Posted on 10/17/2009 10:47:41 AM PDT by Willie Green
Eastern Jackson County, MO — Jackson County Executive Mike Sanders says his $1.03 billion commuter rail proposal is a uniquely Kansas City solution for Kansas City’s unique situation.
“It has the potential to transform the greater Kansas City area in the span of two years,” he says.
Our fair metro is often described as the second busiest rail hub in the country. That means we have lots of trains using lots of tracks – but there are also many miles of unused or underused tracks.
Jim Terry, who worked for the Union Pacific for 32 years and has been a principal at TransSystems in Kansas City for the last eight years, has been trying to economically put those unused pieces together for years. The result of that effort – free for the county, an estimated $1 million in work done pro bono – is Kansas City Regional Rapid Rail. It would center on Union Station and have half a dozen lines, including ones to Independence, Blue Springs and Lee’s Summit.
Sanders has been lining up local leaders in support of the plan for months and has rolled it out publicly in recent days. He’s hoping for federal economic stimulus funds to build it.
Transformational? Could be. Let’s take a look at The Examiner’s Top 10 quality-of-life and other benefits.
10 Develop the valley.
Independence Mayor Don Reimal makes this point: When the Little Blue River Valley is fully developed – a city study once projected 20,000 new residents – that will put a lot of commuters on 23rd Street and U.S. 24. Something needs to be done, he says, to get some of that traffic of the roads and make the valley an attractive choice. It also would make sense someday to extend the Independence line to Lake City, proponents say.
9 Let your old college roommate take the train from the airport.
Planners say you could go from Blue Springs to Kansas City City International Airport in about 40 minutes for about $3. “And I’m going to let you off at the front door,” says Terry. Who doesn’t like that? Let’s compare with the current setup: Mary’s plane lands at 10, so you leave at 9, drive, park, find Mary, find her bags, schlep everything to the car, and drive back to the house. There’s two hours of your life you’ll never get back. Repeat the process in reverse a couple of days later. Or you could just tell Mary you’ll meet her at the station – in Blue Springs. That’s what they do in other big cities.
8 The Katy.
The Katy Trail is one of the state’s treasures, more than 200 miles of bike-and-hike trails from Clinton, Mo., to St. Charles. It’s a great way to see and experience the state. They’re at last working on running up from Warsaw to the doorstep of Kansas City, and then they want to go up through Lee’s Summit to the Liberty Memorial and even St. Joseph. This plan would really help, officials say. The railroads have 100-foot rights of way, and carving out 15 feet to one side – with a stout fence between trails and rails – is logical, safe and relatively easy.
7 Another Chili’s!
Remember all that development that was going to happen around the Truman Sports Complex when they planned it – in the ’60s? Look at Chicago, Minneapolis and St. Louis. They have stadiums and arenas surrounded by restaurants, bars, shops – even whole downtowns. What do we have? Three hotels, a Denny’s, a couple of gas stations and a car plant that’s been dead for a generation, but that could change. “You’ve got the same opportunity here that you have at the Legends,” Terry said.
6 Branson?
Yeah, Branson. Or Tulsa, Lawrence or Omaha. Planners point out that the rails are there and largely underused. This system could someday hook up with those rail links. Hop aboard, and you’re yukking it up with Yakov Smirnoff in no time.You can already go from Independence to St. Louis on Amtrak, and, to be fair, it’s been doing a much better job of running on time. Once there, you can take the St. Louis light rail system. The Kansas City planners dismiss light rail as not nearly as cool or utilitarian as this heavy-rail system. So that’s something else to brag about in the Kansas City versus St. Louis thing, if you’re into that.
5 Fight the blight.
Look at three proposed stops: the old Kmart in Blue Springs, the former Perkins – now leveled – at Noland and Partridge in Independence, and the dead carwash on 23rd Street near Crysler. Add some daily foot traffic, and maybe a coffee shop suddenly makes sense. The Kansas City Regional Rapid Rail lines in many places run through some of the more run-down, decommercialized parts of town. The experience of other cities suggests that can be turned around.
4 Tie in some buses.
Independence officials have in the past talked about bus service within the shopping and entertainment area of southeast Independence – basically Centerpoint Medical Center to Costco to Bass Pro to Target. You could park somewhere out there and do all of your Christmas shopping, riding from store to store instead of driving and parking and driving and parking. The commuter rail system, which has a proposed stop at 39th Street and Little Blue Parkway, is designed to tie into bus or streetcar systems just like that. Downtown Kansas City would have the same thing. Ditto for the Legends, Zona Rosa, elsewhere.
