Jackson County Regional Rail Plan

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Re: Jackson County Regional Rail Plan

Post by johnmatrix »

DaveKCMO wrote: Mon Jul 08, 2019 4:02 pm The moment Jackson County decided to put existing funds into transit, we would have more transit in Jackson County.

Of course, the problem with the Rock Island corridor is the same problem with the entire Rock Island Railroad itself -- the route doesn't serve enough density. That's why the county is working to improve land use around the corridor and start with trail-oriented development first. A train there wouldn't even attract federal funding due to the high capital cost and the low ridership. That's why the Sanders plan was going to advance to public vote for a new sales tax without federal matching funds.
Yeah doubt that would have passed. Regardless it would have been nice. I look forward to the day this country gets serious about high speed rail.
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Re: Jackson County Regional Rail Plan

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mean wrote: Mon Jul 08, 2019 3:42 pm Have you ridden the thing? It hauls a little ass occasionally. I mean, yeah, it's a shame we don't have the money and/or political will to run trains everywhere and provide transit to anywhere anyone would want to go, but we don't, so... we get what we can get. I bitched about this for years until I realized that getting something is not the always the enemy of getting the thing I want, especially when the only realistic way to get the thing I want would be to get into politics and do it myself, which, I mean, I have a job. And I really hate dealing with bureaucracy. Also groveling for money. It's just not a good fit.
I have its meh. I will say once in goes through midtown it will serve a great purpose not sure why it's going everywhere BUT midtown for now.
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Re: Jackson County Regional Rail Plan

Post by mean »

I can answer that (Dave can probably fact check me, but I think I have the gist): every single time it had come up for a vote, excluding the "Insane Chastain" proposal which was basically promising to make unicorns real, it failed. Repeatedly. And usually by a wide margin. Rather than keep failing, we had to find a way to have a success, however small.
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Re: Jackson County Regional Rail Plan

Post by DaveKCMO »

mean wrote: Tue Jul 09, 2019 12:46 pm I can answer that (Dave can probably fact check me, but I think I have the gist): every single time it had come up for a vote, excluding the "Insane Chastain" proposal which was basically promising to make unicorns real, it failed. Repeatedly. And usually by a wide margin. Rather than keep failing, we had to find a way to have a success, however small.
Correct. Build and fund it where there is support. The rest can now salivate after they repeatedly voted things down in the past.

Regional funding of rubber-tired transit is the next goal (big or small, driven or automated), not another expensive light rail line connecting a few suburbs.
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Re: Jackson County Regional Rail Plan

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Federal ruling stops work on Rock Island corridor.
https://www.kshb.com/news/local-news/fe ... d-corridor
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Re: Jackson County Regional Rail Plan

Post by flyingember »

The county didn't strictly lose, the landowners didn't succeed in their ultimate goal of getting the land back (revoking the easement).

https://www.stb.gov/decisions/readingro ... enDocument
The Board does note, however, that, although the Landowners claim that the Line was abandoned under Missouri state law, it is well settled that the Board has exclusive and plenary authority over the abandonment of rail lines.
The County has failed to follow the proper procedures for implementing trail use, and it would be inappropriate for the Board to allow the County to bypass those procedures.
If you read the whole document nothing about it abandons the line and everything shows what the county needs to do.

Read the last line of this section. Not what can happen but what should happen.
It is one thing to have to replace track that has been removed (especially when much of it would need to be replaced in any event) to restore rail service on a rail line. It is another, however, to remove track from a rail line available for freight service, develop and construct a trail in place of the track, and then have to remove that trail before reconstructing the track and track bed to comply with the common carrier obligation to provide rail service upon reasonable request. The latter is the scenario that should occur under the Trails Act, as explained below.
If I had to guess intent, the board was always going to rule this way and never intended to get rid of the corridor as a thing that trains could run on in the future. It's appears to weighed both against and for the county and only against the land owners.

