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

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kard
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Re: Clay Chastain coming back with light rail

Post by kard »

Looks like the study started in '70 and service opened on June 2nd...2003.  (I had no idea it was that recent.)

http://www.bart.gov/docs/BARThistory.pdf

But that document is 74 pages of issues they ran in to along the way, where as KC's situation is a little less complex.
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Re: Clay Chastain coming back with light rail

Post by BVC »

DaveKCMO wrote: i completely disagree. i have plenty of money to fly. i just hate driving and finding my way by car in cities i don't know well. how successful would chicago be if everyone had to drive into the loop after getting off a plane at o'hare. not that KC is particularly difficult to get around in, but i'd rather people be out on the street and seeing the sights instead of clogging up the freeways and getting lost.
I take MARTA to the airport all the time.  A spine to the airport would be used like crazy especially if a line extended to the Mo burbs and JoCo.  East West route need to be part of the plan though if real ridership would ever happen.
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Re: Clay Chastain coming back with light rail

Post by ComandanteCero »

Chastain will be petitioning to get an initiative before voters in March for a rail system that would run from Swope Park and the zoo to the Nelson, UMKC, Plaza, Westport, Union Station, the new Performing Arts Center, Sprint Center, City Market and over the river and through the Northland with stops that would include Zona Rosa and on to the airport.
This does not sound like a good system.  Any ideas on what the exact route would be?  It should ideally be as straight a shot as possible between destinations.  This sounds like he wants it to zigzag around, particularly downtown....  Not to mention, this sounds like a tourist's wet dream, but not of particular worth to all the transit users.

"touristy frou frou" i say! 
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Re: Clay Chastain coming back with light rail

Post by shaffe »

9 hours old and we're already on page 3.  i think it's safe to say this is the best thing to happen to this forum in months.

as for the subject at hand, i'm glad chastain is coming back for another go.  his idea sounds alright to me, but i think he'll have a tough time getting it all done at once.  maybe the nelson-city market part first and then add the two extensions out to the airport and swope park.  phase 3 would be a major east-west spine, and only then letting the ks folks in (let them think that they're only paying for what they want while kcmo gets to work on things without them mucking it up) and going out to the stadia.  phase 4 is to extned those out to 119th in the (south)west and blue springs in the east, also an extension off of the swope park line to lee's summit.  then we'll have airport-swope park-lee's summit N/S and 119th-mission-blue springs E/W.  somewhere in there squeeze in WyCo, maybe phase 2 or 3.  that's my .02 as a basic frame for the two spines.
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Re: Clay Chastain coming back with light rail

Post by Highlander »

bbqboy wrote: If people have the money to fly, they don't need Light Rail.
  Look at SF-30+ years before they got to the Airport.
You are talking about using LRT as an economic tool vs. a people mover as an alternative to driving-
both good things but different priorities
I travel all over the place on business, mostly Europe.  One of the things I greatly appreciate here is the opportunity to get from the airport to the city without hiring a taxi or renting a car.  Rail serves as a link between most European cities and their airports, it's an incredibly efficient form of travel and a real convenience.  One of the things I really hate is coming to KC and making family members travel all the way from south KC to the airport to get picked up.  Rail into the city center would be a huge improvement.  As for having the money to fly....light rail is not necessarily meant to be cheap transportation.  In London, it's 36£ or about 70$ for a ticket from Heathrow to Paddington Station in the city. The subway is cheaper but oh such a looong ride. You pay for the convenience....so "if you have the money to fly", you certainly can afford light rail.  Airports are particularly good places for light rail  because they obviate the need for putting your car in expensive long term parking lots (albeit, KCI is currently not particularly well arranged to benefit from light rail)    
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Re: Clay Chastain coming back with light rail

Post by bahua »

I think a lot of the people on here have the wrong idea about transit. The primary purpose of a light rail, MAX, or regular bus line is to provide mobility to an area. Connecting attractions is an accidental peripheral effect, but should not be the primary focus.
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Re: Clay Chastain coming back with light rail

Post by staubio »

I don't like the route.  If you think about the major east-west routes, I don't think you find a concentration of ridership along that corridor.  By far, the most transfers onto N-S spines happen from Independence Ave, 31st and 39th St.  I agree with bahua's thoughts about serving the east side, but density drops off dramatically around Swope Park.  It would be better to run it along 39th to the Sports Complex or something.

