What should be the next step for rail transit in Kansas City?

[DaveKCMO]

the starter line sales tax failed yesterday with only 44% of KC residents voting yes. what should be the next step for transit?

[KCKev]

Start a voter proposision stating that when Destroying ANY street to improve the sewer system, Rail tracks MUST be installed.

[LenexatoKCMO]

the starter line sales tax failed yesterday with only 44% of KC residents voting yes. what should be the next step for transit?

Sign a lease on that new bimmer.  Buy oil stocks.  Maybe invest in a nice strip mall development on Main. 

[lock+load]

Do nothing.  It isn't happening for a while.  We missed our chance.

[Highlander]

the starter line sales tax failed yesterday with only 44% of KC residents voting yes. what should be the next step for transit?

44% is only 6% away from passage.  Hardly deserves the "overwhelmingly rejected" headline that appeared in the star.  Having said that, I am not sure what to do at this point.  The project presented to the voters was well thought through but the well-entrenched opposition and several external factors (particularly the economy) influenced voters.  Still 44% said yes; that's significant considering the price of gasoline plummented and the economy went belly up.  The one thing that would help and think swing the balance in favor of "yes" would be guarantee of federal financial assistance.  That could be a chicken-and-egg problem but people would be far more willing to vote yes if they knew they weren't going to be holding the bag for the entire thing. 

[GRID]

Regional.

Jackson, Clay and Platte will come together and fund a regional transit system that will build rail and brt lines as well as completely overhauling and greatly expanding the bus system.

This may or may not include LRT, but probably will, at least for the spine in KCMO.  It will probably include Colorado rail car commuter lines (light commuter rail), freeway flyers and far more fixed bus routes as well as better transit infrastructure such as park and rides, transit centers and stations.

The system would truly benifit everybody in all three counties and give them a reason to vote yes.  There will be something for everyone.  It will grow daily MO transit ridership from 45,000 a day to at least 100,000 a day.

All with small tax on the million MO side residents in those three counties.

The KCMO light rail plan was a bad plan.  It would have mortgaged the future of the city on one starter line that didn’t really go anywhere or do anything to grow transit in KC.  IT would have only taken people off max, 56, troost lines and put them on light rail at a ridiculous cost to tax payers.  There was no room left to fix the buses or expand the LRT.  If it passed, I think it could have been incorporated into a regional plan, but now we can produce a full regional plan and get it funded by the entire MO side of the metro and build something that we can all be proud of.  Empty trains running across the MO river all day long would have been bad and KC doesn’t not do well when it comes to fixing something it doesn’t get right the first time (see union station).

[KCPowercat]

yeah we can't get a small system past, let's make it BIGGER.  The opposition shouldn't have a complete field day with that.

[GRID]

yeah we can't get a small system past, let's make it BIGGER.  The opposition shouldn't have a complete field day with that.

These KCMO starter lines are not small.  That's half the problem.  You either need to go out and build something from the river to the plaza or build something that will give you far more impact to a very spread out KCMO population.

If KC wants a starter line, then find a way to fund a starter line.  Build a 250 million dollar 4-5 mile long starter line funded by an overlay transportation tax in the RCP.

But since KCMO has not done this (should have been done decades ago), it's time to move on and go regional and make that starter line part of a bigger package.  KCMO is also sales taxed out.  We could have done a 1/2 cent tax in 1995, but now KCMO has exausted its sales and toursim taxes.  They are already maxed out.  They need to be part of a regional system to get the tax smaller and spread across more people.

Polls showed before the city put that plan together that there was little support for that plan, but there was support for a regional plan.  They went with the plan anyway because they didn’t have time to get a regional plan together and the residents of KCMO were promised something this year.

Asking people in Shoal Creek, Tiffany Springs, SKC, Red Bridge, etc to fund a billion dollar light rail line that they will rarely, if ever, use is not going to work.

Asking them to pass a tax that will build a comprehensive, multi-modal system that they could use that includes a portion of that starter line will work.

[TheBigChuckbowski]

I think we need to go regional but it can't be rushed otherwise it will fail again.

I think the ballot language should be vague enough to give the planners wiggle room if they need to change something but a public campaign stating exactly where the stops will be and ridership numbers needs to happen.