Basically it looks like the land owners spent a lot of money and got nothing they wanted and the STB rules this way to remove the legal mess the county got themselves into and to get them onto established legal ground.
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Re: Jackson County Regional Rail Plan

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Re: Jackson County Regional Rail Plan

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https://www.oklahoman.com/story/news/20 ... 333394002/

OKC and Oklahoma taking major steps forward with commuter rail. Good to see their State Leg supporting need bills to get more rail going there. I think overhead electric and battery/diesel hybrid tram-trains would be a great solution for KC and OKC. Run-on electric in the city and transition to battery or diesel in the country.
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Re: Jackson County Regional Rail Plan

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normalthings wrote: Sat Apr 24, 2021 3:07 pm https://www.oklahoman.com/story/news/20 ... 333394002/

OKC and Oklahoma taking major steps forward with commuter rail. Good to see their State Leg supporting need bills to get more rail going there. I think overhead electric and battery/diesel hybrid tram-trains would be a great solution for KC and OKC. Run-on electric in the city and transition to battery or diesel in the country.
I am looking forward to seeing the rail plans that KCATA has in store. The potential federal grant would help us really take a look at what's best for our region today. Rail and transit has changed alot in people's minds since Next and North Rail
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Re: Jackson County Regional Rail Plan

Post by DaveKCMO »

The most realistic "commuter rail" option IMO is to run more Amtrak trains on the Sedalia Sub (current River Runner) between Union Station and Pleasant Hill, then allow commuter rail fares instead of the demand-based pricing. Amtrak does this in some markets and it saves you from having to spin up your own fixed costs for fleet and labor.

There was a provision in the UP agreement for Rock Island that allowed studying this type of option, but it was never executed by Jackson County.

None of the other corridors have amenable host railroads or enough density along the tracks to work well on a cost/benefit basis. Not sure what magic sauce OKC is using to lure railroads, but if you followed Denver's attempts it nearly caused their big transit investment program to collapse.

Is it worth $400 million to carry 1200 passengers a day in from the 'burbs?
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Re: Jackson County Regional Rail Plan

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DaveKCMO wrote: Wed Apr 28, 2021 2:58 pm The most realistic "commuter rail" option IMO is to run more Amtrak trains on the Sedalia Sub (current River Runner) between Union Station and Pleasant Hill, then allow commuter rail fares instead of the demand-based pricing. Amtrak does this in some markets and it saves you from having to spin up your own fixed costs for fleet and labor.

There was a provision in the UP agreement for Rock Island that allowed studying this type of option, but it was never executed by Jackson County.

None of the other corridors have amenable host railroads or enough density along the tracks to work well on a cost/benefit basis. Not sure what magic sauce OKC is using to lure railroads, but if you followed Denver's attempts it nearly caused their big transit investment program to collapse.

Is it worth $400 million to carry 1200 passengers a day in from the 'burbs?
I think OKC is absolving the host railroads of accident liability. At least that is how the recent new articles read.
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Re: Jackson County Regional Rail Plan

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DaveKCMO wrote: Wed Apr 28, 2021 2:58 pm Is it worth $400 million to carry 1200 passengers a day in from the 'burbs?
No, but it is worth it to connect east side residents to blue collar jobs. The hyperbole and to forget transit is bidirectional...

Fund the streetcar to NKC, connecting to 3rd and Grand. My line starts downtown and splits at 10th Ave.

The first stop would be in the NKC industrial district, more or less at the foot of Howell, and utilize the existing NKC circulating bus and the ease of biking for connectivity. 18 of the employers, excluding NKC Hospital and Cerner have 4500 workers between them.

NKC top employer numbers: http://www.nkc.org/departments/economic_development

The next stop at Walker and 210 serving NKC Hospital and Cerner.
NKC Hospial has 3700 workers
Cerner HQ has 2500

So combined, these two stops would serve in excess of 10,700 jobs, give access to more medical offices for thousands of downtown residents. Downtown NKC would be accessed by the streetcar

Now, you might say, why don't we have better 7 day bus service to these locations first? Yes, why don't we? Why do we force people coming from the east side to change to an *hour frequency* bus to reach 6200 jobs at the NKCHS/Cerner campus area and 4500 elsewhere in NKC?

NKC is looking at funding the streetcar because there's clearly no interest in providing comprehensive bus service to them. Think about how bad the transit planning has to get to where they want to spend more money than is necessary.


The next stop would at 210 and Eldon Ave
Subtropilis has 2000 people working in it, Ameristar has 2200. Add a circulating bus route from a stop there and can serve dozens of industrial businesses and World of Fun with transit.

WOF adds 2000 seasonal employees.
They don't give attendence numbers but they have 4500 parking spots and guests are about 3000 of them.
If the average car holds 3 they can have 9000 people daily in the two parks, I would guess it's closer to half that on average.

