KC Light Rail

By Ron McLinden
Special to kclightrail.com

The more you learn about Kansas City's light rail planning process, the more you realize how complicated it actually is. Councilman Ed Ford describes it as having more "moving parts" than anything he's ever dealt with. I have a hunch Ford finds yet another moving part almost every day.

On January 3 the ATA brought Jeff Boothe to town to brief the City Council at its business session. With 25 years of experience in transit planning and advocacy, Boothe is an expert on light rail planning and the FTA's funding processes. He's also tuned in to transit advocacy, the role of rail transit in shaping urban development, and the in's and out's of building a winning case.

Some of the points that I picked up:

• Before you build anything you need to know what you are trying to accomplish. (That was painfully absent from the November, 2006 ballot initiative, and it's been addressed only vaguely during the ATA's planning that's been done to date.)
• Building a short, locally-financed starter line might actually hurt, rather than help get federal money for future extensions because ridership on the first segment can't be counted toward justifying extensions.
• It's essential to have good city plans and policies in place to support light rail — they reinforce one another. (So far the City Planning Department seems totally absent.)
• With a change in administration in Washington there will likely be changes in both the rules that govern how the FTA evaluates transit proposals, and the level of federal funding available. That will be driven, in part, by greater awareness of global warming and the important role that transit can play in making cities more compact and less car/oil-dependent.

Planning for light rail here will enter a formal "Alternatives Analysis" phase late this month or early in february. Alternatives Analysis (AA) is part of the NEPA environmental review process that's required for any federal funding. Most transit professionals say going through the process is good — whether you seek federal funding or not — because it forces the community to address key questions like "What do we want to accomplish with light rail?" and "Do we have sound plans and policies in place to support light rail?" and "Do we have a proposal that the electorate will approve?"

AA will begin with public meetings sometime in February to get at these issues, including a statement of "purpose and need" for light rail.

(Attention Citizen Task Force members: it might feel like starting all over, and there's no guarantee that the your recommendations will remain standing at the end of the process. So much depends on the purpose and need and how each of the alternatives to be considered meets that purpose and need.)

That's the bad news. The good news is that the proposal that ultimately goes to the voters (probably in November) will be more fully developed. Even more important, it'll almost certainly say how transit will be improved throughout the city, not just in one narrow light rail corridor. Voters will have an understanding, for example, that a light rail spine will be complemented by bus rapid transit lines (a la MAX) throughout the city.

There are also serious "political" hurdles. Some Northlanders say light rail is dead if it doesn't cross the river. Some in the minority community say it's dead if it doesn't go east to Prospect. But a light rail proposal that satisfies both of these mandates might have ridership projections that result in a "cost per new rider" — a factor that the FTA will consider in evaluating Kansas City's proposal against those of other cities — that looks worse than a phase one light rail project that doesn't cross the river or go east to Prospect. Thus, a Catch-22: a package that meets the political criteria might fail to get the federal funding needed to build it.

All of this leaves the issue of regional transit up in the air, of course. Nobody knows how that's going to play out, but it seems prudent to press ahead and not wait for some regional transit Godot to suddenly arrive and solve the entire transit problem.

Some citizens are extremely impatient and want to get light rail running as quickly as possible. But doing that might actually hurt prospects for federal funding for future extensions if it isn't thought through and thus falls short of expectations. Whatever light rail segment is done first, it has to be a "winning project," as Jeff Boothe says.

Some citizens totally distrust the City Council and/or the ATA. All I can say to that is, suspend your cynicism for just a while. Show up and get involved, and find out just how committed your public officials really are on the matter of light rail.

And bear in mind that it's a whole lot more complicated than petition carriers could possibly imagine back in 2006.

Ron McLinden is a life-long Kansas Citian and transit user, and serves on the board of the Regional Transit Alliance. His views are his own.