3 Last call!
Suppose you and significant other want a night on the town in the Power & Light District – with a cocktail. Suppose you want a beer and a brat at the ballgame. How many times do you pass on the booze because, alas, someone has to drive? (Besides, have you seen what they charge for parking at Power & Light – not to mention the taxpayer-owned acres of asphalt at the stadiums?) Ride the train. Enjoy a cold one as the Chiefs drive for the winning touchdown over the Broncos. (Wait, that’s part of a different plan.)
2 Lofty goals.
Blue Springs Mayor Carson Ross is emphatic: He really likes the plan, and he really wants a stop downtown. Why? Lofts. People living in lofts – and enjoying ready access to cultural attractions across the metro – are a key part of the city’s plans to revitalize downtown. Come to think of it, one proposed stop in Independence is just a couple of blocks downhill from the Square and its lofts. And Grain Valley, anyone?
1 The 9-to-5.
OK, we’ll go with the proponents on this one. The No. 1 focus isn’t tourists or the Plaza. It’s getting up and going to work. It’s getting cars off our increasingly crowded highways, which eases nerves and dirties the air a little less. Besides, you can put that 20 to 30 minutes each way, each day to good use. You could read a book. Or listen to tapes and learn French. You could text a friend, put on lipstick, flip through iPod options and sip coffee all at once – kind of like driving, minus that pesky steering wheel
Another taxpayer funded boondoggle.
Just what the people need... another money pit.
Willie never met a black hole, money-pit rail ‘project’ he didn’t tout. Last time I heard, he was still all for St. Louis’ Metroklunk (which we subsidise to the tune of $1.79) and Houston’s infamous Wham-Bam Tram (ask Xenalyte for great stories about that **literal** trainwreck...).
That’s $1.79 PER RIDE, sorry for the omission.
In my opinion, if it needs subsidized (especially forever) its not good for the economy but a drain.
Name for us three commuter rail systems in the nation that pay for themselves with out perpetual tax payer subsidies?
And # 1 ...
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1. You're the Governor in line for kickbacks from the rail construction company.
ML/NJ
Curious if Marxist Willie here just has a train fetish or if he is in the pay of the PR agencies hired by the Unions to push these fiscal fiasco.
My own experience with the Washington, DC Metro is that the folks foisting this crap on us promise us twice or three times what we get for about 20% of the eventual cost.
I’m old enough to remember that we were promised that the Washington Metro would almost instantly achieve ridership of over a million folks a day. It struggles at half that level. I’m also old enough to remember that we were promised that fares would pay all operating costs on an on-going basis - the project just needed tax money for the capital investments. The operating costs now far outstrip any capital costs, and require serious taxpayer support.
I suspect that this project in Kansas City is supported by the same sorts of lies.
And you are exactly right, of course. Too bad the bloody pols can’t figure out this very simple point.
Or, as Toby Keith might put it:
''In grab-ankle position,
''With drool on mah chin,
''I broke down and rode trains with Willie again.''
If conservatives ever wonder why they lost the last election just look at these completely doltish responses. How many more millions of square miles of good land are we supposed to pave over with suburban strip mall blight, with 8 way traffic light systems every .1 miles, all subsidized by cheap oil all subsidized by the most expensive defense establishment on the face of the earth.
Even worse is the notion that Americans cannot do anything competently. Of course that is what comes from a system where we all believe investment bankers shuffling pieces of paper around is the height of economic achievement. Once you start from that lowly peak there is not much further downward to slide into the swamp of dispond where everyone seems happy to wallow.
Just what the people need... another money pit.
There's not much we can do about it.
The previous administration made sure that we could never buy an SUV from GM or Chrysler again.
Cheney: Bush Shouldn't Have Bailed Out GM
I’m old enough to remember that we were promised that the Washington Metro would almost instantly achieve ridership of over a million folks a day. It struggles at half that level.
You can't fool me on that one.
I lived/worked in Frederick Md back in the '80s.
Only a fool would fight that DC Beltway rush hour traffic when they didn't have to.
You got it! The pols flock to building trains like flys flock to (@*$). They always end up taxpayer subsidized. Building railroad lines is one area I am pure free market. If there was a market for trains someone would fill the need. It should be a criminal offense for a pol to even mention trains.
I wish. But then again, I avoid patronizing any company that employs unions to begin with. I'd rather buy stuff made in China than anything made by anyone in a union.
I'd rather buy stuff made in China than anything made by anyone in a union.
You prefer Chicom slaves that have no voice whatsoever???
It figures.
Fool you about what? The Metro first carrying folks over 30 years ago, and the vast majority of folks STILL drive their cars to work.