I agree with everyone that has said that we just need to replace the current MAX route with LRT.  Start with that and go from there.  Serve that spine with great east-west bus routes and you have something that is frou frou and useful at the same time.
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Re: Clay Chastain coming back with light rail

Post by Highlander »

bahua wrote: I think a lot of the people on here have the wrong idea about transit. The primary purpose of a light rail, MAX, or regular bus line is to provide mobility to an area. Connecting attractions is an accidental peripheral effect, but should not be the primary focus.
I hope you do not consider the airport an attraction.  It is a transportation hub itself that should be connected up to other transportation hubs.  Otherwise, agreed, if we were dependent on people going to and fro KC attractions, then we'd really be hurting for ridership.  Not enough people go to such places to justify going out of the way to include them in any plan.  Service the areas vital to the economy first like DT an the Plaza where the most people can be moved at the least cost. 
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Re: Clay Chastain coming back with light rail

Post by Rusty »

What are the pros/cons of building incredible sums of money down corridors that have little to no bus service at all?
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Re: Clay Chastain coming back with light rail

Post by BVC »

Rusty wrote: What are the pros/cons of building incredible sums of money down corridors that have little to no bus service at all?
What could be done is to put light rail thru an area that already has heavy bus service and relocate a bus line to an alternate route.  Not sure where the heaviest traveled route is in KC though.
 
To address bahua's point:  Shoppng districts, employment districts, other attractions, and dense residential corridors should get rail in order to maximize the usage.  I believe that connecting attractions should be just as important as all others.  Afterall, attractions have employees, often at the lowest wage rates and are thus in need of good transit.
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Re: Clay Chastain coming back with light rail

Post by GRID »

I'll quote myself from an old post:
GRID wrote: Guys, a light rail line that (touched the stadiums) would work very well.

Imagine this line.

Starting Downtown (River Market) the line would go south and follow the MAX line. (sort of).

Then at Volker the line would head east down Brush Creek and then head north on Van Brunt long enough to catch one of the freight track right-of-ways heading toward leeds.  It would parallel those tracks till it hits the vacant tracks that run south of the stadiums or it can be re-routed closer to the stadiums up near I-70, there is plenty of room.

From there it would run right down I-70 in a re-built I-70 (planned anyway by modot) from Blue Ridge to Lee's Summit Road.

After that, the line would turn even more into a "commuter" line stopping one or two more times at major park and ride facilities near Indep Center and possibly even Blue Springs.

Imagine this:

It would serve all of the River Crown Plaza area.  People in Blue Springs, Lee's Summit, Independence, Raytown etc could park at various locations and take a train to the plaza, crown center, downtown etc to work.

They could park and take the train to the Plaza Art Fair, to the Sprint Center, to the Air Show or to the Sports Complex.

A very large chunk of the east side with major transfer stations with busy east side bus lines making it very easy and fast for east side residents to get to Downtown, the stadiums and even a large chunk of Eastern Jackson County.

The line could inject brand new investment, federal money etc could be leveraged to rebuild areas like the old GM plant district and the areas around Blue Ridge Mall.

Even though the line would go to the plaza first, it's still a pretty straight shot if you look at a map.

A full ride from one end to the other couldn't take more than a half hour.

This line would serve all of Downtown, a lot of the east side and suburban commuters alike, not to mention all three stadiums, UMKC and many other destinations.

I'm telling you it would work.

