KC Light Rail

An easy first cut due to declining ridership. More cuts coming soon, however, care of your City Council. Contact them here or attend one of the many budget hearings.

Streetsblog co-affiliate Transportation For America has a full summary of all of the transportation-related elements of The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (a/k/a "the stimulus package"), as signed into law yesterday by President Obama.

On a side note, our own MoDOT claimed "first in the nation" status to spend stimulus money on replacing a bridge. Track progress at http://recovery.gov/ and read a statement on spending these funds from our new DOT secretary.

Unfortunately, that isn't a quote from any local politician. Try Texas.

Monday morning, a group of lawmakers is expected to introduce the Texas Local Transportation Act. The act would create a transportation district made up of 12 counties, which would have the power to levy taxes and fees in order to fund the Rail North Texas project and other roadway improvements.

And still we wait for one (or many) voices to support a serious regional transit initiative. The specter of a failing economy doesn't seem to be holding people back elsewhere.

The transit "and other roadway improvements" approach has been used in several other metros, most notably LA and Seattle. The trick has always been to get the right mix of transit (more transit than roads usually wins at the ballot box, when they're combined). Could that be the right approach for the reportedly road-loving KC metro? And if we're really going to do a regional plan, is three counties enough?

UPDATE: Here's some editorial support for the Texas plan.

From the Sunday edition. Here's the crux: "… the plan won’t be light rail, and it probably won’t be this year."

Just new buses, really. But since tax revenues have imploded and transit money will be diverted to traffic signal replacement, don't expect any new or expanded service with those buses. Did we mention fares are rising, too?

While the ATA did add a $400 million river-to-Plaza starter line to their stimulus wish list, all that really did was tell us that both the City and Chastain plans were doomed for federal funding using the current formulas. A new transportation bill this year holds promise for leveling the playing field between highways and transit. In some ways, it's probably best that we waited on light rail while we get serious about land use. Still looking for that champion, however.

The biggest transit news in the stimulus — and this definitely affects KC — is the boost for intercity passenger rail (Amtrak). $9.3 billion will boost efforts across the country to improve and expand our Third World passenger rail network and create jobs that cannot be sent overseas. Kansas City is part of the federally-designated high-speed rail corridor called the Chicago Hub, and is in a state that has one of the oldest state-supported corridors in Amtrak's system. Expect an announcement from MoDOT in the coming months.

As for Kansas? They're working on it, although they won't get any stimulus funding since the boost for state-sponsored matching grants was stripped from the final version.

The Star printed a letter to the editor today from light rail advocate Clay Chastain indicating that he and wife Valerie are will file another appeal this month over the City Council's repeal of his successful ballot question in November 2006. Yes, it's been that long.

While we're still confident the Council was on sound legal footing — the ability to repeal a ballot initiative is a voter-approved part of the city's charter — we're now left with the frightening prospect that Chastain is literally the last figure out there fighting for some semblance of light rail in Kansas City.

- Funkhouser or Ford? Neutered, distracted, or both.
- Johnson? Deferring to Sanders.
- Sanders? Who the hell knows (and does he care?).

What's sad is that there is no one from the business community stepping up to make the next push (Hello, Downtown Council!!!), as we've seen in other successful cities (Denver, Portland, Charlotte) and those with fires still burning (Detroit). Instead, we're stuck with leaders pursuing one zero-sum game after another (convention hotel, pro-sports teams).

We'd really like to see business interests pick up on the Detroit model for a public-private partnership between the river and the Plaza. There is absolutely no reason why every single business/property owner or corporate interest along Main should be supporting this type of endeavor.

In the interim, city leaders should be listening very closely to the feedback from the Alternatives Analysis, which basically is a huge wake-up call for how land use is managed across the metro: STOP SPRAWLING AND SUBSIDIZING PARKING OR YOU WILL NEVER GET LIGHT RAIL OUTSIDE OF THE RCP CORRIDOR. If light rail and improved transit is as important as you said it was last fall, then you need to fix the root cause ASAP.