Clay Chastain coming back with light rail

Transportation topics in KC

How will you vote on Chastain's LRT proposal?

I will vote Yes!
83
56%
I will vote No!
39
26%
I don't vote!
8
5%
I don't live in KCMO
18
12%
 
Total votes: 148

gfisch95
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Re: Clay Chastain coming back with light rail

Post by gfisch95 »

What is Chastain's plan this time, other than the taxes mentioned?
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Re: Clay Chastain coming back with light rail

Post by DaveKCMO »

gfisch95 wrote:What is Chastain's plan this time, other than the taxes mentioned?
"...a 3/8 -cent citywide sales tax increase for 25 years to help fund a $1 billion, 26-mile streetcar system, building on the city’s 2.2-mile streetcar starter route."

Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/news/politics ... rylink=cpy
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Re: Clay Chastain coming back with light rail

Post by flyingember »

Ordinance 170043. It's interesting.

He's slowly bringing his plans in line with other city plans.

1. all of the 2014 lines put to the ballot + the line north towards KCI (not that I think it would get to KCI) combined with his November ballot item routing

2. self-funds the project and only builds what it can fund without federal or state money.

3. fixes the reliability problems downtown, or at least head in that direction, appearing to encourage dedicated row for the train with less stops

4. electric busses

5. bikeways (assume this means bike lanes)

6. convert Troost into a a car-free road from Brush Creek to 63rd which I don't get and Penn Valley Parkway into the same which I do.



It's not perfect and the other items on the ballot will turn out anti-streetcar folk. I think it's iffy to pass but if we want to build to UMKC this may be the best chance to have enough funds without needing to fight a roads first administration for several years.


There's a clear downside to not turning people out that would vote for this, and this is the mess that would occur from the other streetcar ballot item passing.

Ordinance 170042

A TDD could be formed, the city couldn't stop this, but the ballot item would severely impact the ability for the city to be involved with planning, construction and such without a citywide vote. They're clearly attempting to block the usefulness of TDDs for rail.

We need pro streetcar individuals out in August. The minimum wage item is going to bring anti tax and anti streetcar folks out easily.


Stop being against the Chastain plans for once to not risk all the other plans in play.
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Re: Clay Chastain coming back with light rail

Post by UrbanKC »

Any chance that this could tank the legitimate plan to extend to UMKC?

Also, what is with his obsession with Swope Park, Truman Sports Complex and Penn Valley Park? It seems pretty obvious he hasn't actually lived here in a long time if he thinks those locations would be key. No doubt the former two are nice, but common sense says the Rock Island Line would be the most affordable alternative for Truman Sports Complex.
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Re: Clay Chastain coming back with light rail

Post by JBmidtown »

I agree with flyingember on this one. Whether we like it or not the biggest threat to streetcar expansion is not Chastain but the anti-streetcar ballot measure. And pushing support for Chastain's ballot measure provides a number of strategic advantages.

For one, forcing the anti-streetcar position symmetrically against Chastains can exhaust their organizing resources without exhausting the organizing resources of the TDD push.

There's also the win-win factor: if Chastain's measure passes (and the same voting contingent beats the anti-streetcar measure) there will be a funding mechanism in place to supplement TDDs and diminish the need for reliance on state or federal funds. If it losses, we were still able to focus the anti-streetcar resources on beating Chastain's measure while still forming the UMKC TDD in mail in ballots. And there's still a good chance that mobilizing enough voting populace for Chastain's plan will help defeat the streetcar opponents.

Chastain's plan allows us to spread the opponents thin. We also have a more receptive public now. I know it's anecdotal but everyone I've known who were anti streetcar are mostly accepting of it now. Their only complaint is it doesn't have any purpose outside of downtown. Of course an extension would help that!

There's little to lose supporting Chastain's current plan. We should be pushing voters to the ballot boxes in August to hedge our bets and publicly humiliate streetcar opponents. This is an opportunity for a coup de grace.
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Re: Clay Chastain coming back with light rail

Post by flyingember »

UrbanKC wrote:Any chance that this could tank the legitimate plan to extend to UMKC?

