Too long or too short. This street or that street. A billion or millions.
For the past year, Kansas City has been tangled in a debate over what light-rail system to pursue. Voters approved an ambitious plan designed by Clay Chastain in November, but city leaders say that plan is unworkable and underfunded. Several groups are studying various options, and the city’s transportation agency is tasked with coming up with an alternative plan.
Most cities our size already have some form of rail transit. Nearly everyone agrees the time has come for light rail in Kansas City. So it’s no longer a question of if or when, but how?
To help focus that discussion, The Kansas City Star today offers readers one possible solution.
The newspaper spent four months studying light rail in other cities, meeting with local rail planners and interviewing about 100 community leaders, from business executives to politicians to future riders. The paper then pieced together a light-rail plan based on research, consensus -- and the requirement that it can actually get built, and soon.
The result is below. According to our collective community wish list, it’s a system that starts small, is locally affordable and can be expanded later.
In coming days, we’ll learn if any of these ideas make it into the city’s official plan. But what seems clear is that finally, after years of debate, light rail is on its way to Kansas City.
"It’s what dynamic cities do," Crown Center President Bill Lucas says. "If we want Kansas City’s renaissance to achieve its potential, this is a fairly significant piece of the puzzle."
Key features
A short starter route that’s just 9.75 miles, extending from the Northland to the Country Club Plaza, with a branch east along Linwood Boulevard.
All-local funding that will allow the city to get the starter line going soon rather than waiting years for federal funding that may never materialize.
New light-rail technology called the "modern streetcar" that is lighter and less costly than traditional light rail.
A consensus for a workable light-rail plan
The six principles to a successful start
Consider a night on the town -- dinner on the Country Club Plaza followed by a Sprint Center concert. You drive and park, drive and park, then fork over a hefty parking fee.
Or what about commuting from the Northland into downtown? Crossing the Missouri River can be stop-and-go driving followed by an expensive parking tab.
But what if you could just ride state-of-the-art light rail? And what if that could happen in the next few years?
It’s actually possible.
Light rail has been debated in Kansas City for decades, but it has a new sense of momentum now. Civic and political leaders are intent on finding an alternative to Clay Chastain’s $1 billion voter-approved plan.
Toward that end, The Star consulted with experts locally and in other cities to work out an affordable, practical and realistic light-rail solution for Kansas City: A 9.75-mile starter system of modern streetcars, running from the Northland to the Plaza with an eastward branch. All this would cost $341 million, which would require a ¼-cent sales tax increase.
This is just one idea, but it reflects the work and desires of many civic groups, transit consultants and political leaders. Close to a dozen groups have been studying light rail starter routes or analyzing election strategies, from the Greater Kansas City chamber to the Northland chamber, from the Citizens Association political club to the ATA’s citizens light-rail task force. Only the ATA’s process is the official one. But all of this is being done in something of a vacuum, each independent of the other.
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