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When it comes to light rail, major chambers of commerce across the country seem to universally support projects in their cities.
Except, that is, the chamber in Kansas City.
The Greater Kansas City Chamber of Commerce opposed the city government’s light-rail election earlier this decade. Now, as the city again prepares a light-rail ballot issue for November, the chamber already has signaled concerns again in a letter. And this week, the chamber’s board of directors debated whether to oppose the city’s light-rail election.
If the Greater Kansas City chamber ends up coming out against the city’s proposed 14-mile starter line, it would stand alone among big-city chambers reviewed by The Kansas City Star.
The Star examined 13 light-rail planning or starter-line elections in 10 major cities during the past two decades, including Phoenix, Cincinnati and Dallas.
In every case involving a light-rail plan or project backed by the city or transit agency, the city’s major chamber of commerce supported that ballot measure. Light rail was usually seen as important to a community’s economic growth.
“I can’t recall a chamber (outside Kansas City) that has opposed a light-rail election,” said Jason Jordan, director of the Washington-based Center for Transportation Excellence, which tracks transit elections.
Here, the only previous time the city government prepared a plan, in 2001, the Greater Kansas City chamber contributed to the campaign against it. This stance was viewed as one key reason why that plan lost.
Then this week, with Kansas City’s government heading toward a November sales tax election for a 14-mile starter line, the chamber board took up two competing resolutions — one supporting a starter line conceptually, and the other supporting a regional rail election instead. But the board did not reach consensus on either resolution.
“I could not think of a more problematic momentum-killer than to have our business community say we’re not ready for light rail,” said City Councilman Russ Johnson, who leads the city’s light-rail strategy and who attended the chamber board meeting.
Chamber President Pete Levi said it was unfair to characterize the chamber as anti-light rail.
“The city has a number of financial issues in front of it, and the chamber is really interested in how financing for light rail fits in with the total financial needs of the city,” Levi said.
Elections on light-rail starter lines or initial plans are decidedly a mixed bag. The Star reviewed every election outside Kansas City in the past two decades on government-sponsored initial light-rail systems. Of the 13 elections, light rail won only about one-third of the time.
The one commonality among all the elections was that the city’s main chamber of commerce backed a city or transit agency light-rail measure. According to chamber officials in some of these cities, light rail fit squarely with the business community’s goals of investing in infrastructure, boosting job growth and enhancing the quality of life.
“For us, it was a logical position,” said Tracye McDaniel, executive vice president of the Greater Houston Partnership, which includes the city’s chamber. “It just made good business sense.”
Sometimes chambers even helped coordinate the election campaigns. In Austin, Texas, the Greater Austin chamber raised the bulk of the campaign funding. In Charlotte, N.C., the chamber backed the initial light-rail tax and then fought a repeal effort last year by conducting polls and commissioning a study that deflated opponents’ claims of likely cost overruns.
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