KC Light Rail

MoDOT broke ground today on Kansas City's first, safe Missouri River crossing for pedestrians and bicycles… ever.

See the video above for the Heart of America Bridge makeover.

Believe it or not, crossing the river on foot or bike today is a very dicey affair — unlike almost all other river cities. There is literally no room on the Broadway Bridge, Heart of America traffic zooms along at 50+ mph, and MoDOT slammed the door on ped/bike access on the brand-new Paseo Bridge.

The Heart of America crossing will be barrier-separated, although users will need to start their trip on 3rd Street in the River Market or on Burlington Street in North Kansas City. Auto users are treated to a plethora of access options.

This new crossing is even more necessary when you consider the limited transit options connecting the two halves of Kansas City — bus service is limited after 6 p.m., and non-existent on Sundays.

The HOA bridge had been tagged as the river crossing in most of the light rail plans that crossed into the northland. However, it was deemed in recent plans to be incapable of handling full light rail vehicles and would need to be rebuilt.

We recorded the above message for advocates with Dan Johnson-Weinberger, a lobbyist for the Midwest High Speed Rail Association, at their annual meeting over the weekend. Dan's message is basically to keep it local by talking to your local elected officials first (mayor, council, aldermen), then having them talk to their state and federal counterparts.

While Sens. Bond or Brownback may not take a personal call from you, they will take one from your mayor.

Feel free to pass the message on to others.

A perfect example of this groundswell is the recent success in Kansas. Bipartisan majorities supported a bill that enables (but does not fund) state-sponsored passenger rail service in the state… something that, until recently, was widely touted as forbidden by the state's constitution. Grassroots advocates sought resolutions of support from every city council along the proposed route, encouraging their legislators to act.

We'll be attending the Midwest High Speed Rail Association's Annual Meeting this weekend in Chicago and will do our best to offer live coverage via Twitter.

This event tends to be heavily focused on Illinois, but there will be an overview of passenger rail projects funded by the Recovery Act (which includes Missouri). There will also be an overview of a French proposal for 220 mph service in the Midwest, which includes a link to Kansas City.

The Kansas Department of Transportation and Amtrak released a feasibility study today outlining costs and ridership potential for a new state-sponsored passenger rail route between Kansas City and Fort Worth.

Four alternatives were studied, daytime and nighttime, each with varying price tags and connections to existing Amtrak services. The clear winner is Alternative 3 — a daytime train that provides a direct, 12-hour trip between Fort Worth and Kansas City — but the Kansas Legislature must decide which option to advance for state and federal funding. Alternative 3 has the highest ridership (174,000) and highest capital cost ($479 million).

Any option terminating in KC would use Amtrak's existing facility at Union Station. Station stops include Lawrence, Topeka, Emporia, Wichita, and Oklahoma City.

The chosen option will need to win political and financial support from Oklahoma and Texas, which will also benefit from the additional service.

Annual operating costs for all four options range from $3.2 to $8 million. Missouri currently pays Amtrak $8 million to operate two round-trips between KC and St. Louis. Oklahoma and Texas share the $2 million cost of one daily round-trip between Oklahoma City and Fort Worth.

This week also marked the first official legislative approval for the effort: SB 409, authorizing KDOT to enter into passenger rail agreements, was approved by both chambers and is on it's way to Gov. Mark Parkinson for signature.

The Lawrence Journal-World has the best recap of today's press conference. History of this effort can be found at northflyer.org/.

UPDATE: We also have comments about the study from Northern Flyer Alliance President Deborah Fischer-Stout about the study.

We'll be covering the follow-up TIGER press conference in Mission tomorrow at 10 a.m. Follow us at http://twitter.com/kclightrail. Local officials from Johnson and Wyandotte counties — recipients of most of the transit portion of the TIGER grant — will hopefully provide more detail on when improvements will begin and whether there will be operational support for expanded bus service along the Metcalf and State corridors.

There's also a major press conference in Topeka on Thursday to unveil the Amtrak feasibility study for passenger rail service in Kansas. We'll be at KDOT headquarters covering that event as well.

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 be applying, such as Charlotte, Tuscon, Omaha, San Antonio, and Fort Worth.