We were told that once substantially complete, the Metro would carry a million folks a day. That would be TWO MILLION RIDES per day. Only in the last couple of years has it gotten to the 700K-800K rides per day range (and that's after several expansions beyond the original complete system as well as a dramatic expansion of the rolling stock, which Metro is STILL digesting). That's less than half a million folks taking the Metro each day.
“Only a fool would fight that DC Beltway rush hour traffic when they didn't have to.”
That's part of the problem. The Metro was originally designed to take folks from the inner suburbs (predominantly from Maryland) into downtown DC. Two problems with that: the rise of suburb-to-suburb commutes; the rise of the exurbs.
If you live in Frederick, you're quite some distance from a Metro station. I live near Annapolis, and it's a long bus ride to the nearest station in NEW CARROLLTON!! In the early 90s, I lived in College Park and had to commute to Tysons Corner. As ugly as that trip was - usually on the order of about an hour, sometimes longer - I could easily drive it in less time than taking the subway all the way downtown and then having to switch lines to get all the way out to Tysons Corner.
And you still said nothing about my main points - that we were lied to both about ridership AND costs, especially operating costs.
I suspect that the same lies are being told about this Kansas City project.
sitetest
I lived/worked in Frederick Md back in the '80s. Only a fool would fight that DC Beltway rush hour traffic when they didn't have to.
The DC Metro was a pretty cool system.
It didn't come all the way out to Frederick, so I usually hopped aboard at one of the Park 'n Rides they had along I-270.
Then somewhere along the route, it plunged underground to become a subway.
IIRC, I had to make a transfer to a different line (it was easy because of the color coded maps), but the wait was short and the underground station looked Cool! like Star Wars or something.
Anyway, the second line took me to "The Mall" where we emerged close to the Washington Monument and could see all the other monuments in all their glory.
Boy was that an impressive sight!!!
Anytime I had out-of-town visitors, that's the way I took 'em to show them DC.
It was a LOT easier than battling traffic and trying to find parking.
Another cool thing... the DC Metro was the first place I ever encountered those little cardboard "tickets" with the magnetic strip. Just walk up to a "vending machine" and you could "add money" to the magnetic strip, and then the Metro would deduct whatever it needed for the fare. Much more convenient than fumbling with tokens/coins/coin-changers etc. etc. etc. It was really a high-tech marvel at the time.
But I moved away from there in '88~'89 or so. And I've always been a little irked that our representatives and legislators provide for their own commuting needs ahead of those of us who live in the rest of the country.
None of them voted for or donated a ton of money to Democrats.
Only in the last couple of years has it gotten to the 700K-800K rides per day range
That's quite a few people.
Would you prefer that they all jump in their cars and travel the same road that YOU take every day?
Be thankful for Metro. Without it, traffic would be a lot worse than it already is.
“That's quite a few people.”
It's still less than half of what the liars promised. At several times the costs that we were promised. You're okay with government lying to you?
With the money we'd have saved over the decades if we didn't have the Metro, we could have built the outer beltway (both sides), I-95 through DC, the ICC, and any number of other roads that would have accommodated way more than an extra 400,000 folks a day.
sitetest
None of them voted for or donated a ton of money to Democrats.
Well if Chicoms aren't funneling money to the Democrats,
what Party do you think is taking it instead???
You're okay with government lying to you?
I'm not naive enough to think that it will ever stop.
So I ignore the lies and read between the lines and use my own judgement.
But it was based on those lies that the citizenry in this region accepted the mass transit system put forth to them in the late 1960s that eventually became the Metro and its supporting parts.
And those lies have caused us incalculable financial damage, sapping funding that could have been used to build more and better roads.
The Metro was supposed to offer commuting salvation with 101 miles of track. We're at 106 miles currently with plans to build dozens more miles, and we're nowhere near where we were told we would be, and a multiple of the cost that we were promised.
“So I ignore the lies and read between the lines and use my own judgement.”
So then, reading between the lines, with regard to this proposed Kansas City system, how much will it deliver? 20% of what's promised? 40%? 50%? And at what cost? Twice what is proposed? Three times? More?
The Metro is a pretty neat toy, but it isn't a net contributor to our commuting solutions.
sitetest
Right. I think we need to keep government out of everything but defense and a few tiny other things, especially the federal government.
The train is going to stop at your front door?
More likely it will deliver you still drunk to your car where it's parked at a satellite station.
The NY system was a privately owned system for a long time, rides were a nickel.
The insane thing is that downtown NYC can’t have everyone in a car, its far too crowded as it is. NYC is the most over-managed city with rent control and all that and its just not sustainable.
