OFFICIAL - Main Street Streetcar Extension

Transportation topics in KC
earthling
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Re: Phase 2 streetcar to UMKC

Post by earthling »

Streecar passes...
The TDD won't begin raising taxes until after a plan is approved for construction of the streetcar extension, and after the Downtown and Main Street Extension TDDs are merged into one.

The Kansas City Streetcar Authority plans to apply for federal funding in September for the $227 million project. The nonprofit organization, which manages, operates and maintains the streetcar, will seek up to $100 million in funding through the Federal Transit Administration's Small Starts Program.
The Star implies Fed help will be needed...
http://www.kansascity.com/news/local/kc ... 56569.html
the tax funds will not come close to covering the cost of building the new line. The KC Streetcar Authority will also seek $100 million in federal funds.
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alejandro46
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Re: Phase 2 streetcar to UMKC

Post by alejandro46 »

Wonderful step forward. Lot of work still to be done. Two yes votes from our household toward the future of KC transit. Our current home is a .07 mile walk from the Main/43rd proposed stop, and not a bad walk/bike ride on a nice day.
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Re: Phase 2 streetcar to UMKC

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Re: Phase 2 streetcar to UMKC

Post by voltopt »

The KC Star article is a little misleading - 10% turnout is about average for an April or August ballot in KC, when nothing else is on the ballot. Look at the April election sales tax vote, which passed with voter turnout around 10 percent in Platte, Clay and Cass counties — Jackson County had the highest turnout at 15 percent.

http://kcur.org/post/missouri-election- ... l#stream/0
earthling
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Re: Phase 2 streetcar to UMKC

Post by earthling »

From the Biz Journal article...
Main Street Rail TDD Chairwoman Jan Marcason said it hoped to find out in January whether the project was selected for the federal funding.
Plan B if no Fed funding?
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Re: Phase 2 streetcar to UMKC

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beautyfromashes
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Re: Phase 2 streetcar to UMKC

Post by beautyfromashes »

earthling wrote: Plan B if no Fed funding?
The article almost seemed to imply some cooperation with UMKC to help in some way with funding. Student fee?
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Re: Phase 2 streetcar to UMKC

Post by DaveKCMO »

earthling wrote:From the Biz Journal article...
Main Street Rail TDD Chairwoman Jan Marcason said it hoped to find out in January whether the project was selected for the federal funding.
Plan B if no Fed funding?
With a multi-year authorization (FAST Act) for the Small Starts program, we really just need to wait it out (assuming we score "medium" or above). Midterm results will certainly be seen as a rebuke of many Trump policies, such as a elimination of the CIG/Small Starts program. The TDD revenue sources will only expire once they're activated (25/30 years + X, with X being the year activated). TDDs themselves don't expire, they just either get their revenue sources and debts to zero or voters have to approve dissolution.

If we don't score high enough, we'd have to figure out a way to close the funding gap and/or reduce the cost to fit the available TDD/private funds and maybe do pay-as-you-go to eliminate the financing costs.
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TheLastGentleman
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Re: Phase 2 streetcar to UMKC

Post by TheLastGentleman »

I'm out of the loop with the streetcar stuff...how many more votes until they get the okay to start construction? Or was this the last vote?
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Re: Phase 2 streetcar to UMKC

Post by dnweava »

TheLastGentleman wrote:I'm out of the loop with the streetcar stuff...how many more votes until they get the okay to start construction? Or was this the last vote?
That was the last vote. It is officially locally funded now. They are just trying to get federal funds now.
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Re: Phase 2 streetcar to UMKC

Post by TheLastGentleman »

Great!
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normalthings
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Re: Phase 2 streetcar to UMKC

Post by normalthings »

The following is a quote from an outside Urban Planner.
I guess this is good news for development in that corridor, but honestly, these street car systems are quite bad. The current route takes 16 minutes according to the schedule, for a 2.2 mile route. That's only 8.25 miles per hour. Buses probably are faster, and more reliable in traffic.