Also, what is with his obsession with Swope Park, Truman Sports Complex and Penn Valley Park? It seems pretty obvious he hasn't actually lived here in a long time if he thinks those locations would be key. No doubt the former two are nice, but common sense says the Rock Island Line would be the most affordable alternative for Truman Sports Complex.
While yes it's a risk, the other risks seem more important to counter. The relatively hostile federal and state funding situation (see Caltrain) is a much bigger threat to the UMKC line. Remember that the local funding for that would pay for approx. half of the cost. How would we fund the rest locally seems like a bigger wildcard than anything the Chastain plan could do. Remember, the text adds lots of outs to specifics the city could jump on. The way I read it the route through PVP is doable if feasible. Skipping this detour and building more track would have way more support.

For the airport we know it's expensive and just for serving the airport it doesn't make much sense right now. There's better destinations.

But there's more jobs near the airport than downtown. Imagine a one seat ride from the east side to tens of thousands of jobs. Is it dense urban friendly, not a chance, but we want to be spending money to bring jobs using the train, not using incentives or widening freeways and the KCI industrial park is a perfectly fine place to have new jobs if the alternative is Gardner. While we know $1 billion wouldn't get track there without a federal match, to cross the river and aim track in the right direction could do more to encourage Platte County to help pay to extend than anything else the city could do. It also encourages people in the northland to live along the train and ride the bus to it rather than to move to the yet another new wide freeway or four lane parkway in the northland.

The Truman Sports Complex isn't nearly as beneficial in this sense but a line to this spot passes through a long neglected industrial area. Sure, people would ride to the game a few times a year but the same benefit of opening up the area for new business opportunities so Amazon or Walmart wants to open a warehouse in the Leeds district and not on the edge of the city next time seems like a great reason to build to there.

The zoo to Cerner segment passes by another segment of Blue River industrial and a largely empty office park near 435. It also gets train onto or to cross Troost.

Remember, the opportunity cost isn't train or nothing, it's train or sprawl.

There's places we could build a train that make little sense today but could help end the border war. We need to take some risks and build things that may not help for a decade but help shrink the footprint of the city.
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Re: Clay Chastain coming back with light rail

Post by DaveKCMO »

JBmidtown wrote:I agree with flyingember on this one. Whether we like it or not the biggest threat to streetcar expansion is not Chastain but the anti-streetcar ballot measure. And pushing support for Chastain's ballot measure provides a number of strategic advantages.
nope. nope. nope.

the council would totally repeal the anti-streetcar initiative. it's illegal. gagging/fining city staff and electeds? not gonna happen. committee had an opportunity to change the language and negotiate that with the petitioners yesterday and they declined.

voting yes for chastain only sets the city up for additional legal challenges from chastain himself. have you not been paying attention since 2006 or before? if it passes (unlikely) and the city modifies it (likely), then excludes him from the process (guaranteed), he will sue (guaranteed). what elected official signs up for that -- especially with a divided council? the last time he sued the city it went all the way to the supreme court and STILL ended up nowhere. don't forget he's actively suing the mayor.

voting yes also encourages those seeking to govern by petition initiative to continue their tyranny. pretty sure we want LESS of that.

and all this puts aside the fact that you're promising voters 26 miles of streetcar and delivers maybe a fraction of it -- which ensures infighting.
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Re: Clay Chastain coming back with light rail

Post by flyingember »

You didn't read the text of the ordinance going on the ballot. It's hard to listen to anyone showing a lack of interest in the facts.


here's the relavant part
all for the purpose of constructing, maintaining and operating one or more extensions to the streetcar system, that might include a fleet of electric buses to transport people to and from light rail system stations and from a northern station to KCI, from the Kansas City Zoo to the new Cerner Campus, and from the Country Club Plaza to Brookside and south, or as much as can be constructed, maintained and operated with proceeds of the tax, including necessary bridges and other infrastructure?
Any fight would be over how much could be constructed, I'm sure over engineering or quote inflation would come up like it always does, but in no way does it promise 26 miles. It's actually quite clear that it's possible it couldn't all be built.


FYI- we want the petition initiative to be a thing. Having ways to counter a bad council is one of the fundamentals of a democracy. Maybe it's abused sometimes but more likely the individuals using the process are equally caring. Maybe they're just being misled by someone with bad motives. But regardless, trying to demonize someone for using such an important process is unbecoming and seriously makes you look really bad.

