@BlogKCA couple days ago I mentioned that city aviation leaders were scared of light rail because it could cut into parking revenue. That’s a somewhat valid concern since the city will spend the next couple of decades repaying the bonds that were used in part to build the new $40 million, 15,000-space satellite parking lot.
I suppose something had to be done since the old lot was reaching capacity and had no room for expansion. So, as usual, KC’s first instinct was to increase parking. The city made no effort to shift some of the airport’s customers from automobiles to public transportation. Except for one measly bus route, the city has zero strategy for making the airport accessible via public transportation. In the absence of a comprehensive transportation policy, the city just plowed ahead with yet another isolated project only to discover the unintended consequences years later.
This is what happens when your city is run by people who don’t understand cities or urban areas at all, and frankly don’t care to. They are concerned with More! More energy! More gasoline in their status symbol SUVs! More road lanes! More strip malls in the urban core, even if it means tearing down historic urban buildings for swaths of parking lots and big box stores.
And for the most part we let them with only minor resistance from neighborhood groups who then get called out in the suburban-minded Star as being crazy radicals. How bout that.
The irony is that the lure of light rail convenience will attract more convention business. The tax for the Sprint Center is also paid for by hotel rooms and rental cars, leaving only a third of the tax subsidies coming from airport parking. There is no question that modern public transit will help in the long run. Without outside $$$, we pay for everything.
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