KC Light Rail

While some media outlets thought otherwise, it's not entirely clear after today's TIGER announcement that the downtown streetcar is completely unfunded. Unfortunately, it takes a bit of math to deduce where the entire $50 million award will go. The full request [PDF] was $88.761 million.

In practical terms, the entire amount will go to MARC to be distributed to various agencies who handle the Green Impact Zone of Missouri (GIZMO) and transportation services in the metro — the latter being handled exclusively by KCATA, The JO, and the Unified Government of Wyandotte County.

Of the $50 million awarded to KC today, however, GIZMO and bus corridor improvements cover only about $48 million. The Bike KC, Front Street interchange, and West Bottoms freight rail projects were not specifically mentioned, which leaves the remaining transit project — design and engineering for the downtown modern streetcar — up in the air. We have yet to hear from KCATA about their take on today's event.

Streetcar awards were confirmed for Dallas, Tucson, New Orleans, and Portland. Streetcar requests that didn't make the cut were Cincinnati, Boise, Fort Worth, Salt Lake City, and Atlanta.

Another smaller round of streetcar-specific funding using unspent transit dollars — not stimulus — will be awarded later this year; Kansas City is unable to apply for that program because it has not delivered the local match required.

As for the other nationwide winners and losers in today's announcement [PDF], Streetsblog, The Infrastructurist, and The Transport Politic have excellent posts that cover the big picture.

Hope you enjoyed our live tweets. We also finally figured out video (see above), and MARC has plenty of pictures.

UPDATE: KCATA confirmed Thursday morning that the streetcar element was not funded. Their site has been updated with details about the bus corridor improvements.

Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood will be in KC this week, as well as Los Angeles and Tucson. All three cities had downtown modern streetcar components in their TIGER grant applications. Grant winners were Congressionally mandated to be announced by Feb. 17.

It's likely that the appearance location will relate to a part of the application, which could include the Green Impact Zone, the riverfront, or Union Station (which would be on the streetcar route and conveniently makes a great photo op).

UPDATE: Here's an article detailing LaHood's Thursday appearance in Tucson.
UPDATE 2: The White House has confirmed that LaHood will be in Kansas City tomorrow, along with stimulus-related appearances by other cabinet members. Still no official word on where the KC event will take place, but we've received unofficial word that it will be in the Green Impact Zone, not Union Station.
UPDATE 3: MARC has just confirmed the event will take place at 10:30 a.m. CST at the Green Impact Zone offices, 4600 Paseo. Mayor Mark Funkhouser and US Rep. Emmanuel Cleaver will also be present.

According to media reports nationwide, the US Department of Transportation will announce TIGER grant awards by Feb. 17.

Kansas City submitted a regional application that includes $6 million in design and engineering work for a downtown streetcar that would run between River Market and Crown Center. No local match is required for the $1.5 billion TIGER program.

Total capital cost of the 2-mile streetcar is $68.3 million, while operational costs of $2.1 million would need to come from a new revenue source (likely a TDD for the service area).

Other elements of the Kansas City application are funding for the Green Impact Zone, implementation of the Bike KC plan, improved bus facilities along SmartMoves corridors, West Bottoms freight rail capacity improvements, and a new highway interchange at I-35 and Front Street.

TIGER is a competitive grant program introduced in the Recovery Act. Previously, most transportation funding was disbursed using formulas that were not merit-based.

Keep an eye on our Twitter feed for the initial announcement.

An second, $280 million grant program specifically for Urban Circulators (buses or streetcars that serve users in a confined area, versus longer-distance commuters) was announced last month, but KCATA does not have the 20% local match required to apply in this tough budget year. The deadline for that $25 million grant is Feb. 8, with awards announced in "early 2010″. Many of Kansas City's peers will gå över be applying, such as Charlotte, Tuscon, Omaha, San Antonio, and Fort Worth.