I'm iffy on if a stop in Birmingham makes sense, but it is along the way and would serve the Birmingham rail yard and industrial area for marginally little cost.

Then the final stop in downtown Liberty. It's not worse than the planned ending of 252 next to a Lowe's
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Re: Jackson County Regional Rail Plan

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flyingember wrote: Thu Apr 29, 2021 10:09 am
DaveKCMO wrote: Wed Apr 28, 2021 2:58 pm Is it worth $400 million to carry 1200 passengers a day in from the 'burbs?
No, but it is worth it to connect east side residents to blue collar jobs. The hyperbole and to forget transit is bidirectional...

Fund the streetcar to NKC, connecting to 3rd and Grand. My line starts downtown and splits at 10th Ave.

The first stop would be in the NKC industrial district, more or less at the foot of Howell, and utilize the existing NKC circulating bus and the ease of biking for connectivity. 18 of the employers, excluding NKC Hospital and Cerner have 4500 workers between them.

NKC top employer numbers: http://www.nkc.org/departments/economic_development

The next stop at Walker and 210 serving NKC Hospital and Cerner.
NKC Hospial has 3700 workers
Cerner HQ has 2500

So combined, these two stops would serve in excess of 10,700 jobs, give access to more medical offices for thousands of downtown residents. Downtown NKC would be accessed by the streetcar

Now, you might say, why don't we have better 7 day bus service to these locations first? Yes, why don't we? Why do we force people coming from the east side to change to an *hour frequency* bus to reach 6200 jobs at the NKCHS/Cerner campus area and 4500 elsewhere in NKC?

NKC is looking at funding the streetcar because there's clearly no interest in providing comprehensive bus service to them. Think about how bad the transit planning has to get to where they want to spend more money than is necessary.


The next stop would at 210 and Eldon Ave
Subtropilis has 2000 people working in it, Ameristar has 2200. Add a circulating bus route from a stop there and can serve dozens of industrial businesses and World of Fun with transit.

WOF adds 2000 seasonal employees.
They don't give attendence numbers but they have 4500 parking spots and guests are about 3000 of them.
If the average car holds 3 they can have 9000 people daily in the two parks, I would guess it's closer to half that on average.

I'm iffy on if a stop in Birmingham makes sense, but it is along the way and would serve the Birmingham rail yard and industrial area for marginally little cost.

Then the final stop in downtown Liberty. It's not worse than the planned ending of 252 next to a Lowe's
FlyingEmber, the Jackson County Commuter proposal would have bypassed the east side completely. I agree that we need east side and county rail but it will need to be “enhanced streetcar”, LRT, or tram train.I don’t think Dave is wrong in saying standard commuter rail would have been a waste of funds (and wouldn’t have helped connect the east side to anything).

Your proposal is interesting. Thank you for sharing it with us. What it lacks in residential density it seems to make up in employment density. Your proposal also utilizes (or could utilize) existing gov owned ROW which could save us guideway and relocation expenses. Ballasted track for the win!

Cerner and NKC hospital would be a great addition to the network. However, I think nextrail found that the only way to cross under I29 was to convert some traffic lanes into dedicated transit lanes. Would take some negations to get all parties onboard with reduced car lanes.

Armour road past NKCH would be a great place for dedicated, high speed segment. 50’ median is plenty of space for rail. Take the 435 row up to claycomo or so. Chouteau Pwky has a 55’+ median and so that could be an alternative routing that takes you closer to residents. Not sure if there is much space in or around i35 for rail though. A higher speed variant of the Urbos will be needed to deliver more competitive travel times.

Do you think ClayCounty would be willing to pay for a line that avoids so many residents?
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Re: Jackson County Regional Rail Plan

Post by alejandro46 »

normalthings wrote: Thu Apr 29, 2021 10:32 am
flyingember wrote: Thu Apr 29, 2021 10:09 am
DaveKCMO wrote: Wed Apr 28, 2021 2:58 pm Is it worth $400 million to carry 1200 passengers a day in from the 'burbs?
No, but it is worth it to connect east side residents to blue collar jobs. The hyperbole and to forget transit is bidirectional...

Fund the streetcar to NKC, connecting to 3rd and Grand. My line starts downtown and splits at 10th Ave.

