KCMO Downtown Streetcar

[bobbyhawks]

Street car technology WILL NOT WORK as the spine and distrubution system for all of the central urban corridor of KCMO.

They will be no better than the current MAX buses, actually, they would probably be much slower.

Does anybody in KC have any freaking idea what they are doing when it comes to transit?

Streetcars are an awesome way to connect areas.  KU Med to Plaza / UMKC.  Brookside to Plaza, West Side to 18th and Vine.  Hyde Park to South Plaza etc.

Real BRT or Light Rail is needed at the terminus of the commuter rail lines.

Agreed.  It wouldn't be the end of the world to have a downtown streetcar circular (River to Crown), but we would still need a proper transit spine with better speed involved.  I don't think a streetcar kills the need or expectation for an upgrade to the major people movers.

[trailerkid]

why do we need circular routes? why not just use frequent linear lines as others suggested along Grand, Holmes, Oak, Main, Wyandotte, Broadway, 18th/SW Blvd, 12th, 3rd?

[KC Sporting Life]

http://urbanstl.com/index.php?option=co ... &Itemid=11

U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood announced more than $290M in “New Transit Solutions and Economic Development” grants today. The competitive grant process received 65 applications totaling $1B. The $25M award earned by the St. Louis Loop Trolley Project was the largest award possible.

The trolley was described this way by the Federal Transit Administration:

The City of St. Louis will build a two-mile, nine-stop urban streetcar route. This catalyst project would connect a neighborhood in need of revitalization with a thriving college village and a major regional destination. The circulator route would connect University City, Forest Park and the City of St. Louis together and tie into an existing light rail line

Anyone know if KC applied for one of these grants?

[KCMax]

Other winners:

http://www.fta.dot.gov/news/news_events_11820.html

Project: Johnson County Transit  Maintenance Facility Improvement (Bus and Bus Livability)
Sponsor: Kansas City Area Transportation Authority (KCATA)
Amount: $374,150

Johnson County Area Transit Authority will expand the Murray L. Nolte Transit Center in Olathe, Kansas to accommodate its expanding fleet. The facility is approaching 10 years old and has outgrown the capacity to adequately maintain its current fleet of more than 100 vehicles.

Project: Bus Stop & Access Improvement Program (Bus and Bus Livability)
Sponsor: Kansas City Area Transportation Authority (KCATA)
Amount: $250,000

KCATA will upgrade bus stops and pedestrian access at key transit  intersections in the urban core of  Kansas City, Missouri.  This includes upgrading bus stops with new passenger shelters and benches; repairing and installing concrete pad passenger waiting areas; adding sidewalk between the stops; adding ADA-accessible ramps at the intersections and constructing in-street concrete bus pads and related curbing.  Many of these high-volume transit stops critically need repair and new, complementary pedestrian improvements.

[nilsson1941]

http://urbanstl.com/index.php?option=co ... &Itemid=11




Anyone know if KC applied for one of these grants?

Pretty awesome STL got this money. Kind of sad KC can't do the same.

[bobbyhawks]

why do we need circular routes? why not just use frequent linear lines as others suggested along Grand, Holmes, Oak, Main, Wyandotte, Broadway, 18th/SW Blvd, 12th, 3rd?

I'd be fine with anything at this point.  I just said circular because I thought it might be cheapest with the most coverage. 

Ideally, though, we get the first stages of upgradeable routes as you suggest above, but we need to somewhat agree on what the spine will look like first.  It would be nifty if we had lines that could come in as commuter trains and transition to street-level without a transfer.  I can imagine a Legends to Plaza through Union Station, or P&L to Kauffman through Union Station line.  That would be pretty amazing, actually.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tram-train

[FangKC]

KCATA gets $750K from Feds

http://www.bizjournals.com/kansascity/s ... a=e_du_pub

[DaveKCMO]

get ready for some public involvement on the downtown streetcar later this year. while nothing is certain, it appears main street could be used if baltimore and walnut are made two-way streets throughout downtown (curb-running, mixed with traffic).

as someone who almost exclusively travels within greater downtown, this would be a big convenience for me: main street MAX route is too convoluted and the remaining bus routes, while more direct, a sprinkled across four arterials (you miss one run and have to run one or two blocks to catch another route).

