Apr

25

Missouri can go it alone on transit

April 25, 2006 | 18 Comments

Despite overwhelming support in public opinion polls, the proposal for regional transit funding is languishing in the Kansas Legislature. Now the Missouri General Assembly has modified its bill to allow the Missouri-side counties to go it alone.

This would advance the Smart Moves plan to a public vote. If approved, it would dramatically expand the bus system, add several more MAX rapid bus lines, introduce express service between suburbs, begin commuter rail in the I-70 corridor, and prepare more rail in the US 350/50 corridor..

Hopefully the momentum will encourage Kansas to join at a later date. Wtih 40% of the metro population and 30% of the jobs, their participation is important for us to realize our full potential.

Categories: Bistate, Politics, Transportation


Comments

18 Comments so far

  1. DaveKCMO on April 25, 2006 6:13 am

    oh, this makes me so angry! especially since there is plenty of public support in the two main kansas counties. so much for representational democracy in action.

    with no major airports, virtually no passenger train service, and more paved highway miles per capita than most other states, kansas will really be a loser when gas prices hit $5 per gallon. the JO’s current service level only further represents the importance of mass transit in the state.

  2. BKS on April 25, 2006 7:23 am

    This is great news!! We’ve been dicking around for too long and really need to move forward. Even if it’s just the Missouri-side, it’s still most of the metro area.

    Still, itt would be nice to have transit service to Joco’s office parks. I do hope they get on board once they see it working in the rest of the region.

  3. Hajkar on April 25, 2006 7:25 am

    I agree. It is long past time that a metro wide mass transit sytem were in place. Let us hope that MO can get the ball rolling and help drag KS out of the stone-age as far as transit is concerned.

  4. Derek on April 25, 2006 8:08 am

    If the Metro served Edwardsville, I would take it, but I have to drive 25 miles to work one-way everyday…

    The closest bus stop for me is Village West Parkway and Parallel.

  5. KCWeather on April 25, 2006 8:16 am

    I definately agree with you DaveKCMO. I’d consider riding the JO if there was more than one or two busses a day. I grew up outside of Milwaukee in a community similar to Olathe (was a seperate city until the metro swallowed it). It’s has had incredible inter-city bus service for years with hourly service that covered most of the neighborhoods in the city. We can dream huh?

    I see three potential problems though…

    1. No one in Kansas outside of those in JOCO, and WYCO would benefit from this. When 85% of the voting parties in the state legistature are not effected, it’s a difficult sell.
    2. Many parts of Johnson county are rich enough that large percentages of the population would never consider mass transit. Sad… but probably a generalization that would hold true for many.
    3. Light rail, while sounding good, may not work for KC because the downtown district continues to loose companies to JOCO. In most cities where light rail has taken off, the cities have a thriving downtown. Really need a thriving business/entertainment district (at least more than what we have now).

  6. BKS on April 25, 2006 8:23 am

    KCWeather must not have been Downtown lately. It’s the hottest real estate market in the Midwest, and contrary to conventional wisdom is actually starting to attract companies back from Joco.

    It’s not just about rich people in Joco taking the bus, it’s also about workers having access to jobs in Joco. If you want someone to serve your hamburgers or clean our office parks, you have to provide a way for minorities to reach you from the urban core.

  7. BlogKC on April 25, 2006 8:28 am

    Derek,

    The Metro only serves the cities that contract with it to provide bus service. KCMO pays for it’s Metro contract with dedicated transit sales tax. Other cities like Independence or Blue Springs pay for it out of their general fund.

    If Edwardsville wants bus service then your city council needs to allocate money to pay for it.

    This is the whole point of regional funding – a single tax to pay for service across the whole region, instead of a hodge-podge of taxes and services. Under this idea Edwardsville wouldn’t have to pay for bus service on its own, since it would be part of the regional system.

  8. KCWeather on April 25, 2006 8:32 am

    My point was that downtown is not where it needs to be right now to attract a CENTRALIZING mass transit system. Is downtown improving? Absolutely! But as it stands right now, the KC business distribution has a much broader scope than than many cities that have light rail.

  9. busrider on April 25, 2006 9:01 am

    To those of you who live in JoCo and support more transit: if you haven’t contacted your mayor (council too wouldn’t hurt) to voice your desire for transit in the county, please do so. It doesn’t do as much good for people outside the area to contact them. The mayors are a big factor in this for Kansas, not just the state legislators. If you have already contacted your mayor–maybe do so again in relation to this article.

  10. matt on April 25, 2006 9:10 am

    light rail actually encourages development, especially downtown. if you want to see downtowns potential realized, you must have light rail FIRST and not as an after thought. you need only go to our peer city denver to see this happening.

  11. Derek on April 25, 2006 11:18 am

    I see your point. Yeah, a regional fund of some kind would work in our favor.

    Admittedly, I don’t follow the events in our city council, so I couldn’t tell you what’s going on.

  12. Derek on April 25, 2006 11:21 am

    While a light-rail system would be nice, but where would one be put?

    I fail to see how and where lines can be put in parts of the Metro. I don’t know… some cooperation between Amtrak or the various freight lines. That’s the main problem I have with light rail in the metro.

  13. matt on April 25, 2006 11:53 am

    derek-
    light rail doesnt run on heavy rail tracks, that would be commuter rail, which yes, there are problems from what i hear concerning cooperation.

  14. BlogKC on April 25, 2006 12:34 pm

    Light rail runs on tracks in city streets. It’s just a new name for the trolleys and street cars that we used to have all over KC. It’s much different from heavy rail (a.k.a commuter rail), is a real train running on real railroad tracks.

    In the US, passenger rail (either commuter rail or intercity Amtrak) has been reduced to renting tracks from the freight lines. That means they have to share track have limited capacity to expand.

    In KC we are especially challenged because our tracks are already filled to capacity with freight traffic. In fact, the I-70 commuter rail will probably have no choice but to use track that ends at the River Market – because there is no capacity available on the tracks approaching Union Station.

    Actually, any kind of commuter rail at Union Station is doubtful. It only has one passenger track left, for Amtrak. The others were torn up to build the Science City addition. So there isn’t really any place for more passenger trains to park.

  15. Derek on April 25, 2006 2:35 pm

    Thank you for clearing that up.

  16. Chris on April 26, 2006 9:24 am

    Has anyone else read about the serious labor shortage out at the Legends in western WyCo? Yet there is only very limited bus access to the area. If you worked there at an upscale shop for “downscale” wages, you would spend a lot of your money on gas. Probably wouldn’t be worth it.

  17. Larry Thrasher on April 28, 2006 5:09 pm

    Kansas City does not have enought people to support transit because of leap frog development. With $60 million cast per mile and only 20,000 riders the cost to tax payers would be far to high. So Derek,Matt, Chris and KCWeather how much do you ride the bus?

  18. Dave on May 24, 2006 7:50 pm

    Well I live in Johnson County and have been a huge supporter of light rail. I know there is bus service, but I don’t have any desire to ride a bus. If light rail would a reality in KC I would ride it! I think it would be awesome if there would be light rail along I-35 South through JoCo, along I-70 East with stops at the stadium for sure, and track up to the airport. I know this is alot but that would be a great way to link our city together. You also don’t have to stop there, but I know it’s all about money, but I would definatly vote YES if it came up for a vote. Also, KC can support a light rail system. If you look at smaller cities in the U.S. it has done well. St. Louis which is just a little bigger than KC (in population) has done very well. It CAN work because if it could not then state officals would not be considering this at all.

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