The TDD process is way more tyrannical. It allows a tiny number out of state property owners to add taxes without a public vote to pay for their private parking and streets. The state gave individuals this power over cities and counties.
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Re: Clay Chastain coming back with light rail

Post by grovester »

Guilty of conduct unbecoming of a ragger. What will the punishment be?
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Re: Clay Chastain coming back with light rail

Post by DaveKCMO »

http://www.kmbz.com/articles/chastains- ... s-campaign
Chastain spends most of his time in Bedford, Virginia and is now on the inactive voter role. His sister Karen, a midtown resident, asked the election board to remove him.

"He doesn't live at my house," Chastain's sister said. "In the past he's spent a lot of time coming into town due politics and he did repairs on my house."

"He doesn't pay any property taxes," Karen Chastain said.
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Re: Clay Chastain coming back with light rail

Post by flyingember »

The word is normally overused, but

Finally!
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Re: Clay Chastain coming back with light rail

Post by FangKC »

"I really believe that he was sincere about that but I think, sadly, over the years it's evolved into something that has to do with his own ego," Karen Chastain said.
You think? Ha ha.
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Re: Clay Chastain coming back with light rail

Post by DaveKCMO »

...but what if chastain's latest plan passed?
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Re: Clay Chastain coming back with light rail

Post by flyingember »

It would not be the worst thing. His plans have got much better in recent years. They are much closer to what we need than even the 2016 plan of his.

It proposes turning Main into train only as much as possible and do the same on other corridors with dedicated lanes.
He's not wrong on this as we have seen, though it's a complex situation.

It would follow the 2014 studied corridors. With a few tiny changes he finally stopped trying to make his own route.

It includes a bus bridge from KCI and twin creeks to the northern stop, showing he is aware how unlikely it is to reach those areas and how much people want to see this. Remember, if the city is successful here we will need the transit coverage

It proposes funding a bikeway system. Imagine millions more to install bike lanes across the city coupled with the go bond funds

And electric busses to be a bridge near the lines, which pulls from other successful cities like Houston. I don't know about electric necessarily but the idea is valid.
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Re: Clay Chastain coming back with light rail

Post by Highlander »

flyingember wrote:It would not be the worst thing. His plans have got much better in recent years. They are much closer to what we need than even the 2016 plan of his.

It proposes turning Main into train only as much as possible and do the same on other corridors with dedicated lanes.
He's not wrong on this as we have seen, though it's a complex situation.

It would follow the 2014 studied corridors. With a few tiny changes he finally stopped trying to make his own route.

It includes a bus bridge from KCI and twin creeks to the northern stop, showing he is aware how unlikely it is to reach those areas and how much people want to see this. Remember, if the city is successful here we will need the transit coverage

It proposes funding a bikeway system. Imagine millions more to install bike lanes across the city coupled with the go bond funds

And electric busses to be a bridge near the lines, which pulls from other successful cities like Houston. I don't know about electric necessarily but the idea is valid.
I kind of agree. I can't believe I am actually saying this, mainly because I think Chastain is a self-absorbed idiot in the worst way, but Chastain's plan actually passing may not be such a bad thing as Flying Ember suggests. BUT only if the appropriate language exists in the ballot so that the end result can conform to logical expectations (like not extending the line out to the Cerner's office park) and be shaped by those who, unlike Chastain, actually have a clue as to what public transportation needs to do to be successful. From where I sit, one of the main advantages of the Chastain plan passing is that it short circuits the entire CFRG attempt to make every decision about light rail/streetcars subject to a city wide vote. Not sure how those already working to get the streetcar extended to the Plaza would feel about a successful Chastain plan? I would absolutely hope their expertise and opinions would be considered in the process if the Chastain plan did pass. Then there is the other side of me that thinks that Chastain would NEVER step aside and let other people decide the particulars about any plan he had that actually got to the point of being implemented - I think he would ultimately be a total pain in the ass and I see some scenarios where any departure from his announced plan ends up in a court battle that scuttles the entire thing.
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Re: Clay Chastain coming back with light rail

Post by DaveKCMO »

As a refresher, here's the ballot language:
OFFICIAL BALLOT
CITY OF KANSAS CITY

SPECIAL ELECTION, August 8, 2017

QUESTION NO. _____
(Initiative Petition)
(Streetcar System Extension – Sales Taxes)

Shall the City of Kansas City enact the following two sales taxes:

(a) a new 1/8ȼ sales tax for 25 years beginning January 1, 2018, pursuant to sections 94.600 through 94.655, Revised Statutes of Missouri, the transportation sales tax; and

(b) a new 1/4ȼ sales tax for 25 years beginning January 1, 2018, pursuant to sections 94.575 through 94.577, Revised Statutes of Missouri, the capital improvements sales tax,


all for the purpose of constructing, maintaining and operating one or more extensions to the streetcar system, that might include a fleet of electric buses to transport people to and from light rail system stations and from a northern station to KCI, from the Kansas City Zoo to the new Cerner Campus, and from the Country Club Plaza to Brookside and south, or as much as can be constructed, maintained and operated with proceeds of the tax, including necessary bridges and other infrastructure?

