Phase 2 Streetcar Funding

[DaveKCMO]

TDD petition submitted to circuit court on monday. public hearing set for april 1. judicial hearing is april 2.

http://www.kansascity.com/2014/01/28/47 ... dates.html

[flyingember]

so the brookside against group didn't figure out that my email was satire and I ended up on their list...

apparently they intend to be against the TDD at the hearing and I expressed interest they're actually intending to hire a lawyer to file a petition. intrigued to see if they do and if so, what their argument is versus a city that can come in and effectively say "the courts have rules our TDD legal, we want to expand it and build more track"

[DaveKCMO]

rest assured these nuts do not represent all of brookside.

[flyingember]

rest assured these nuts do not represent all of brookside.

there's 4 of them. they don't even represent a single block

[smh]

All of this annoys me. I understand why some people might be against the streetcar project (though I think they are mistaken in their views and ought to be in favor of it). What I don't understand, still, is the massive misconceptions held by some (particularly on that facebook page) about basic facts. I guess some of it is caused by a general distrust of anything the City Council tries to do. But the general raving just gets to me. The latest is Sue Burke going on about "how could properties be taxed differently in the zone, how is that fair or allowed, etc etc" when the language allowing for those different classes of property within the district is explicitly in the statute. But then again, she hasn't read the statute. Because that would require a desire to be informed.

[DaveKCMO]

create:

Fear
Uncertainty
Doubt

[kcjak]

All of this annoys me. I understand why some people might be against the streetcar project (though I think they are mistaken in their views and ought to be in favor of it). What I don't understand, still, is the massive misconceptions held by some (particularly on that facebook page) about basic facts. I guess some of it is caused by a general distrust of anything the City Council tries to do. But the general raving just gets to me. The latest is Sue Burke going on about "how could properties be taxed differently in the zone, how is that fair or allowed, etc etc" when the language allowing for those different classes of property within the district is explicitly in the statute. But then again, she hasn't read the statute. Because that would require a desire to be informed.

Too many people these days have no interest in educating themselves - they claim they are too busy in their daily lives to seek out information and develop their own opinion. It's much too easy for people to listen to gossip or take someone else's point of view than to formulate their own. On top of that, the distrust of the City Council is old, particularly when alluding to the wicked 'Barnes and her cronies' perpetuating problems that continue to plagues us all to this day.

[loftguy]

There is a broad range of factors that cause people to be 'against' the streetcar, or other civic developments.

Some are perpetual victims. These people feel personally beset upon by things that will cost them something, however minor it may be. Whether an actual cash responsibility, or because the proposal causes them to drive an additional block, or because a shadow will be cast on their path. It's them against the world.

There are those who choose to 'believe' that a proposal is bad. Facts don't matter, because the facts are always manipulated, hidden, distorted or outright lies. They believe it, and in their arrogant place it therefore is true and that's it. They further see the world in such a way that the 'proof' exists to support how right they are in their position

The majority of the 'againsters' I believe to be generally good people who are only marginally involved in the community. They are reacting to what they are hearing from others and with minimal information they take a negative position and are reacting in order to protect themselves from a perceived threat. This majority is often ready and willing to take a positive position when they are given the opportunity to hear honest, solid and complete information. These are the ones who need to be reached by those of us who wish to move Kansas City (or anyplace) forward.

Don't look for a chance to be angry, or to argue. If that's the circumstance you find yourself in, you're likely facing one of the first two catagories and it's a waste of time.

Discuss with the reasonable, offer insight and encourage them to attend the public meetings.

And......you may think there are only a handful of people who are on the fringe. Don't underestimate. Our counterparts in Cincinnati were complacent in this regard and they nearly got their heads handed to them.