The first stop would be in the NKC industrial district, more or less at the foot of Howell, and utilize the existing NKC circulating bus and the ease of biking for connectivity. 18 of the employers, excluding NKC Hospital and Cerner have 4500 workers between them.

NKC top employer numbers: http://www.nkc.org/departments/economic_development

The next stop at Walker and 210 serving NKC Hospital and Cerner.
NKC Hospial has 3700 workers
Cerner HQ has 2500

So combined, these two stops would serve in excess of 10,700 jobs, give access to more medical offices for thousands of downtown residents. Downtown NKC would be accessed by the streetcar

Now, you might say, why don't we have better 7 day bus service to these locations first? Yes, why don't we? Why do we force people coming from the east side to change to an *hour frequency* bus to reach 6200 jobs at the NKCHS/Cerner campus area and 4500 elsewhere in NKC?

NKC is looking at funding the streetcar because there's clearly no interest in providing comprehensive bus service to them. Think about how bad the transit planning has to get to where they want to spend more money than is necessary.


The next stop would at 210 and Eldon Ave
Subtropilis has 2000 people working in it, Ameristar has 2200. Add a circulating bus route from a stop there and can serve dozens of industrial businesses and World of Fun with transit.

WOF adds 2000 seasonal employees.
They don't give attendence numbers but they have 4500 parking spots and guests are about 3000 of them.
If the average car holds 3 they can have 9000 people daily in the two parks, I would guess it's closer to half that on average.

I'm iffy on if a stop in Birmingham makes sense, but it is along the way and would serve the Birmingham rail yard and industrial area for marginally little cost.

Then the final stop in downtown Liberty. It's not worse than the planned ending of 252 next to a Lowe's
FlyingEmber, the Jackson County Commuter proposal would have bypassed the east side completely. I agree that we need east side and county rail but it will need to be “enhanced streetcar”, LRT, or tram train.I don’t think Dave is wrong in saying standard commuter rail would have been a waste of funds (and wouldn’t have helped connect the east side to anything).

Your proposal is interesting. Thank you for sharing it with us. What it lacks in residential density it seems to make up in employment density. Your proposal also utilizes (or could utilize) existing gov owned ROW which could save us guideway and relocation expenses. Ballasted track for the win!

Cerner and NKC hospital would be a great addition to the network. However, I think nextrail found that the only way to cross under I29 was to convert some traffic lanes into dedicated transit lanes. Would take some negations to get all parties onboard with reduced car lanes.

Armour road past NKCH would be a great place for dedicated, high speed segment. 50’ median is plenty of space for rail. Take the 435 row up to claycomo or so. Chouteau Pwky has a 55’+ median and so that could be an alternative routing that takes you closer to residents. Not sure if there is much space in or around i35 for rail though. A higher speed variant of the Urbos will be needed to deliver more competitive travel times.

Do you think ClayCounty would be willing to pay for a line that avoids so many residents?
I believe NextRail identified I-29 at Armour as being too low for streetcar crossing, looking at the rail lines nearby is a good idea.

Another option would be at Armor in downtown NKC then a cycle track along Armour (already pretty ready with their bike lane upgrades) with bike share to NKCH/Cerner.

In another "Phase 3 Streetcar" thread, I advocated that a streetcar should continue up N. Oak as it has more capacity for density, walkability and connects significant and developing nodes in Gladstone and Metro North Crossing, then head West into Platte to Zona Rosa, then up to KCI. From a supply chain perspective, I agree that it is worth studying using an Urbos 3 AXL (top speed 56mph) "Streetcar+" approach on dedicated center running tracks in areas we should capitalize on economies of scale and maintenance know-how. Focusing on Jackson County, I think the route along Linwood/36th to Truman then down the Rock Island RR is hands down the most viable and best route using similar Streetcar + type buildout. I'm not sure how much good it will be to try to even mess with the heavy rail, it seems to be a regulatory nightmare and the railroads aren't incentivized to help out at all. We have something good going with our Streetcar development type model. We just now need a regional funding mechanism to start paying for studying the best routes and getting the shovel in the ground.
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Re: Jackson County Regional Rail Plan

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The Linwood to Rock Island route imho should be a top priority for the county and the region.

Urbos Tram-Train or LRV are better suited for a line like that. Same vehicle family as the streetcar so we would retain some fleet commonality. Would work well on Northland and Kansas routes too.

