From The Kansas City Star, By Jeffery Spivak and Michael Mansur, November 5, 2007
Task force offers a new approach to light-rail plan
Kansas City’s light-rail starter line should run 12 miles, cost roughly $500 million and operate with modern streetcars in city streets.
That’s the recommendation made Monday night by the Kansas City Area Transportation Authority’s citizens task force. The plan now goes to the City Council and the ATA board.
The proposed starter line proceeds in a north-south spine from Vivion Road in the Northland, across North Kansas City and through downtown to the Country Club Plaza, with an eastern branch connecting to Prospect. However, the task force left open three options to reach Prospect: along 18th Street, Linwood Boulevard or 47th Street/Volker Boulevard.
To build and operate this starter line, the task force backed a 3/8-cent city sales tax increase for 25 years, along with an attempt to secure federal matching funds. The total cost of the recommended system is estimated between $485 million and $587 million, with large allowances for unforeseen contingencies.
This citizens plan basically endorses a new approach to light rail for Kansas City. It’s much shorter and less expensive than any light-rail plan in the past decade, most of which have exceeded $1 billion in inflation-adjusted dollars. And it embraces a light-rail technology that Kansas City may pioneer — the modern streetcar in dedicated, transit-only street lanes.
“We’ve completed a doable, fundable and stable plan that would complement the future growth of Kansas City,” said Kitty McCoy, a management consultant and the task force’s co-chairwoman.
The task force’s work now becomes the official community plan, although the City Council or ATA board may change it and sharpen more details before, in all likelihood, placing it on an election ballot. The city and the transit agency intend to seek voter approval next year on some alternative to Clay Chastain’s massive light-rail plan passed by voters last fall.
The council is on a fast track this week, with meetings on Wednesday and Thursday, to decide how to resolve the light-rail tangle.
On one hand, a bevy of city consultants and transit experts have deemed Chastain’s 27-mile plan, which they estimated at $1.5 billion, to be underfunded and unworkable. So the council is discussing whether to simply vote to repeal that plan or have a February election on a citizens petition also seeking a repeal. The citizens task force advocated a council repeal to avoid confusing voters.
On the other hand, city leaders understand that last fall’s election means the community wants light rail, so they want to offer an alternative plan. The citizens task force recommended a tax increase because they want an existing 3/8-cent sales tax for bus services — which Chastain used to fund his light-rail plan — to continue going for buses.
But it’s still unclear whether the alternative plan will go before voters next year in February, August or November. The deadline to place an issue on the February ballot is Nov. 22, but that’s Thanksgiving, so the council is hoping to finish its review before then. The task force, though, may not have given the City Council enough time to consider the plan within that timetable.
“We’re being put into a political pressure cooker,” said task force member Dennis O’Neill, a south Kansas City neighborhood leader.
The task force’s recommendation capped nearly three months of study. The 36-member group included a cross-section of community interests, from light-rail fans such as architect Kevin Klinkenberg and entrepreneur Airick Leonard West, to Chamber of Commerce perspectives from the Northland’s Ronald Williamson and former south Kansas City executive Norine Accurso.
In meetings, they sifted through a dozen light-rail alignments offered by citizens at public hearings during the summer, taking into account such factors as potential ridership and economic development opportunities. The group also heard presentations from ATA consultants about different light-rail options, such as local versus federal funding, and streetcar versus regular light-rail speeds.
In the end, the task force’s choices reflected the twin objectives of holding down overall costs while also serving different parts of town and blocs of voters.
For example, the task force selected the modern streetcar, a smaller and lighter form of light rail, because it would look and run like regular light rail in transit-only lanes, but cost less — $40 million to $48 million per mile to construct instead of $50 million to $60 million per mile.
Also, the task force selected Vivion over the city’s Water Works plant as the northernmost point to make the route more convenient for commuters.
“You’re going to have an easier sell to Northland voters if you go to Vivion,” said task force member Mary Lou Nash-Herrera, a hiring and recruiting consultant.
Overall, the task force favored a short line because that’s what the members felt the city could afford on its own, before seeking metrowide funding for longer extensions reaching suburbs and Kansas City International Airport.
For the most part, though, the task force’s starter line recommendation stuck to general terminus points, rather than targeting specific streets. It also did not specify where stations would be located or whether the streetcars would operate in the middle of streets or along the curbs.
It’s leaving those decisions up to engineers as they do more planning. The group also wants more demographic data from ATA consultants before settling on an eastern branch, probably later this month.
Still, the task force’s recommendation was similar in some ways to a consensus-based plan presented by The Kansas City Star two weekends ago.
That plan, based on interviews with more than 100 community leaders across the city, suggested a starter route from the Northland to the Plaza, with a branch on Linwood, using modern streetcars in dedicated lanes.
The task force differed from The Star’s 10-mile plan by making it 12 miles, seeking a 3/8-cent tax increase instead of 1/4-cent, choosing Vivion over the Water Works plant, and pursuing federal matching funds instead of starting quicker with only local funding.
However, ATA consultants have conceded that Kansas City’s prospects for obtaining those funds are not guaranteed. If Kansas City doesn’t qualify, the task force acknowledged that the starter route would have to be scaled back.
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