Downtown Streetcar study

Business Journal: KC Council proposes special district to help pay for streetcar

A new piece in The Atlantic does an excellent job of explaining how this move will ultimately cost taxpayers more money.  It also analyzes how the new location’s transportation impact will wipe out any environmental advantage to the “green” building.

The New York Times points out the Lenexa location will have one environmental benefit – local EPA administrator Kark Brooks will cut his Lawrence to KCK commute half, cutting his daily carbon emissions from 80 pounds to 40 pounds.  Unfortunately Brooks and his EPA staff are getting a lot of flack for a decision they didn’t make.  But they are also in a position to be personal examples of the dire need for better and more integrated coordination of land use planning, economic development, and transportation planing.

Transportation is one of the biggest environmental issues facing the country, but it’s also one of the hardest to address because it has very real impacts on where people live and work.  Recycling is easy.  Driving a Prius is easy.  Changing personal preferences and institutional inertia for suburban sprawl isn’t so easy.

While the EPA touts the new building’s green credentials of energy and water efficiency, it conveniently neglects to mention the environmental impacts of transportation and land use. Transportation is the number one source of pollution and green house gases in Kansas City. This building has virtually no transit service, no nearby bicycle lanes, and is beyond walking distance of any residential neighborhoods.  The vast majority of EPA employees will now have to drive to work, a stark contrast from their current location with multiple transit options and the adjacent Riverfront Heritage Trail.

Over the last two years the federal government has worked hard to connect departments dealing with transportation, housing, land use, and the environment in order to make sure federal policies are promoting sustainable development and re-development.  The local EPA just gave a big F.U. to all of that.

If you commute by car from far out, good luck today.  The freeways are crawling about 10 m.p.h. at most, with I-35 in Johnson County seeming to be in the worst shape. So far we see most surface streets in Midtown are snow covered but easily passable if you don’t drive like an idiot.

Metro buses are running regular routes with 10-15 minute delays, although Share-A-Fare is running 30-60 minutes late. Use KCATA’s Web Watch for real-time bus tracking.

If you need somewhere to store your kids for the day, the KC Zoo has a day camp for $45.  They do it everyday the KCMO School District has a snow day.

To assist snow plows in your neighborhood, make sure to move your cars off the streets, especially on cul-de-sacs, dead end streets, and narrow streets. And stay clear of moving plows if you don’t want to meet the same fate as this doofus in the Crossroads district.

How are things in your neighborhood or ‘burb?  Let us know in the comments.

It’s an idea that Kansas City may want to consider as we grapple with an enormous backlog of infrastructure repairs and dwindling transit funding.  We already have something similar in Missouri, Transportation Development Districts (TDDs), where part of development’s sales or property taxes go to pay for transportation infrastructure like roads and parking garages.  Existing TDDs include the Country Club Plaza, Zona Rosa, and 18th & Vine.  St. Louis is already exploring the idea of a city-wide TDD to pay for transit, so let’s ask our City Council to start thinking outside the box as well.

Residents who commute to the Johnson County office parks from southern and southeastern Missouri suburbs will be seriously screwed.  Sadly the region’s fragmented and funding-starved bus systems offers no suburb-to-suburb options for folks who are dependent on their cars for getting to work.

Unfortunately the event web site doesn’t mention transit service to one of the city’s biggest public events.  However, the KCATA is doubling MAX service for the event, so it’s easy to avoid the traffic and parking hassles.

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KC Light Rail rightly questions the public policy wisdom of subsidizing the venture with taxpayers’ money when the City has cut its transit funding by almost 20% in recent years.  As result, the KCATA is not able to adequately serve the night shift workers employed in the bars and restaurants along the KC Strip route. With such cuts to an already anemic transit system, there is no hope of the City providing the ATA with the resources for a proper night bus network to meet the demand that this trolley service addresses.  Not to mention the foresight to link land use planning with transportation planning in a way that would encourage such connectivity.

On the bright side, this is a good problem to have.  10 years ago  Westport and the Plaza were the only game in town. Union Hill, The Crossroads, etc. were only just emerging as entertainment destinations.   Now we have several distinct nightlife areas and a growing need for better transportation between them. Transit doesn’t run late enough or frequently enough for most, and taxis are an urban habit that most Kansas Citians have yet to learn.  For now, KC partiers can only dream about hopping between Westport and Waldo as easily as Chicago partiers can move between Lincoln Park and Wicker Park.

Parade web site

• Google Map of parade route, parking locations, and bike routes (zoom in to see bus stops and get transit directions)
• More parking info at Westport web site.
• Bus re-routes for parade day.

Competition will be fierce. Our suburban neighbors in Overland Park are also applying. Further afield are St. Louis, Springfield, Lawrence, and Topeka. KC does have the advantage of being at the crossroads of several national network carriers and having one of the globe’s forty private network access points. Google’s network would also be a natural compliment to the City’s Green Impact Zone, the initiative to focus green technology investments in a disadvantaged area on the East Side.

Check out the GoogleKC bid site at googlekcmo.com.