_____ YES

_____ NO
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Re: Clay Chastain coming back with light rail

Post by flyingember »

If you read that, and it's confusing, it doesn't have rail to KCI or Cerner, that's bus route extensions from the central northland and the zoo. Not one place in the ballot language does it describe the rail or bus sections alone, but the combined multi-mode routes. That's actually not the worst thing ever.
The actual ordinance describes the rail portion independently
)(c) The city shall use the tax proceeds for the implementation and on-going operation and maintenance of as much as possible of the following Improvements to the City’s Public Transportation Infrastructure within Kansas City, Missouri city limits:

(1) Transform the city’s downtown streetcar system into a more rapid rail system (operating at faster speeds, with fewer stops and predominantly in new transit greenways separated from traffic) and also expand it into a more citywide streetcar system by adding 4 new lines: (a) a south line from Union Station to the Kansas City Zoo with intermediate stops at Penn Valley Park, Armour, Westport, the Plaza, UMKC, Rockhurst University, 57th St. & Troost, Brookside at 63rd St., and Research Hospital; (b) a north line from the City Market to the central northland with 2 intermediate stops; (c) an east line from downtown to the Jackson County Sports Complex with intermediate stops at Hospital Hill, Troost, Prospect, and the VA hospital; and (d) a second east line from downtown to the Old Northeast; and with express electric-bus service provided from the northern rail station to Twin Creeks Neighborhood and Kansas City International Airport, from the KC Zoo rail station to the Cerner Campus at Bannister and beyond, and from the Plaza rail station to Brookside, Waldo and South Kansas City; and

(2) Establish a new electric mini-bus fleet and new bikeway feeder system to assist people in getting to and from streetcar stations without the need of a private automobile; and

(3) Convert, if possible, Penn Valley Drive (Broadway through Penn Valley Park) into a vehicular-free Streetcar / Bicycle / Pedestrian Greenway and Troost Ave. (from Brush Creek to 63rd St.) into the same; and utilize, where possible, for rail routes park land, medians of city boulevards and existing right-of-ways.
The point about him maybe being a jerk is fair. But I think the risk of him being a jerk and having possibly billions for rail is better than needing to figure out how to get this same amount over the next decade. Remember, a lot of people don't trust city government so a third party may be the only person that can get a plan that we actually need built. Don't discount the protest vote, it elected a president in 2016.

His ingenious phrase is in the ordinance that means the city doesn't need to find more money to start laying track unlike the TDD vote. If you look at the wording the part to UMKC, Indep Ave, and line towards the stadiums routes are vague enough the 2014 planning could be used for his plan.
(c) The city shall use the tax proceeds for the implementation and on-going operation and maintenance of as much as possible of the following Improvements to the City’s Public Transportation Infrastructure within Kansas City, Missouri city limits:
You can see it also includes operations funding in the language, so this aims for the same smart funding method we're been successful with. It may be possible to have free or near free rail over much of the system, and this coupled with our huge success of making it easy to ride without a fare could be the key piece to get a huge federal match. A conservative congress has to love us trying to be fiscally smart
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Re: Clay Chastain coming back with light rail

Post by flyingember »

This is why I wouldn't dismiss the chance of this plan for passing. More people are experiencing the train. It's a lot harder to be against something after you've experienced in in person. But will this translate to a Yes in the August election is a huge question.

https://twitter.com/TomGerend/status/867095883686588418
As of Q4 42% of city residents have ridden streetcar in past year. Up from 35% in Q3.
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Re: Clay Chastain coming back with light rail

Post by DaveKCMO »

It all depends on how the civic community decides handle it, as well as who actually turns out to vote.
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Re: Clay Chastain coming back with light rail

Post by DaveKCMO »

Chastain is doing a presser at 10am at Union Station. Will be interesting to see who covers it.
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