Bistate III should be BiTransit!

trailerkid · Post by **trailerkid** » Wed Mar 03, 2004 2:50 am

O.K., here is my idea for a Bistate tax that would actually do some darn good....

The newest Bistate proposal should be BiTransit consisting of 3 commuter rail lines:
Route 1: Airport I-29 to Union Station
Route 2: JoCo I-35 to Union Station
Route 3: East Jack I-70 to Union Station

How can we lose by implementing a Bistate to pay for these three rail lines that serve a huge variety of people in a massive stretch of locations?

Think about it...
This plan combines the 2 existing plans for JoCo and MO I-70 with a plan to connect downtown to the airport all with commuter rail lines. The possibilities are really crazy. Everyone in the metro could easily access the airport by simply going to Union Station and visitors could easily travel downtown also. This particular line would solve people's problems with the distance to the airport in addition to taking care of the commuter rail issues in Jo Co along I-35 and in Jackson County along I-70.

We can't lose.

KCK · Post by **KCK** » Wed Mar 03, 2004 12:23 pm

I was reading a report made about two years ago that was saying what the most feasible commuter rail lines in KC would be. The most feasible line was a Topeka to Lawrence to Kansas City commuter rail line oddly enough. I'll try to dig up that report if I can.

Post by **dangerboy** » Wed Mar 03, 2004 12:40 pm

trailerkid wrote:The newest Bistate proposal should be BiTransit consisting of 3 commuter rail lines:
Route 1: Airport I-29 to Union Station
Route 2: JoCo I-35 to Union Station
Route 3: East Jack I-70 to Union Station

MARC's commuter rail study picked the I-70/Blue Springs/Odessa line as the most feasible in terms of ridership vs costs, followed by Lee's Summit/Pleasant Hill/Warrensburg and then KCK/Lawrence/Topeka. Northland corridors have already been ruled out for whatever reasons. The airport route be light rail if it ever got built, not heavy/commuter rail.

Here's the gory details if you're up for some dry transporation studies...
http://www.marc.org/transportation/comm ... lindex.htm

Slappy the Wang · Post by **Slappy the Wang** » Wed Mar 03, 2004 12:57 pm

trailerkid wrote:O.K., here is my idea for a Bistate tax that would actually do some darn good....

The newest Bistate proposal should be BiTransit consisting of 3 commuter rail lines:
Route 1: Airport I-29 to Union Station
Route 2: JoCo I-35 to Union Station
Route 3: East Jack I-70 to Union Station

How can we lose by implementing a Bistate to pay for these three rail lines that serve a huge variety of people in a massive stretch of locations?

Think about it...
This plan combines the 2 existing plans for JoCo and MO I-70 with a plan to connect downtown to the airport all with commuter rail lines. The possibilities are really crazy. Everyone in the metro could easily access the airport by simply going to Union Station and visitors could easily travel downtown also. This particular line would solve people's problems with the distance to the airport in addition to taking care of the commuter rail issues in Jo Co along I-35 and in Jackson County along I-70.

We can't lose.

In 1998 dollars, route 1 would cost $200 million. Who pays?

trailerkid · Post by **trailerkid** » Wed Mar 03, 2004 1:28 pm

I strongly argue an airport to Union Station rail line would be very beneficial because...
Many could reach the airport by simply reaching Union Station. If you lived in Olathe or Blue Springs, you could take the train to the station and then take another train to the airport instead of making the long drive.

It would also provide a vital link for conventioners. We need a way to directly link our downtown area with the airport. This line would do it instantly.

The Jo Co, Topeka-Lawrence-KC, and I-70 lines are definitely something to serve existing commuters, but a line to the airport must be considered as part of downtown Kansas City's vision for the future.

Post by **bahua** » Wed Mar 03, 2004 2:04 pm

Getting to the airport is far too difficult now. The only way to get there, besides taking your own car, or giving a child to KCI Shuttle, is the ATA's 129X route, which still only runs once an hour, and takes almost an hour to make the trip from downtown.

If a rail line was made, it would make things much easier, but there's one requirement, in my opinion: It has to be faster than driving.

kcmajik · Post by **kcmajik** » Wed Mar 03, 2004 2:16 pm

i don't drive on i-29 that often but when i have going north from downtown there really are a lot of taxis....enough to justify lightrail? not for sure. but maybe it would encourage people to ride instead of drive.

Post by **bahua** » Wed Mar 03, 2004 4:08 pm

I don't think this would be light rail, if it happened. I think it would be(or at least should be) high-speed commuter rail.

GRID · Post by **GRID** » Thu Mar 04, 2004 12:42 am

I-70 Commuter Rail is now going getting seriously studied. MARC's numbers for the line from Union Station to Odessa were like 4000 a day and double that if another line went to Warrensburg. Compare those numbers to the 2000 a day that might use an I-35 line in JoCo and you can see why this line might happen before the JoCo line does. The I-70 line is being studied by HNTB now.

