Phase 2 Streetcar Funding

[DaveKCMO]

council discussed today how to fund the next steps (environmental assessment and advanced conceptual engineering). cost is estimated at $10 million, which would be borrowed from PIAC and paid back after a phase 2 election is successful. PIAC approval and council resolution would be required.

$10 million for these two steps equates to about 10 miles of streetcar expansion.

main street to UMKC (3.75mi) is a given, most agree, and there is almost as strong voter support there as there was downtown. there is strong support on independence avenue via columbus park and using the country club ROW (at least to brookside or waldo). 3rd district will require one or more lines to go east; my money is on linwood/31st, based simply on support and expansion opportunity to the stadiums. how far is the question.

no election dates were mentioned, but such a date could be known by summer 2014 after initial study completes in march 2014 and council has had time to deliberate.

consultants will present funding options to council, of course, but expect a TDD election to part of the equation (though likely not with the same level of assessment). city isn't very excited about the state transportation sales tax because it gets diluted through MPOs and annual allocations. can't build big projects with that.

i personally could see the city packaging the entire thing with a completed election for the feds to fund at 30-40% and then lobby the state for a direct capital investment... or the county could give up on the railroads and go all in on streetcar (which can be more commuter focused as it travels farther afield).

[pash]

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[flyingember]

So details aside, is expansion pretty sure to be put to a city-wide election of some sort?

TBD

[DaveKCMO]

No.

[kboish]

What effect would the county transit tax have?

[DaveKCMO]

That is actually TBD, but you could extend a Linwood line to the sports complex and maybe down the rock island (which was an early alternative). It might also relieve some of the TDD burden.

[DaveKCMO]

council approved a $10 million bank loan for phase 2 environmental and engineering costs, which will cover 8-10 miles of expansion. interest would be paid from PIAC (which that committee already approved) until a successful election can pay off the loan.

http://kcur.org/post/kansas-city-street ... ng-forward

[DaveKCMO]

consultant team recommends new TDD (replacing existing one) that would span from river to 63rd, state line to 435. sales tax would apply to that entire area, while assessments would only apply to 4-5 blocks adjacent to the streetcar lines.

that gives you enough to pay for main to UMKC, independence to benton, 31st to prospect, and maybe a little further south on main if you're lucky. then you have to get 50% federal match (or, god forbid, state money).

there won't be a citywide tax, unless council decides they want to figure out how to make that work.

[flyingember]

consultant team recommends new TDD (replacing existing one) that would span from river to 63rd, state line to 435. sales tax would apply to that entire area, while assessments would only apply to 4-5 blocks adjacent to the streetcar lines.

didn't the majority of that box vote against the last transit question in 2008?

what data does the consultants have that shows the same area would vote for this project?

[DaveKCMO]

here's the 2008 vote:

[pash]

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[DaveKCMO]

And particularly if a new Country Club line is in play, why wouldn't you extend the TDD south of 63rd all the way into Waldo, where there's strong support for rail transit and high property values near the right-of-way?

that option was discussed, although the data doesn't support your assumption about high property values (unless you're comparing to values further east).

[flyingember]

that's the image I remembered.

conveniently that map is easy to follow for this plan. the southern end for that route was 63rd, 435 roughly runs between 15/23 and 19/26 on it

that seems crazy iffy as far as a plan goes. if this is fair to today there must be a lot of confidence that west of troost has more Yes votes than east of troost has No votes

[pash]

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[DaveKCMO]

think of some large sales tax generators out east...

[pash]

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[flyingember]

I understand that there are a few hotspots. But they're pretty much all near a potential streetcar route, aren't they? Why not draw the boundaries of the TDDs to follow those routes, including big-revenue spots like the sports complex but excluding the vast residential areas that would generate no tax revenue but are home to lots of people who will vote against the project?

that actually has a simple answer. it's a way to not encourage internal sprawl

don't want developers buying land two blocks away from the TDD and pulling in existing companies because not TDD would be a strategic advantage. customers would choose shop where the tax rate is 1% smaller, especially if it was only 2 blocks away

it doesn't make sense logically but people would see less taxes as a personally rationalized reason to shop down the street, no matter how small the difference

[missingkc]

Didn't the 2008 vote take place in November on the same ballot with the presidential election?

[flyingember]

Didn't the 2008 vote take place in November on the same ballot with the presidential election?

yes

here's Dave's follow up piece at the time. you can see some lessons learned from it

http://transitkc.com/?p=321

[missingkc]

Thanks. My thought on that election is this (cynical as it may seem or even be): if the measure for the line had had its own election instead of sharing the ballot with the presidential election, the outcome might have been different. As we all know, that election saw an historically high turnout of African Americans. As we can see from the map, the areas of the city that are most heavily African American gave the measure the least support. If the measure had been alone on a ballot, I imagine that a lot of those folks who were drawn to the polls by Obama - and who voted 'no' to the streetcar - wouldn't have bothered turning out.

Even though it had happened many years before, I also wonder how much hangover there was from Cleaver's "touristy frou-frou" statement. If I were responsible for an upcoming election that was to include the East side, I'd do my best to get Cleaver very vocally on board. If you can't get him to recant the curse, at least get a hearty "this is different and you need to be on board".