Hey, let’s talk streetcars.
And I’m not talking “toy train,” “streetcar to nowhere” or any of the other sarcastic appellations I’ve heard it called.
I’m really looking forward to the addition of the two-mile route downtown, and I think it’s good that city officials are already laying plans to expand the system. Like the first phase, subsequent phases would be financed largely by one-cent-sales-tax increases in the streetcar districts — provided voters approve the increases. (And I think they will because almost everyone in the districts would stand to benefit directly or indirectly.)
I think the streetcar is going to be a big hit.
Here’s my reasoning:
First, the price is going to be right — absolutely free. Very smart move by the planners.
Second, Downtown is growing fast, both as an entertainment district and as a place to live. You think the Power & Light and Crossroads district partiers aren’t going to like this?
Third, this is nothing like a damn trolley car — the red and green motorized vehicles we have seen trolling around Westport and a few other places in the summertime. City officials are promising “sleek, modern” streetcars that should look something like the model that was parked outside Union Station a year or so ago. (Below.)
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Now, if you’re looking for a speedy way to get around downtown, this isn’t it. In the district under construction now — from the River Market to Union Station, the streetcar is going to stop every two or three blocks. A lot of people will be getting on and off.
But while it’s not a speed demon, the fact that it’s going to carry a lot of people — that much, I guarantee — is going to have at least one big, big plus: The more riders there are, the safer the streetcar will be. On the bus — the Area Transportation Authority — people are always worried, with good reason, if the person next to them is either wacko or carrying a weapon or both.
We all know this: The bus sucks. It’s loud and obnoxious (on the streetcar you’re going to feel like you’re in church during Lent) and has no redeeming, intrinsic value, other than that it beats walking. It’s essentially a cattle car. Plus, it costs a buck fifty to ride the damn thing, and if you don’t have the exact change, you’re screwed. Which is ridiculous.
Before we turn to expansion, I’d like you to take a look at the downtown route, which is slated to be completed in the summer of next year.
Using the core of downtown, it lays the foundation for following the “spine” of Kansas City out to the Plaza, Brookside and Waldo — all the way out to 85th Street, ideally.
This is not for the suburbanites, especially the Kansans. Actually, I don’t give a shit about the Kansans. The only thing they’ve ever helped us with, here in the city, is Union Station renovation.
So the Kansans — those whose eyes don’t bulge and hands don’t tremble at the prospect of coming “into downtown” — can keep driving their giant SUVs out to Blue Valley and back. They need to just stay off Main Street and Brookside, where the streetcars will be traveling on fixed rails, powered by overhead wires suspended between poles about 110 feet apart.
Another upside to an expanded streetcar system is that it will help spur the movement “back to the city.” The re-emergence of downtown and the evolution of the Crossroads are luring a lot of people to the heart of the city.
That said, I don’t think light rail (which involves building new rail lines away from existing streets) is viable in Kansas City. I don’t think we have the concentration of population that is needed to make that a success. Plus, as I mentioned before, we’re never going to get the Kansans out of their SUVs.
In addition, I’m skeptical about commuter rail, which would use existing rails owned by companies like Kansas City Southern and Kansas City Terminal Railway.
It appears we don’t have the political leadership and will power that it would take for that to happen…I mean, look at the political nightmare that enveloped us last year:
County Executive Mike Sanders was all for commuter rail, but, then, when Kansas City Southern and Kansas City Terminal Railway balked at the prospect of sharing their rails, even for a nice fee, Sanders back-flipped like a cheerleader. Instead of sticking with it and trying to get a deal, he allowed civic leaders to convince him to switch gears and champion a proposed a half-cent sales tax increase to give St. Luke’s, Children’s Mercy and the UMKC School of Medicine $1 billion for medical research over the next 20 years.
We saw how that ended.
Nope, light rail and commuter rail aren’t going to happen. So, jump aboard, everybody…Long live the streetcar!
JimmyCsays: At the juncture of journalism and daily life in KC 
Hi Jim – Good blog as usual. Glad to see you coming in on the pro side for public transportation. Every so often Kansas City behaves like a real city instead of just of a bunch of quarrelsome and smug villages. I grew up in Prairie Village so can speak with a little authority. Kansas City impersonates a real city every month with First Fridays and a few other events like the Memorial Day concert but that’s about it. I’ve visited real cities with real public transportation and it works so maybe this will work here. It’s not “touristy frou-frou!” You’re right, screw the suburbs. The sooner Kansas City follows it’s own path and quits catering to and emulating the suburban model the better.