[flyingember]

the big argument the city has to make is why the district is so big. downtown was an argument that was easy enough to make because the scope and district matches close enough. now the line scope will grow by ~5x but the district is growing by way more than that.

and it's not the property taxes that will be argued over, that's being reasonably limited, but the idea of why they should pay a sales tax at their local store for something that's not nearby. the "too much sales taxes" argument is part of what killed the medical tax. that it was a stupid tax helped but it was certainly both parts. the TDD is a 1% inflation in the cost of buying items in the urban core and everyone knows it. how do you counter this argument?

for part of it, a strong argument needs to include the KCATA explaining how the bus system can be improved to tie into the lines for better service in the urban core. more service, more frequency. The prospect max line is obviously part of this, but how does this improve the lives of people living near 12th St or Troost or Gregory or Cleveland or Truman or Clever?

I would argue the kcata needs formally commit to studying how to improve service to work with the streetcar. to commit to transit centers on each expansion line in some form. the symbolic gesture of something we already know will be done

for example, look at Houston, they have 6 transit centers on their first three lines, four are on expansion segments. those transit centers help sell rail as part of a urban picture, not a corridor picture.
http://www.ridemetro.org/CurrentProject ... rs-map.pdf

then go look at the overview document http://nextrailkc.com/NextRailKCSystemOverviewWeb.pdf
the term "transit center" appears four times in 370 pages. twice to refer to a concept plan, once about gathering info at 10th/main and the fourth about one way out at 31st/hardesty (VA area) which may not even be served.

[kboish]

The Prospect Max line is probably the main part of their argument for making the district so large

[DaveKCMO]

explain to me why this large TDD needs anymore explanation than the 2008 citywide tax? opponents downtown were quick to say "why not do a citywide tax blah blah blah?" when really they just wanted their cut reduced.

here's my explanation: KCMO cannot survive if the urban core keeps bleeding population. thus, streetcar's ability to rapidly bring residents (taxpayers) back to these neighborhoods -- especially from outside the metro -- is the key to the city's survival. northland growth alone won't cut it because that sprawl requires a higher cost per mile of all city services over the long haul, thus reducing the city's already-spread-too-thin service levels.

major demographic shifts happening worldwide reinforce the fact that "doubling down" on the urban core will pay off.

[aknowledgeableperson]

How did the people vote in the expanded area the last citywide election for rail? What would have been the tax load then? What do the leaders of this project expect to do to get a more favorable result?

[flyingember]

explain to me why this large TDD needs anymore explanation than the 2008 citywide tax?

you can't under-estimate how many people believe transit is only about connecting them to a destination and that nothing else matters. when bus lines are cut/moved people don't care that it's cheaper or provides better service to the area overall, they care if the changes benefit them.

the 2008 election was a huge failure for the city. the method used to sell the line simply didn't work. I don't remember the exact details but in jackson county it basically came down to that geography determined the vote way more than anything. the further one was from a line the lower the vote for it. the city didn't find a way to sell it to the whole city.

this november election will be a congressional election (no senator for MO). the august election is a primary. it's no obama but it's going to be an election which draws out people looking to turn districts and this means turnout

-------
most people when it comes down to it needs a good reason to pay more in taxes. think of some recent tax elections and how they were sold

-the zoo tax gave a direct benefit to the whole county. the free days and reduced cost
-the parks tax affected people across the city because there's parkways in all parts of the city. it also had a fairness aspect to it. and people dislike perceived unfair taxes. that's part of the still used argument against the TDD today
-the roads tax had an obvious goal that most people wanted
-the safety tax extension had an obvious goal
-the convention tax was about equality in taxes and was an easy sell
-the medical tax benefited only a very small number of people but taxed everyone and it failed.

this last tax is the model for what the larger TDD needs to get past because the district covers a large area and a half mile from each line is a small area. it's easy to sell it as unfair, no matter the truth, and get a no vote from enough people

[DaveKCMO]

I don't remember the exact details but in jackson county it basically came down to that geography determined the vote way more than anything. the further one was from a line the lower the vote for it. the city didn't find a way to sell it to the whole city.

not really, unless you have the precint-level data to back that up:



the three wards where the line was extended by the council after the initial line was proposed still voted no, as did the entire northland after it was extended there, too.

oh, and it turns out those gerrymandered additions screwed the project's federal funding prospects (of course now federal math has changed).

the "southwest corridor" supports rail transit and votes yes consistently. will this different funding proposal change that math? there's only one way to really find out!