Now, it's not really a problem since the route is so short. However, if they want to keep expanding the system to get a strong transit system, at some point they'll regret that they didn't build the heart of the system with an exclusive right of way in the median at first.

Systems like the one in Bordeaux in France, which uses the extended version of the same rolling stock, and which partly travels in the historic city centre where high speeds can't be reached on narrow streets, still have an average speed of more than 12 miles an hour, because they do have that separate right of way wherever they can.
Last edited by normalthings on Wed Jun 20, 2018 5:58 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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normalthings
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Re: Phase 2 streetcar to UMKC

Post by normalthings »

What an Urban Planner from Amsterdam has to say about our system and extension.
Good. But the layout of the proposed route is madness. So many lanes of striped asphalt. Utter waste.
Why not import some of the world's best practice and do center-running (grassy) transit lanes with floating transit stops. Then one or two car lanes per direction, no parking and add a bike lane and trees. It would transform the street from something that looks like a suburb to a more urban place where it's actually nice to walk along. Not like it hasn't been [done before]
Image

Oh that's right, that would cost some holy parking spots, on an important through-fare...
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grovester
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Re: Phase 2 streetcar to UMKC

Post by grovester »

Maybe we'll get lucky and not get any federal funding.
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beautyfromashes
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Re: Phase 2 streetcar to UMKC

Post by beautyfromashes »

I’d go for the proposal from the Amsterdam planner. That sounds awesome!
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Re: Phase 2 streetcar to UMKC

Post by DaveKCMO »

normalthings wrote:The following is a quote from an outside Urban Planner.
I guess this is good news for development in that corridor, but honestly, these street car systems are quite bad. The current route takes 16 minutes according to the schedule, for a 2.2 mile route. That's only 8.25 miles per hour. Buses probably are faster, and more reliable in traffic.

Now, it's not really a problem since the route is so short. However, if they want to keep expanding the system to get a strong transit system, at some point they'll regret that they didn't build the heart of the system with an exclusive right of way in the median at first.

Systems like the one in Bordeaux in France, which uses the extended version of the same rolling stock, and which partly travels in the historic city centre where high speeds can't be reached on narrow streets, still have an average speed of more than 12 miles an hour, because they do have that separate right of way wherever they can.
The number of stops and stop spacing is a much better predictor of travel speeds than streetcar vs tram vs light rail. Most US streetcars have pretty close stop spacing and more of them, thus the travel times are longer. Stops = access, thus US streetcar = more access.

SAY IT WITH ME AGAIN FOR THOSE IN THE CHEAP SEATS: DEDICATED ROW IS ONLY USEFUL WHEN YOU HAVE CONGESTION.
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Re: Phase 2 streetcar to UMKC

Post by kcmiz »

The bloody thing won’t open for 5+ years. Design it for the future. Congestion will only get worse as the corridor densifies. Growth of ride sharing and driverless cars will further increase congestion in dense neighborhoods.

It’s amazing we’ve come this far. Let’s not half ass it with more miles of mixed traffic.
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Re: Phase 2 streetcar to UMKC

Post by KCPowercat »

Those things signal less congestion to me.... Not more
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Re: Phase 2 streetcar to UMKC

Post by tower »

KCPowercat wrote:Those things signal less congestion to me.... Not more
Ride sharing generates congestion because the cars are out driving around looking for rides or on the way to pick up a passenger. It also reduces transit use. https://qz.com/1103247/uber-and-lyft-se ... -not-walk/

At best, self drivng cars will have the same impact as ride sharing. At worst, the cars will be privately owned, and if they returned home after a drop off, and then back to the owner for a pick up, it would generate twice as much traffic.

All the talk about increased efficiency of road space with self driving cars assumes that at some point we will ban human driving. Until then, self driving cars will more or less just have to drive like humans. In fact, all current self driving car systems are just trained on human driving patterns, so the best they can do is to drive like a human driver, but without mistakes.
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Re: Phase 2 streetcar to UMKC

Post by Highlander »

I saw this today on facebook. I am ecstatic about the vote but rather disappointed to see all the negative comments to the article.
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