Massive stimulus plan + earmarks make this a good time to go big. Star is reporting that Rep. David’s is getting behind a $600 million highway expansion earmark in Kansas. Cleaver please give us a $600 million rail earmark.
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Re: Jackson County Regional Rail Plan

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alejandro46 wrote: Thu Apr 29, 2021 11:22 am
I believe NextRail identified I-29 at Armour as being too low for streetcar crossing, looking at the rail lines nearby is a good idea.

The mayor gave me numbers, 20,000 jobs in NKC for a population of 4500. NKC is hitting well above it's size

If it's a diesel DMU it doesn't need the extra height for the pantograph.

There's also a case to simplify this with a method that can be done immediatelly. Take two MAX lines and end them in NKC. One Max line ends at Barry Road. End all bus service at a Max line.

A commuter line could terminate in NKC without the expensive river crossing. Since every northland bus requires a transfer to go south of downtown, this just moves the transfer a few miles north and removes a transfer from everyone coming from the south into NKC.

Here's a 2002 study on commuter rail

https://www.marc.org/Transportation/Pla ... ment1.aspx

They don't give numbers for Liberty, but going all the way to Odessa had a capital cost of $133 million 20 years ago. That's twice the distance as to Liberty
$66.5 million adjusted for inflation is $97 million

Commuter rail Liberty to NKC is the cost of the starter line.
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Re: Jackson County Regional Rail Plan

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Onto the point of if we're willing to spend $400 million for 1200 passengers per day
The streetcar was built based on projections of 2,686 daily.

Adjusted for inflation $100 million in 2012 (the study year) is $115 million

So $100 million for 1200 riders is reasonable.
5% inflation doubles $100 million in 15 years.
So a plan for 2027 construction at $200 million is equal to the starter line cost.

It takes 8 years to go from $200 million to $300 million. That's 2035, only 14 years out.
We're already 12 years past the 2009 vote in NKC which approved transit. So $100 million in cost has nearly tripled since then.

So no, $400 million is not unreasonable. On our long timeframe of planning for transit expansion, it's what we will have to pay.
Last edited by flyingember on Thu Apr 29, 2021 12:40 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: Jackson County Regional Rail Plan

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flyingember wrote: Thu Apr 29, 2021 12:07 pm
alejandro46 wrote: Thu Apr 29, 2021 11:22 am
I believe NextRail identified I-29 at Armour as being too low for streetcar crossing, looking at the rail lines nearby is a good idea.

And if it's a diesel DMU it doesn't need the extra height for the pantograph.

That's why the best plan has commuter rail using existing track heading east of I-35 while the streetcar sticks to Burlington. Use more frequent bus to bridge the two spots and NKC funds a flex route already.

The mayor gave me numbers, 20,000 jobs in NKC for a population of 4200. NKC is hitting well above it's size

So a commuter line + streetcar combined project even ending at Subtropilis, paired with new flex service, could serve somewhere between 26,000 and 30,000 jobs

This would be game changing for the east side.
Good thinking. Our existing vehicles support battery operations. An upgraded Urbos 3 or Urbos family vehicles could just run on battery under the bridge.



Earmarks, Stimulus, and standard transit funding programs could get us to 80% federal match. Jackson County's $400 million commuter project would have had 0% federal funds. An 80% federal match to a $400 million local commitment would unlock a project of up to $2 billion. That's just for jackson county.

$600-900 million would be needed to do Rock Island + Linwood + a new Grand Bvld LRT through downtown. Jackson County would then have enough to fund streetcar to Independence Ave and the Zoo as well as BRT lines, and buses in the suburbs. You probably could also help fund rail bridges to KCK and NKC.

I envision a separate system from the streetcar running Urbos LRV or TT's in dedicated lanes or its own ROW.
Connect Rock Island - Linwood - Gillham - Grand - NKC - NKC Hospital - Claycomo. You could eventually add on routes in Joco and Platte County.

Image

Full system. I am not a huge backer of the JoCo line but 39th street and KU Med could use rail service.
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Re: Jackson County Regional Rail Plan

Post by DaveKCMO »

Clearly you've all had your projects scored by the Federal Transit Administration! :roll:
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Re: Jackson County Regional Rail Plan

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DaveKCMO wrote: Thu Apr 29, 2021 2:36 pm Clearly you've all had your projects scored by the Federal Transit Administration! :roll:
Thats why we have earmarks now!
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