[flyingember]

precinct-level is available though in a painful format to work with. I'm intrigued so I think I will. excel will make working with it easy

https://www.kceb.org/useruploads/Canvas ... anvass.pdf

66% turnout with the KCEB

[chaglang]

66% turnout with the KCEB

It'll probably be south of that by 50 points or so.

[flyingember]

wards 1-18 except 10 is realistically close to the TDD boundaries today. the wards are very similar to 2008 except for the eastern end of the TDD plan. I'd have to nitpick the differences to figure them out. like 11 looks almost exactly the same but 15 is different. the result for those wards in 2008 was 48.2% yes.

if the whole TDD needs to get something out of the project it obviously depends on who doesn't come to the polls. like did rail yes voters show up specially for the 2008 presidential election and decided they like rail or were the additional voters against rail? that's the big question at hand

The distance was a partial correlation to the results. In 7, 16 and 17 on that map, the extension wards, there were sets of precincts that voted 47-50% while they barely voted 40% for it overall in both wards
8 was 54.4%, 9 was 50.6%. so that distance meant a ~4% drop.

the critical precincts with the most padding for yes votes are-
wards 2 and 3. these wards are along the new rail lines when they weren't before and also have Prospect MAX coverage.
11 which is NE north of Indep Ave
wards 7 which Prospect bisects, and 14, which has one corner at 31st and Prospect

With 50% voter turnout compared to the 66% in 2008 that's a 25% drop. the summary of my findings is with 25% less voters, that just 100 voters for each of the 17 wards need to flip their choice from 2008. that's how small the 2% difference is.

most of all, don't overestimate the power of the west of main st corridor. in 2008 ward 3 almost countered the yes vote of ward 1 by itself. the pair was only 51.8% yes

but overall a yes is very realistic. without the northland and far south and east the numbers work much better

[flyingember]

how to not use mind mixer do polls to figure out where people want the routes to go. and the plan chosen is a big part of the final cost and who will vote for it so it matters big time what people want

the first mistake was to take segments that are all different lengths and call them each 2 miles long. Like union station to UMKC is approximately 3.3 miles. 3rd and grand to Indep Ave and Benton was another and is 2.2 miles. 31st from main to prospect is 1.7 miles (2.6 if you don't build main to umkc). it was actually possible to pick 14 miles using that method. even with the TTT segment being cheaper that would be over budget

the second mistake was give people a multi-choice poll, to not use a know method meant for getting multiple results out of an "election"

then the final mistake is to admit your method of figuring the answers fundamentally biases Main St. The method being used is to add up all the votes by corridor. The idea is to get people's preferences for each corridor.

Let's use a simple voting set to show the bias in that method

Here were the 7 options
1. Indep Ave
2. Indep Ave
3. 31st
4. 31st
5. Main
6. Main
7. Main

say this is the results
5x people pick options 1,2,3,4,5. they want to see the east side lines longer
5x people pick 1,2,3,5,6,7. they want to see Main St longer

with those ballots side by side one would see an even split in the selection

if you add them up by corridor you get 15x for Indep, 15x for 31st, and 20x for Main. By having the extra option for Main anyone that votes for Main three times is getting more influence into the results

[beautyfromashes]

Main is the next extension. It's pointless to even have a poll.

[flyingember]

Main is the next extension. It's pointless to even have a poll.

yes, it's one of three of course

how far each segment goes is the question. it's not even a done deal that there will be tracks next to the TTT this time. there could be more value to going east further