[Highlander]

get ready for some public involvement on the downtown streetcar later this year. while nothing is certain, it appears main street could be used if baltimore and walnut are made two-way streets throughout downtown (curb-running, mixed with traffic).

as someone who almost exclusively travels within greater downtown, this would be a big convenience for me: main street MAX route is too convoluted and the remaining bus routes, while more direct, a sprinkled across four arterials (you miss one run and have to run one or two blocks to catch another route).

Not that they should matter, but would Cordish be more open to a street car route through the district than they were towards light rail?

[DaveKCMO]

Not that they should matter, but would Cordish be more open to a street car route through the district than they were towards light rail?

no clue, but i think light rail was more focused on using grand -- due to the wider ROW -- which upset cordish because they have the right to close that street to traffic on a regular basis. they do not have that same privilege with main street. if anything, they'll piss and moan about the loss of the "temporary" on-street parking the city granted them on main between truman and 12th.

that parking will have to go, btw. it was a mistake to have ever offered it up.

[KCMax]

Collison:  A dose of rail reality for KC 

Included in a $1.8 million federal grant awarded last month to Jackson County was $540,000 to study a two-mile streetcar line from Crown Center to the River Market.

It may not be light-rail nirvana, but Kansas City Councilman Russ Johnson believes it?s very feasible.

?I wouldn?t be working on it if it wasn?t something we could actually do,? he said. ?This is the consensus idea on how to actually do fixed rail on an intra-city basis.

?We?re very serious about it. It was a matter of finding the first dollars, and now we?ve found them.?

[smh]

Collison:  A dose of rail reality for KC   

This is the key phrase that gets me excited: Should the decision be made to move forward, a streetcar line between Crown Center and the River Market could be running in 18 months.


Do I think it will happen that quickly? No, but I'm just happy to see that someone is actively thinking/working on it other than Goober McGoobington.

[chingon]

please pause for the following obligatory KC little "big idea" reactionary recitation:

"boondoggle"

[DaveKCMO]

it could happen in 18 months with local funding. it's the federal new starts process that drags these projects out forever.

the locally-funded start of portland's streetcar took a little over two years.

http://www.portlandstreetcar.org/node/33

[KCPowercat]

Now we all ask.....what can "I" do to help Dave? 

[DaveKCMO]

Now we all ask.....what can "I" do to help Dave? 

council@kcmo.org

...and ask for a local-only funding source. also, attend the RTA's jan. 25 mayoral forum and show jim rowland that it's still an important issue to voters.

that's about all there is to do right now.

[Stockton]

I think if this thing gets built and people actually see it and ride it, they'll be clamoring for it to go all the way to the Plaza. Would be cool if NKC stepped up to be a part of it from the start.

[justin8216]

I'll have to say I really like the sound of this. It's too bad we have to start from scratch because Kansas City once had an extensive street car network going all the way out to the surrounding communities of Kansas City.

The street car networks were bought up all across America by the automobile companies who then intentionally ran them out of business so they could sell more cars. A shame. But sadly that is how our way of unregulated capitalism works.

I favor the Grand Ave route over Main St.

Main St already has the Max Bus as does Troost now, so it would be a duplication. And Grand Ave is the epicenter of Sprint Center, The Power and Light District as well as the Crown Center Office Park and Food Court. It just makes the most sense for a starter streetcar line.

Can KCMO get their heads out of their collective ass long enough to get something as a simple and relatively low cost as a street car line off the ground?

That remains to be seen.

[trailerkid]

Just to play devil's advocate...wouldn't a Midtown/Plaza streetcar make more sense initially than downtown just based on population alone? Although I'm sure a streetcar would make downtown a more attractive residential neighborhood, the residential population down there is still quite anemic. It'd be incredible for downtown workers and tourists on the plus side.

[Stockton]

Main St ties in with Sanders commuter rail plan. I believe it was said the track was to be able to be easily upgraded to lightrail. Sounds almost like a ploy to get lightrail started.