Thanks for the vote of confidence, Jimmy! Let me know if you’d like to help make Phase 2 happen!
Well stated, Jim. Ditto on all accounts.
Have you factored in all of the lost revenue that will occur when KCMO’s Revenue Enhancement officers and electronic ticket vendors won’t be able to screw all of the motorists driving in this area?
Also, one could understand if it also went to Crown Center and the Plaza, but no one goes to Union Station now. So who’s going to ride this thing and then have to walk the rest of the way to their real destination, or walk from where people actually are to a place where they aren’t so they can ride this contraption to somewhere else they don’t need to go?
John — Union Station = Crown Center; shops, ice skating, cinema; Halls.
…I have a theory on why Kansas City Southern nixed the plan for commuter rail to use its lines and end at 3rd and Grand. Pressure from Hallmark, which wants the line to end at Union Station.
There’s a long history of collaboration between Hallmark and KCS, including the fact that a former Kansas City Southern c.e.o. named Irv Hockaday Jr. later became c.e.o. at Hallmark. Now retired.
Kansas City Terminal Railway, on the other hand, controls the tracks into Union Station, and they’ve always gone their own way.
OK, I’ll bow to your superior knowledge on this part.
Nice! Enjoyed reading. And you’re spot on about Kansas – they drag us down. Wish Colorado was next door instead!
Well, we would miss out on the Flint Hills, which I’ve grown to appreciate more and more. The prairie grass and the rock-strewn, undulating hills are at once breathtaking and soothing to the soul.
You got us there. I’d sooner go over and bike the Katy Trail over by Columbia than go down to the Flint Hills. Missour is much prettier and more scenic than Kansas, it’s just that your major cities suck.
@ Where are you from John Altevogt? No one goes to Union Station/Science City now? It’s a top KC attraction.
Union Station, Crown Center and Liberty Memorial/WWI Museum are ALL right across the street from each other.
Steve, I live on the Kansas side, drive a Suburban with a 44 gallon fuel tank and a 350 V8 and while I enjoy the downtown area, i have my own downtown area over here in KCK with much the same ambience and I also drive down to the golden ghetto where i don’t have to worry about $40 parking tickets, red light cameras, teen age flash mobs, and revenue enhancement officers trying to mug me for anything the parking tickets and red light cameras left.
I love 18th and Vine, the River Market, Westport, the Plaza and Brookside, and I love the Nelson – Atkins but it’s just not worth the potential hassles to visit places that we in Kansas have more and better of already anyway. Come on over and visit, we don’t expect you to pick up the tab for what we build over here and you’e a lot safer because we value our 2nd Amendment rights to defend ourselves from the thugs of the world.
Oh, and I do occasionally sneak over to Pho KC when I dine with KCMO friends so they don’t suffer from culture shock by crossing the state line, sort of like going from North to South Korea.
THANK YOU. I so agree with this post. I am sooooo sick of answering the question “Where do you live?” and getting a shudder in return. I live in north Waldo, two blocks from Brookside! I spend my off time in Brookside/Waldo, Westport, 39th street, downtown/Crossroads, and I’ve never had a problem or found my surroundings to be unsafe (and believe me, I’m on the lookout for that kind of thing). A close friend lives in Crossroads and gets even more of that reaction. And I’m sick to death of suburbanites—with their uniform beige houses and their SUVs—talking about how awful the city is…then again, maybe we ought to play up that angle so that they stay away. The suburbs exist largely because scared white people fled the city, but they still wanted to live close enough to enjoy the city’s amenities (which they do not pay for), and so as far as I’m concerned, the opinions of those people are worth exactly squat. They ought to stay in their little towns, which are, as far as I can tell, indistinguishable from one another (especially the Kansas suburbs) and full of mostly chain restaurants. I love this city. I love living here. I’m excited about the streetcar. (Truthfully I would have been more excited about something that didn’t share the road with cars, but what can you do.) This is a great time to live in the city and exciting things are happening all over, and I’m really getting tired of the negative talk about KC and the streetcar.