As far as I-29, I agree there are always tons of taxis, limos, and liverys on I-29, not to mention just regurlar car traffic going to the airport. But it would have to be light rail or something that ran all day and frequently unlike heavy commuter rail which runs peak hours only.

But as usual, the biggest problem is cost.

Post by **dangerboy** » Thu Mar 04, 2004 10:02 am

MARC has already ruled out commuter rail in the Northland. There were too many hurdles with cost, ridership, and acces to the rail lines. Like Grid said, the airport needs light rail service, so that it can run all day and on it's own tracks.

The problem with using bistate for transportation is that the existing bistate compact would have to be altered to allow. This means new legislation in both states and Congress that would take at least 2-3 years. In the current political climate it would be dangerous to tinker with the existing compact.

KC0KEK · Post by **KC0KEK** » Thu Mar 04, 2004 11:34 am

trailerkid wrote:If you lived in Olathe or Blue Springs, you could take the train to the station and then take another train to the airport instead of making the long drive.

Or you could just drive straight from your home or office to the airport. That's part of the problem: Gas is cheap, and KC's highways aren't jammed like LA's or Atlanta's, so why not just drive, especially if you're already driving to the train station?

As much as I like trains and use them when traveling in other cities, I suspect that they're not going to get a majority of people here out of their cars.

Slappy the Wang · Post by **Slappy the Wang** » Thu Mar 04, 2004 11:38 am

KC0KEK wrote:
trailerkid wrote:If you lived in Olathe or Blue Springs, you could take the train to the station and then take another train to the airport instead of making the long drive.
Or you could just drive straight from your home or office to the airport. That's part of the problem: Gas is cheap, and KC's highways aren't jammed like LA's or Atlanta's, so why not just drive, especially if you're already driving to the train station?

As much as I like trains and use them when traveling in other cities, I suspect that they're not going to get a majority of people here out of their cars.

Exactly. Rail will not be used in mass appeal unless the train can get us from point A to B in less time than we can drive ourselves. People come up with cute fantasies about having time to read the paper or get some work done while being shuttled to work....that's awesome if you don't have the internet to breeze the headlines in 5 minutes or if you're a slacker who can't get your sh*t together the night before somethings due.

Chooooo Chooooo!

Post by **bahua** » Thu Mar 04, 2004 12:31 pm

Public transit just isn't economically or practically feasible for suburbs. It's just an entitlement for the poor, who can't afford to own their own cars to get to the suburbs for work. For rail or buses to work, the majority of its ridership needs to be urban in orgin, or in destination.

GuyInLenexa · Post by **GuyInLenexa** » Thu Mar 04, 2004 12:58 pm

bahua wrote:Public transit just isn't economically or practically feasible for suburbs. It's just an entitlement for the poor, who can't afford to own their own cars to get to the suburbs for work. For rail or buses to work, the majority of its ridership needs to be urban in orgin, or in destination.

I may have to disagree with you on that point, Bahua. In Dallas, Fort Worth, Houston the Park and Ride lots are always full. I agree that general bus routes is not economical. I think that the Park and Ride would work on light rail in the suburbs.

I used it a lot when living in the burbs of the TX cities I mentioned. If bus service existed in a usable form now I would use it a lot.

GRID · Post by **GRID** » Thu Mar 04, 2004 1:19 pm

KC needs to fix it's bus system which is a disaster before even thinking about any kind of rail.

KC0KEK · Post by **KC0KEK** » Thu Mar 04, 2004 3:59 pm

bahua wrote:Public transit just isn't economically or practically feasible for suburbs. It's just an entitlement for the poor, who can't afford to own their own cars to get to the suburbs for work. For rail or buses to work, the majority of its ridership needs to be urban in orgin, or in destination.

Another issue is that not everyone who lives in the urban core works in the 'burbs, or vice versa. What if you live in Lee's Summit and work in Overland Park? Rail lines that link the suburbs and the urban core are great, but there also need to be rail lines that link suburbs to other suburbs. My guess is that politically, it's tougher to get funding for suburban lines because it looks as if you're ignoring the needs of inner city residents.

It's a wonder that anything, anywhere gets built.

UMKCroo · Post by **UMKCroo** » Thu Mar 04, 2004 6:55 pm

While i believe this is a critical issue, it will never get suburb approval unless they want to come downtown. Right now, most suburbanites dont have any reason to come downtown. So why would they vote for rail if they never use it. First you must give them a reason to come downtown i.e. downtown stadium, entertainment district, arena etc. Then when they want to come to a game and have a few beers, they might see the merit. This is how it happened in Denver, and i believe St. Louis, entertainment first, then transit.

trailerkid · Post by **trailerkid** » Tue Jun 15, 2004 4:13 pm

What do people think about the potential idea of creating these three commuter rail lines (Lee's Summit, I-70 East, and Lawrence-Topeka) using a bistate regional tax? Mix federal transit funding with regional taxes in all the counties served-- which would stretch all the way to Shawnee County, Ks.

