KCMO Downtown Streetcar

[flyingember]

Politics matters as much as speed.

We want a downtown business community that is happy with how construction is progressing, not to be funding opposition

[FangKC]

KC officials: $1B has gone Downtown since streetcar approved

http://tinyurl.com/namekn6

[ThorsteinVeblen]

http://www.bizjournals.com/kansascity/n ... l?page=all

Someone should probably tell this lady that if you're not paying for it "sit down and shut up"...unbelievable how many people at my office, who live in Liberty, Olathe, etc. bemoan the streetcar construction, yet don't pay a single cent towards its construction, but will reap all the benefits of it when they decide to venture into the "grit" of DT Kansas City. As a DT condo owner and someone who approved the streetcar plan and currently pays for it I really have no patience for people like this.

[DaveKCMO]

http://www.bizjournals.com/kansascity/n ... l?page=all

Someone should probably tell this lady that if you're not paying for it "sit down and shut up"...unbelievable how many people at my office, who live in Liberty, Olathe, etc. bemoan the streetcar construction, yet don't pay a single cent towards its construction, but will reap all the benefits of it when they decide to venture into the "grit" of DT Kansas City. As a DT condo owner and someone who approved the streetcar plan and currently pays for it I really have no patience for people like this.

let's discuss this in a new thread, please: http://kcrag.com/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=19715

the petition would not affect the under-construction downtown streetcar.

[flyingember]

http://www.bizjournals.com/kansascity/n ... l?page=all

Someone should probably tell this lady that if you're not paying for it "sit down and shut up"...unbelievable how many people at my office, who live in Liberty, Olathe, etc. bemoan the streetcar construction, yet don't pay a single cent towards its construction, but will reap all the benefits of it when they decide to venture into the "grit" of DT Kansas City. As a DT condo owner and someone who approved the streetcar plan and currently pays for it I really have no patience for people like this.

let's discuss this in a new thread, please: http://kcrag.com/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=19715

the petition would not affect the under-construction downtown streetcar.

that's actually not necessarily true

It's a weird decision of ordinance, but they used ordinance 140581 to help define the current project as a new system. the only place it refers to the project scope is in the non-official discussion notes
http://cityclerk.kcmo.org/liveweb/Docum ... 2fa0H6oBtc

then it goes and bans preparing and constructing any new system.

so it's all based on if that ordinance that doesn't actually say what it's supposed to be saying. but yes, they are attempting to stop current construction

[DaveKCMO]

that's your opinion, and neither one of us are lawyers. it goes in the new thread please.

[flyingember]

I've been thinking about it and I continue to be amazed by the TKC claim (last week) that there's engineering issues so huge that the scope of the line is build cut back.

A new level of absurd for that site.

[DaveKCMO]

I've been thinking about it and I continue to be amazed by the TKC claim (last week) that there's engineering issues so huge that the scope of the line is build cut back.

A new level of absurd for that site.

especially since preliminary engineering was already done once before for light rail south to at least cleaver boulevard.

[mykn]

I've been thinking about it and I continue to be amazed by the TKC claim (last week) that there's engineering issues so huge that the scope of the line is build cut back.

A new level of absurd for that site.

Do you have a link to the claim? I try to avoid TKC as much as possible, I tried scanning through for it, but felt like I was already boarding on NSFW territory.

[flyingember]

I've been thinking about it and I continue to be amazed by the TKC claim (last week) that there's engineering issues so huge that the scope of the line is build cut back.

A new level of absurd for that site.

Do you have a link to the claim? I try to avoid TKC as much as possible, I tried scanning through for it, but felt like I was already boarding on NSFW territory.

I go via twitter. this one is reasonably work safe, I didn't read every comment for keywords but no bad image will show up
the comments are as bad as you remember

http://www.tonyskansascity.com/2015/02/ ... ansas.html

[flyingember]

reply from this thread
http://kcrag.com/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=10393&start=1360

The first time I've imagined a use for the streetcar, I was trying and failing to find parking in the River Market. The Farmhouse has reached peak breakfast on the weekend. I imagine parking, wherever the hell you are supposed to board the streetcar, will be equally difficult?

Not possible. No, I mean that. It's not possible to run out of parking spots downtown for the train.

the plan is to run three trains that each hold 140 people.

I'm going to say it's a Saturday with zero traffic issues so everything is running smoothly. all these cars are the ultimate driver not slowing the train down and pedestrians are leaving perfect gaps for every car. if you've seen The Truman Show where the cars suddenly appear in unison, that but without a traffic jam.

I'm guestimating some of these numbers to show the scale of parking downtown, it's not exactly reality, I know there's logic holes, but it will show why it's impossible to have parking issues downtown right now.

At 15mph average with a train leaving every 15 minutes it takes 8 minutes to go from one end to the other for one train. Let's say it runs for 14 hours. So that's 105 one-way trips. Multiple by three trains running and we get 315 one way trips

Let's say that every train trip has exactly 140 people on it, with everyone starting at Union Station and ending at the River Market and another batch at the river market for Union Station, no one gets off at any stop until the end, then they leave the train all nearly instantly without delay. And then the same number of people are ready to head back. No one makes more than a single round trip all day, so every trip one direction has unique people from every other.