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Re: Clay Chastain coming back with light rail

Post by voltopt »

two lines - one could be a zona rosa to downtown to union station to westport/plaza route (along main most likely) and then on to either waldo or just down troost to 63rd and then west to brookside/waldo.  i think that would be a nice catalyst.  a second line could go from 7th and central or 7th and minnesota in kck through the bottoms, up 12th street, south on grand to 18th and then east to the paseo, then south to linwood, then east to the stadia through leeds.  a catalyst, i say!

here is an older plan for just that...

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Re: Clay Chastain coming back with light rail

Post by phxcat »

I agree with whoever it was (I don;t remember) who said that Clay needs to get it started ,and then get his name out of there.  If he has really had this religious conversion and is really thinking about what is good for KC, hopefully he will understand that his name alone is the worst PR light rail can get.

Start small, with an affordable line that runs from downtown to the Plaza, but include a vision of future extensions.  Start with a small amount of money for the initial line, but make sure people know that it will be coming to them in the future.  I think that with the last proposal, it looked kind of complete, with the East Side route and the northland spur, leading people to believe that that was all there was.

Also, in the future, why not connect a KCI line with Richards Gebaur, which is not all that far from a southland line, whihc would probably be well used?  And connect Mission!  They are already designing for this type of thing, and a Mission connection would not only reward that part of the city for its progressive planning, but would help it to become amodel suburb.
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Re: Clay Chastain coming back with light rail

Post by skim82 »

I think a station at ZR would be the best for taxpayers as a whole.  It is only a few miles of track, but it would save taxpayers millions of dollars if there were just shuttle buses to take them to the light rail station in ZR.

Visitors to KC that are using rail, will see a beautiful urbanism project as soon as they set foot on KC, not just 3 huge circles of parking and bus fumes. 
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Re: Clay Chastain coming back with light rail

Post by skim82 »

btw, i think they do this at the Oakland Int'l Airport... they have shuttles that take you to their light rail station a few blocks away..  (correct me if i'm wrong)
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Re: Clay Chastain coming back with light rail

Post by chingon »

this sort of pipe dreaming will only lead to dashed hopes and cursing this town in a few months.  i'm with grid on the transportation thing, i just don't realistically see kc getting on the ball in my life time (please surprise me). i think it would be cheaper and better received by the taxpayers if the city paid to move all of us to places that already have functioning public transportation.
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Re: Clay Chastain coming back with light rail

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Re: Clay Chastain coming back with light rail

Post by kcdcchef »

Michael® wrote: That's the leadership problem we have.
Typical puke leaders like Shields, her husband Glorioso and the other entrenched politico douchebags that have ran this city for decades and WON'T GO AWAY so real leaders can step up. As long as these greedy, boring, lazy and evil goons control things and keep thier chokehold on the metro there will always be a shadow hanging over us and rail is a pipe dream.

All of the Chastain bashing here is not warranted. He made a few mistakes but the media and local leaders (against anything that would move the city forward) blew much of it out or proportion. Show me another person that worked tirelessly to even GET a LRT referendum on the ballot. Know of any others? And where was our leadership then? Cleaver was dissing it - the same old KC song and dance from al of our "leaders". I'll take Chastains vision and energy and 100 more like him before I'd take idiots like Shields, Cleaver and the other goofs making decisions around here.
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Re: Clay Chastain coming back with light rail

Post by LenexatoKCMO »

Highlander wrote: I hope you do not consider the airport an attraction.  It is a transportation hub itself that should be connected up to other transportation hubs. 
Exactly - no matter what gets built it probably won't be extensive enough to provide me a practical way to get from home to work every day but I would sure have a fairly routine use for the system if it could reliably get me from DT to the airport.  A legitimate transit connection to the airport benefits much more than just visitors.  For us locals it would be a hell of a lot cheaper and easier than screwing around with the long term parking lots at the airport. 
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Re: Clay Chastain coming back with light rail

Post by phxcat »

Chastain bashing is unwarrented, except for thefact that as long as his name is significantly tied to light rail, it won't work, just because of the mediaand the public perception.  He is the light rail guy, and I welcome his efforts, but he needs to de-emphasize his name if he really wants this to succeed.
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