Nor in London, nor Paris, nor Rome, nor Tokyo. Cities are, however, entirely sustainable for very good economic reasons, the theory for which Krugman justifiably won the Nobel Prize in economics, a theory he developed before he leaped off the cliff into the despond of mindless liberate punditry. Sad case really. Somewhat like the brilliant but insane Nash.
Having been a Bay Area (SFO) native and user of the HIGH SPEED BART system in the past and presently a KC resident, I observe that slow speed rail as proposed here is DOA. If commuters here in KC wanted to commute slow speed they’d use the bus system. Few do. KC is a a geograpically widely-spread city with a collar of suburbs. The distance from the far SE to the far NW (KCI Airport) is a distance no one would want to travel by slow-speed rail.
The populace has chosen to commute by car. Those that desire we change our driving habits, need but get their asses out of the city center and realize that the tax-paying residents live elsewhere for good reason.
Slow-speed rail wont enliven a city suffering the same cultural decay bullet points as other afflicted cities. Those that will find jobs and be producers and not looters will find jobs regardless. Those that will suck off the teat will continue to do so until the teat dries-up and shrivels and they move on. (Amazingly without scrip or repast) I’d like to see a high-speed rail system paralleling the interstate corridors here but it’ll come when the residents themselves decide it is time, and not some outsider (Are you reading this Clay?) with some vindictive agenda.
Ugh. Living in Stockholm and relying on public transportation, all I can say is blech! Not my idea of living....When I get home, I will never step foot on a train or subway again.
Move to France like y’all promised 8 years ago. They got plenty of trains. LOSER!
Good memory VW, I had forgotten.
And when are the unions not funneling money to the Democrats.
You mean like the interstate highway system? When's the last time that boondoggle turned a profit!
exactly.
Ask the Texas-OU fans that took the train to the Cotton Bowl what they think of Dallas’ rail system.
Sheesh, they’re still pushing that light rail crap around Kansas City?
Liberals do love their little taxpayer funded trains sets!
Here we go again.
They're going to get built anyway, no matter what the GOP does.
Not all of them, of course, but enough of them that it would be wise to be a constructive influence on what gets picked and what doesn't.
Still pushing 17th century transportation?
I don’t give a damn if the welfare cases and illegal aliens have to walk, i’m not willing to spend one cent to provide them transportation.
Less than 500 miles it isn’t even practicle to take a plane, it doesn’t go from where you are to where you are going and you have to rent a car at the other end.
No, i’m not going to walk a block to go anywhere, i’m going to drive!!!!
“Only a fool would fight that DC Beltway rush hour traffic when they didn’t have to.”
Wrong, only a fool would get on any form of public transportation.
I wouldn’t get on a train or a bus if it was free.
Still pushing 17th century transportation?
"Railways" can actually be traced to the Roman period, when wagons and carts were guided by grooves cut into the rock.
After the fall of the Empire, wooden rails often served a similar purpose throughout Europe.
But "modern" Railroads are actually a 19th Century invention, not 17th Century. And coincide with the Steam Age and Industrial Revolution.
It's an interesting history, dale.
You should read up on it.
Then, perhaps, you wouldn't be so misinformed in your judgement.
In the WDC area the Metro system (rail & buses)is praised by the mass transportation crowd. However, it is heavily subsidized, crowded and inconvenient. In Montgomery county the public has owned a right-of-way for I-370 for over 50 (yes...50) years while it has sat undeveloped. Neighbors have complained that should be not built now because it is parkland! Now they are finally developing it and it will be an expensive toll road (maybe 10’s of dollars a trip)because it will cost so much (maybe it you morons hadn’t delayed it with 100’s of environmental studies and so forth it wouldn’t have cost so much). The philosophy is to NOT build roads so people will be forced to use the crummmy mass transportation modes. What a bad joke!
In the WDC area the Metro system (rail & buses)is praised by the mass transportation crowd. However, it is heavily subsidized, crowded and inconvenient. In Montgomery county the public has owned a right-of-way for I-370 for over 50 (yes...50) years while it has sat undeveloped. Neighbors have complained that should be not built now because it is parkland! Now they are finally developing it and it will be an expensive toll road (maybe 10’s of dollars a trip)because it will cost so much (maybe it you morons hadn’t delayed it with 100’s of environmental studies and so forth it wouldn’t have cost so much). The philosophy is to NOT build roads so people will be forced to use the crummmy mass transportation modes. What a bad joke!
Do you really want 500,000 extra drivers on the Beltway during rush hour?
bttt
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