Platte County jumps on board
The mayors of Riverside (pop: 2,979), Parkville (pop: 4,059), Platte City (pop: 3,866), Weatherby Lake (pop: 1,873), Platte Woods (pop: 474), and Lake Waukomis (pop: 917) pledged their support with KCMO Mayor Mark Funkhouser this morning for a regionally-funded transit system that includes light rail. Since the press conference was held just to share that single piece of information, there was little else revealed that would lead anyone to think real progress had just been made. The real news will come from this week's council session where a decision must be made on how to proceed with the repeal of the Chastain Plan and the timing and content of any future vote on the matter. We'd also like to hear if the Platte County mayors are planning to get behind a sales tax increase in their cities to help fund a regional system.
UPDATE: The Star's Prime Buzz has video.
UPDATE 2: Funkhouser's blog has the actual letter from Platte County mayors.
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Weatherby Lake and Platte Woods have mayors?
While we all agree that Chastains plan was fatally flawed, I think Funk went a little far in describing it as dead. I think he could have glossed it over a little better, for the sake of progress.
Wish I could have seen the entire thing with the questions that elicited the response.
Glad to see someone else on in board with KCMO.
[…] excuses that it’s just too complex. We are still hopeful that news like yesterday’s Platte County announcement means light rail is still a hot topic, but we’ve been here before. It’s risky, but the payoff for […]
Don’t think picking up another 142 people from these 5 small towns will put much of a dent in the $500 million, plus the added miles to the route for Riverside and Parkville would be far to costly at $50 million per mile