're not serving up an endorsement for the Iowa caucus tonight, just echoing the sentiment of Jeff Boothe, FTA smarty pants and member of the team conducting KC's Alternatives Analysis. In a presentation at today's City Council Business Session, Boothe basically told us that we can expect the landscape for public transit funding to change when a new administration (specifically a Democratic one) enters the White House. Here's a few reasons why:

• Sen. Tom Carper's (D-Delaware) amendment to the Global Warming Bill that would allow those funds to be used for public transit ($6-12 billion)
• Streetcar funding (think Portland) that the current administration refuses to consider as New Starts even though it was the intent of Congress to allow it
• Starter line credits that the current administration won't allow if a city takes the initiative to self-fund a starter line

So if light rail is at the top of your list, you know how to vote regardless of your views on other issues.

Prime Buzz briefs us on the status of the Light Rail Task Force (thankfully… while the ATA has seen fit to post meeting recaps, they're months behind) and it looks like they'll be wrapped up by August in time to educate voters for a November election. Most exciting items: station design begins next month and ridership estimates are due in June. If you find station design as intriguing as we do, just Google "light rail station design" and start reading up (especially Phoenix because of the climate considerations). As far as ridership, we're predicting something similar to or slightly higher than Charlotte (about 9K/day in the first year) based on the similarities between the two cities.

The Council's Transportation and Infrastructure Committee agreed today to target an April election with a 15-year renewal of the existing bus tax. This is the same bus tax that was "stolen" by Clay Chastain's light rail ballot initiative in November 2006. Originally, the tax was passed with a 5-year sunset to prevent service cuts while SmartMoves took shape (it expires in April 2009). While the committee agreed to move forward with April, it's by no means a done deal as the full Council, the ATA, and the public must weigh in on several questions:

• One election or two? A light rail election wouldn't be far behind in November, so does it make sense to combine the two questions?
• How long to renew? 10, 15, or 20 years? Polling data will likely guide what the public will accept.
• Does the Council want more control over how the ATA spends the money? Each year the City renews an agreement with the ATA to provide transit services.
• If the Council doesn't act ASAP, will another ballot initiative come along and snag the money like Chastain did?

UPDATE: The April ordinance wording can be found here.