Thus at any given time there's always 140 people on each train all day. to have the right number of people this logic ends up with the final trip back to the start being empty, since it's an extra trip, so we subtract out 3 full trains worth

That's (630 * 140) - (6 * 140)
= 87920 people. That's close enough to a functional maximum for the line right now that I'll use it.

So now we count the number of public parking spots downtown within three blocks from Main (Central to McGee). for the sake of argument assume they're all empty to begin with, that every spot possible is filled, and we don't care how or why someone goes to either end, it works out. they're all excellent walkers and everything is times perfectly.

that's 19573 public spots within three blocks of the line.

if every car contains 4 passengers that's 78292 people

let's say we use every spot downtown. that's 27312 spots. * 4 = 109248 people. well over the train capacity

let's say we use the national average of 1.3 passengers per car instead. that's 35505 people daily. that's 40% the mathematical maximum. if that happened every day that's 12.9 million riders yearly.

that's 13.2x higher than the expected daily ridership in the first year. if at the projected numbers every rider every day of the year drove, parked in a garage, had 1.3 passengers in their car that we only need 2069 spots for the streetcar on average. so just what's on those three maps is 25,000 more spots than we need for a perfect park and ride storm

And realise we haven't got to on street parking, new parking opening for use, using crown center, or opening up private lots and garages for parking.

We would need to take the streetcar system to it's mathematical maximum capacity for an entire 14 hour shift to get to 80% of the downtown public parking capacity based on a well above average number of people peer car.

The realistic train capacity is going to be the limiting factor for a long time. We would be talking about buying more trains before we get to 10% of our downtown parking capacity

[DaveKCMO]

wednesday's editorial: http://www.kansascity.com/opinion/edito ... 00028.html

City officials have made a compelling case that it makes sense to not just install the rail lines now but also to replace old water and sewer lines where needed. This is a smart and effective way to repair basic assets that serve tens of thousands of people. Taxpayers frequently say they want their money spent on public infrastructure; the streetcar project is helping do just that by making 100-year investments in modern pipes.

[WinchesterMysteryHouse]

The calculus of convenience.

[flyingember]

New record for hypocritical.

Sue Burke, who filed the lawsuit delaying construction, has now complained construction didn't start when promised.

[loftguy]

New record for hypocritical.

Sue Burke, who filed the lawsuit delaying construction, has now complained construction didn't start when promised.

When the streetcar makes its inaugural run, can we please tie her to the tracks?

[chaglang]

New record for hypocritical.

Sue Burke, who filed the lawsuit delaying construction, has now complained construction didn't start when promised.

I'd like to complain that she didn't move to Kansas as promised.

[flyingember]

need to get back out for my roughly weekly to biweekly photos of the area, but the webcam confirms Delaware is being "realigned" (parking changing sides) to allow for a two-way conversion in the future

a great choice

[DaveKCMO]

need to get back out for my roughly weekly to biweekly photos of the area, but the webcam confirms Delaware is being "realigned" (parking changing sides) to allow for a two-way conversion in the future

a great choice

as a result, the angled parking will be shifted to the east curb as "back-in" (like in the crossroads and westport).

[rxlexi]

Streetcar station design revealed in Biz Journal:

http://www.bizjournals.com/kansascity/n ... -stop.html

I like it. Clean, modern, bright. Hope to see some attractive public art along the line as well (1% For Art program).

[Pork Chop]

You forget the casino. If the track could be extended to Berkley Riverfront Park at least to the Isle of Capri casino, you might be able to collect some type of additional revenue for the construction from the casino, which would benefit from having a streetcar from downtown hotels to their facility. This would be a benefit for them, that the other casinos don't have.

i suggested this exact thing. isle of capri continually ranks at or near the bottom, so this would give them a direct connection to downtown and the resulting convention business. their site isn't a complete nightmare for pedestrians like most of the others. it's an easy walk from the river market (once you contend with that awful grand viaduct).

FWIW, st. louis has a casino that's a few blocks from a metrolink stop.

I drove down there this morning (yes the public transportation gods just blotted me out of their good book) and to me it would be better to make the old road ( I do not recall the name) that ran through there (between the park and the area slated for new development) and shut it down for private vehicles. Leave Grand as the way for vehicles to access the new development and allow the old road to be for the streetcar, bikes and pedestrian access for both the park and the development. I don't think that will the allow the line to go directly to the Isle of Capri (unless the line curves to the left and then goes under the Bond Bridge), but it get people close enough to walk the rest of the way.

Of course, I believe there would be the expense of redoing Grand viaduct as you have said (in addition to the expansion of the streetcar through the park) to allow for bikes, peds, streetcar and vehicles, but as other folks have been saying; it would make a great connection from the River Market to the park and as you have said as well, to the casino.