It also needs to connect to the airport. Everyone in this town has some strange obsession with connecting it to the airport and if a regional plan doesn't go there, it will have no hopes of passing.

[aknowledgeableperson]

I do not agree 100% with GRID on this issue but what he is saying is the best insight to this issue in the area.  A starter line is a terrible way to start.  If you want a RCP rail system then do as GRID said, impose a transportation district sales tax to fund it.

Transportation is a regional issue and it needs a regional solution.  And that solution is not just light rail but busses and other modes of transit.

[phxcat]

What about a Jackson County system as Grid was saying before, going to TSC or beyond to Downtown, then south as originally planned, with future extension to LS and points east planned out as phase II?

[advocrat]

Well there's a couple of things the City Council  could do....

1: The council could overturn the vote like they did last time and just go for it, or

2: The council could reverse their own reversal of the the Chastain plan and begin to impliment that plan, and negotiate a deal with Chastain. He just might go for it, and not challenge the change.

I'm just saying these things out of frustration.

I know it's absurd.

But so has the way Light Rail has been screwed around with in this city.

[dangerboy]

Try again this summer when gas prices are higher.  We keep giving up after a single no vote. Most cities have to vote on the same plan 2-3 times before it passes.

[KCPowercat]

Grid, how do you explain every system starting with a starter line...are we some different here that only a regional system will work?  Doesn't seem to make any sense...every other metro can start small and build up but we can't?

I am all for getting a regional solution going but I don't buy the notion that we can't build a spine for everybody to build into it.

It's much easier to just throw up your hands and give up....but that gets us nowhere.

[shaffe]

Grid, how do you explain every system starting with a starter line...are we some different here that only a regional system will work?  Doesn't seem to make any sense...every other metro can start small and build up but we can't?

I am all for getting a regional solution going but I don't buy the notion that we can't build a spine for everybody to build into it.

It's much easier to just throw up your hands and give up....but that gets us nowhere.

I think what GRID might be getting at is that we need a regional plan in place before we vote on the spine.  Yeah, it's going to have to start with the spine, but maybe if people (i'm looking at you northland) knew there was expansion down the pipe they would be more inclined to vote for it.  No feasible plan can be put forth that goes all the way to the airport and serve the busiest commuter routes in east JaCo right off the bat, but Joe Northlander and Jane from Blue Springs might pass that billion dollars to get the 15 mile spine built if they knew that there was at least plans of the route hitting them in the near future.

Of course I hope that any sort of regional plan also includes tearing apart the bus system and starting brand new - quite frankly what we have is mediocre at best.  New routes that actually make sense and better infrastructure at the stops is a necessity.

[enough]

one of the problems we face is that most people have totally unrealistic expectations about what they will get from an expanded transit system.  they support transit in concept -- until they find out that it won't stop two blocks from where they live, it probably won't be rail, and it won't give them a virtually non-stop single-seat ride to their destination. 

a three-county transit plan with a light rail spine and significantly improved bus service throughout the rest of the area makes sense, but the opposition will characterize it as gold-plated transit for the urban core and just buses for everybody else. 

rail transit much beyond the urban core isn't financially feasible.  even a much-expanded regional bus system would cost a lot more than most people realize -- just ask the regional elected officials who have been looking at such a concept, and ask the people at the ata and marc who have provided staff support for them.

one comment on the 14-mile "starter line:"  i won't defend every mile of it, but it *wasn't* a line that "doesn't go anywhere."  instead, it was two starter lines -- one from the north and one from the south/east -- converging on the region's greatest concentration of jobs and other destinations.  perhaps it would have fared better if it had been presented that way. 

[cdm2p]

LRT is DEAD in the RCP.
We should make the MAX the standard for all urban bus systems.
KC will vote for rail only when it runs on its own ROW.

[DaveKCMO]

KC will vote for rail only when it runs on its own ROW.

the chastain plan ran in the street. you have no data to back that assertion.

[Highlander]

the chastain plan ran in the street. you have no data to back that assertion.

It also went to the airport.  That seems to be the bigger requirement for the average Kansas Citian.

[DaveKCMO]

It also went to the airport.  That seems to be the bigger requirement for the average Kansas Citian.

now that is an assertion i might agree with! there is still no data to prove that 56% -- or even the 7% needed for a win -- voted no for that reason.