To me, it is forward-thinking projects like these-- that create a great quality of life in the Kansas City area-- that truly move us forward. We need synergy between all the communities and opportunities that define KC. We cannot sit back and become stagnant. With a commuter rail project like this, one could take the train into KC from Topeka for a game at the Sprint Center, a commuter from Lee's Summit or Blue Springs could hop on the train to work, or a downtowner could hop on the train and head to Lawrence for their afternoon grad school classes.

Post by **dangerboy** » Tue Jun 15, 2004 6:03 pm

Of all the bistate proposals, transportation has the best chance of passing, but not if it is only for commuter rail. It has to include better bus and MAX-style connections for suburb-to-suburb commuters (e.g. Lee's Summit to Joco), as well as some strategic road improvements (e.g. Missouri River bridge). Otherwise I doubt it would get enough support in the suburbs.

How many of you guys have asked your state and federal reps to add transportation projects to the bistate compact?? Until then, bistate money can only go to arts or stadiums.

KC0KEK · Post by **KC0KEK** » Wed Oct 06, 2004 12:06 pm

CTA lost 25% of its ridership?!?!

CTA: Chicago's unsustainable transit system hurts taxpayers

By Wendell Cox.
Wendell Cox is a senior fellow at The Heartland Institute, principal of the Belleville, Ill.-based Wendell Cox Consultancy, an international public policy firm and specializes in urban

Published October 6, 2004

Anti-car environmentalist groups regularly denounce the automobile-based urban mobility system that prevails in Western Europe and North America. They say automobility is "unsustainable."

But in Chicago, unsustainable urban transport bears the logo of the Chicago Transit Authority--CTA. The CTA, as we know it, is fiscally unsustainable, and proof can be found in budget crises that have plagued the system for decades.

Now the transit agency wants even more money from the state. The agency has threatened that service will be cut, even during peak periods, if Springfield does not require Illinois taxpayers from Cairo to Rockford to subsidize Chicago-area transit riders even more than they do.

The CTA is not exactly running out of money ... but it is on its way to running out of passengers. Over the past 20 years, the CTA has lost more than one-quarter of its ridership. As a result, the public subsidy per rider has risen at least 20 percent, after adjustment for inflation. If the CTA had kept its subsidy per passenger within inflation, it would be spending approximately $100 million less per year today.

Why should taxpayers be required to pay more for less? Just as important, why should taxpayers pay more than necessary? And they surely are at the CTA.

In 1998, my colleagues and I produced a study for the Metropolitan Transit Association estimating what could be saved if the CTA began competitively contracting bus service to the private sector. This would involve private carriers using CTA buses to operate some routes; the fare and transfer system would continue and be guaranteed by the CTA.

Contracting out is commonplace around the world. Virtually all of London's famous red-bus transit system is competitively contracted. As a result, inflation-adjusted costs per mile in that system are down about 50 percent from 20 years ago. Copenhagen contracts all of its bus service, while Stockholm contracts all of its bus and rail service. In Australia, Perth, Melbourne and Adelaide contract all of their subsidized service, as do all urban areas in New Zealand.

In the U.S., competitive contracting has been implemented for bus systems from the Washington area to Los Angeles and places in between. In every case, cost savings have been substantial. And, in each of these places, the principal justification for conversion to competitive contracting was a recognition that transit agencies were financially unsustainable as they were organized.

The problem is monopoly. We know from simple economics that monopoly results in higher costs because customers have no choice and thus providers have no incentive to keep costs low. And we know from experience--worldwide and across the U.S.--that there is no reason for transit service to be produced by a monopoly.

Only when the CTA is reorganized to take advantage of competition will it become financially sustainable.

Soon after we submitted our study, the Regional Transit Authority, which oversees the CTA's budget, conducted a conference featuring competitive contracting experts from around the world. What has been the result? Nothing--except CTA begging for even more in taxes. If our recommendations had been implemented then, cost savings would have been at least $400 million by this time, and the CTA's $77 million 2005 budget deficit would have instead been a substantial budget surplus. Our proposal would have required no CTA layoffs, as the conversion could have taken place within the rate of employee retirements and resignations.

What Chicago transit riders need is not more money from Springfield, but more accountability from the CTA. The money that the CTA needs to preserve service levels is in its coffers today. The journey from unsustainable to sustainable begins with putting riders and taxpayers first.

Copyright Â© 2004, Chicago Tribune

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