…now if we could only get a fast, efficient ride up to the airport…easily my least favorite thing about living here is that out-of-town family members and friends expect rides to and from, and it really eats up a lot of time.
I live in one of those small Kansas towns, I never eat in chain restaurants, expect people from other states to pay for our amenities and I guarantee you, nothing in my neighborhood looks like a beige suburb. I’ve never felt unsafe in KCMO (and I used to practice late at night at the Mutual Musicians Foundation and go for really late night breakfasts at Chubby’s on Independence before it burned down, but then again, why bother when I have everything i need right here.
I saw that the P&L has gone from costing the taxpayers 14M a year to 20M a year. The flaw in the logic of a Street Car in KC usually is the comparison to other cities and the premise that all cities are the same geographically, demographically etc etc. KC is not Denver. It might be Cincinatti.
Click to access streetcarscam-otoole.pdf
Andrew, glad we are, that you have never found your surroundings usafe here in KC. Some of us have. Even the Mayor had to take evasive action and dive into the bushes in front of the Cheesecake Factory when shots were fired on the Plaza 2 years ago. It’s ok that people don’t want to talk about the rates of violence in our city, but that doesn’t mean they don’t exist. I live in the same area that you do, but I would like to see our streets fixed and more police on the streets. Good stewards of taxpayer cash should focus on the basics in my opinion and not vanity projects that are in no way a sure thing.
Fitz, sorry boss. Just pass the meat and potatoes.
I don’t know where you “saw” that P&L has gone from costing the taxpayers $14 million to $20 million, Chuck, but if you’re talking about the city’s subsidy, it’s still $14 million.
I checked with The Star’s Lynn Horsley, who said that the total annual debt service is $20 million, but Power & Light revenue that goes to the city — from earnings, property and sales taxes — covers $6 million of that, leaving the General Fund subsidy at $14 million.
Lynn also said that if the city refinances, the subsidy could be reduced to $8 million, freeing up $6 million more to go toward the city’s unfunded pension obligations.
So, let’s get on with the refinancing!
Ok.
:)
My mistake!
Jimmy.
Good to see your support for the Brookside expansion of the streetcar. As a neighbor on the other side of the route, I can’t wait. I have seen a flyer opposing reuse of the Trolley Trail, despite that the purchase and stewardship of the property by the ATA was specifically for eventual transit use. Most of the objections in the flyer were problems that good transit would solve such as a “loss of parking”. As a Trolley Trail user for more than 17 years I am confident that the streetcar and a pedestrian trail can and will happily coexist.
Brian Collins
Brian: https://www.facebook.com/streetcarneighbors
Loss of parking? How bogus…I knew you’d be for it, Brian; you’ve always been on the front ranks, pushing for urban progress.
I am all for streetcar, but key questions and policy factors need to be answered before they expand or start on phase II – 1)how to pay for it, without guarantee federal funds and significant city subsidy 2) An additional 1% sales tax and property assessment is unacceptable as well as push Jackson County sales tax higher than Johnson County 3) let’s see phase 1 completed and operational 4) which of the three expansion routes will be built first or is the proposed three routes a dog and pony show to generate support and NOT deliver w/ the Brookside route being the winner? I hear the Broadway /Westport Association meeting on the streetcar expansion did not go well and raised more questions than answers.
“I’m all for streetcar” while throwing up every conceivable obstacle as reason not to support the streetcar.
1) A new transportation development district will provide part of the capital cost and all of the operating cost for all 3 expansions, as well as the capital cost for a MAX line in Prospect. You cannot guarantee federal funds until your local funding is in place (new fiscal reality, sorry). All transportation requires a subsidy, so this one will, too.
2) Sorry, but a sales tax is part of the deal. The Jackson County transit sales tax is dead. Regardless, when they were planning to do it, it would have replaced or reduced the 1% sales tax in the streetcar TDD.
3) Everyone else disagrees. This isn’t some one-off boutique project. Professional engineers and transit planners have designed a federally-vetted project using time-tested methods that will operate completely within the public right-of-way.
4) All expansions would be built at once. Period. “Raise more questions that answers” is a typical fear-uncertainty-doubt ploy by people who claim to support transit investment but really oppose it.