@BlogKCThe Star reports that Mayor Funkhouser’s plan for regional light rail got a polite, yet cool reception from metro-area mayors. Some of the big players like Overland Park and Olathe didn’t even bother to show up. Prime Buzz reports that public transportation is far down on the list of priorities for Johnson County cities.
They are still reluctant to pool tax money into a regional system, an attitude that killed the Smart Moves plan a few years ago. Perhaps a model like what is used in St. Louis would be more practical here in Kansas City. In that region, every county levies its own transit tax and is responsible for funding service in that county. The counties forward that money onto a regional transit operator that actually runs the buses and trains. Counties that don’t want to fund transit don’t get service, but it doesn’t hold back the rest of the region.
One thing that was clear in the Clay Chastain light rail election is that the citizens of KCMO are tired of waiting for the suburbs to get on board, so much so that they prefer a bad plan to no plan at all. A model like St. Louis’ would allow KCMO get started building the nucleus of a system, and then allow the suburbs to join in when/if they choose to.
And let’s not forget that the Missouri counties already have the authority to create a regional transit system like the Mayor wants. Even without Kansas, such a system would still cover 60% of the metro population and over half of the region’s employment base.
Is there any real popular desire for light rail in KC now? I get the sense light rail folks have lost momentum with the City Council shenanigans and the lack of an alternative rail plan, viable or not.
Between the economy rapidly cooling down and the looming sewer system overhaul, it’s going to be hard to justify light rail as one of the city’s top priorities.
That’s a plan that makes sense! Enough dicking around with suburbs that don’t really want transit anyway.
Kansas sucks anyway, why involve people who probably have to get on a highway just to go to a grocery store? Does that concept sound remotely visionary? Build it in THE CITY where it will stimulate growth, not in those artificial “communities” where they don’t even have sidewalks and nobody knows what the word pedestrian means. Pretend places like Overland Park and Olathe don’t exist and we can have it all for ourselves. As far as I’m concerned they can just rot (which, ultimately, they will) and we can just focus on building our city up instead of out. We do NOT need their help, cooperation or input, they have NOTHING to offer us. DOUBLE the taxes on people who are getting the benefit of working in the city but don’t live in it. We don’t need the low-paying jobs offered in their endless strip malls, let them take those crappy jobs if they don’t want to pay extra taxes for the privilege of working in the city. Just look at which direction the rush hour traffic flows, and you tell me who’s benefitting from whom.
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A link to this post will be in the February 13, 2008 issue of Regional Community Development News. It will be on-line February 14 at http://regional-communities.blogspot.com/ Please visit, check the tools and consider a link. Tom
As and ex-KCitian and a current Denver resident, I can not speak enough about what light rail does for the city and the outlying communities. When the communitites like those in Jo-Co start to worry about people from the City coming into their neighborhood, they are going to fight the plan. Move ahead without them. These communities will eventually see the benefits other communities reap from the light rail and they will get on the train or get left behind. Disconnected suburbs allow for a bubble like feeling centered around mega-churches. If that is how they want to stay, let them. Those who provide the most benefit to the city and the central business district will support the plan anyway.
At a public meeting last year, I urged Mayor Funkhouser to think regional and act local. In other words, a regional system has to start somewhere. The most logical place is here, Kansas City.
That’s why anyone who supports light rail should ask (perhaps even hound) the mayor this important question: where will the regional system start?