By LYNN HORSLEY
The Kansas City Star
If streetcars ever return to Kansas City — and supporters increasingly think they will within a few years — they will likely run down Main Street.
On Tuesday, a key Kansas City transit group unanimously endorsed a plan that would put the downtown route primarily down Main, not Grand Boulevard.
The city’s Parking and Transportation Commission approved a consultants’ recommendation, which favored streetcars over rapid buses on a two-mile route from the River Market to Crown Center.
“A Main Street streetcar is the superior alternative,” project manager Charlie Hales, with HDR Engineering, told the commission.
Longtime transit advocates hailed the commission’s decision, which is scheduled to go to the City Council for a vote next week.
“It’s nice to have such a clear-cut conclusion,” said Janet Rogers of the Transit Action Network. “We really believe this can happen this time.”
After decades of studies and little progress, city officials said identifying the preferred vehicle and route is a significant milestone in bringing some kind of fixed rail transit to the city.
They also think there is a way to pay for the system without requiring a citywide public vote for a new tax, which has been the stumbling block for years. The starter line is estimated to cost about $100 million, a far cry from the billion-dollar, sprawling light rail systems the city has proposed in the past.
The transportation commission — which includes downtown business leaders and council members — was formed to help address the city’s most pressing transportation needs in downtown and the urban core.
City Councilman Russ Johnson said he was optimistic that the City Council and the downtown community will support the commission’s vote for a Main Street starter line. He said the recommendation comes at a fortuitous time, as Kansas City is basking in the successful opening of the new Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts.
Metro area residents, Johnson said, have already shown that “they like downtown and want it to feel like an urban area, and streetcars are part of that.”
The consultants spent six months studying buses versus streetcars, and seven possible routes. They finally settled on a route that would start at Third Street and Grand but would then head west on Fifth Street to Main, where it would go south to Pershing Road. It would then jog over to McGee Street by Crown Center.
The system would have two tracks, one northbound and one southbound, and the streetcars would travel in the lanes with traffic rather than requiring their own designated lane, as light rail would.
While the capital cost for buses would be far cheaper — $20 million versus about $100 million — the consultants said operating costs per passenger are lower for streetcars, and the cost benefit from the investment is higher.
According to the report, streetcars have other advantages:
•Higher projected ridership. Consultants predicted average streetcar ridership on Main Street would be 2,900 in 2015, versus 1,300 on rapid buses. They forecast average weekly streetcar ridership at 6,000 by 2035, versus 2,700 for buses.
Hales said ridership exceeded expectations in Portland, Ore., when streetcars began operating there about 10 years ago, and now tops 12,000. He said ridership also is robust in Seattle and Tacoma, Wash.
•More economic development. Hales said streetcars have a much greater potential to spur development and improve land values than buses.
•Streetcars are more comfortable. They are considered to be roomier and more appealing, although bus designs are improving.
Main Street was favored over Grand for several reasons, including its proximity to hotels, the convention center and other major attractions.
Some people had opposed operating the streetcars on Grand because of the disruption to the Sprint Center, which is projected to have 21 events this year that will shut down the street.
The MAX rapid bus that runs along Main Street now could possibly move to Grand or Walnut if its presence interferes too much with the streetcars.
City officials said they have heard little opposition to a Main Street starter line.
But officials with the Power & Light downtown entertainment district have raised concerns.
“We are supportive of the concept of a downtown streetcar,” Nick Benjamin, executive director of the district, said Tuesday in an email. “We do nonetheless have concerns that a route that goes directly down Main Street (or Grand Street) might have a negative impact on our tenants both during the construction period and afterward.”
Benjamin said the Cordish Co., which runs the district, has suggested the possibility of a route that diverts west at 12th or 13th Street to connect directly to the convention center and the Kauffman Center. But that is not currently part of the recommended route.
One outspoken opponent is Clay Chastain, who has mounted numerous unsuccessful attempts to bring light rail to Kansas City. Chastain has once again gathered sufficient signatures to place a $1.4 billion light rail system before voters next year, but the City Council has not yet approved it for an election.
“You’re not going to take a streetcar to the airport,” Chastain said Tuesday when told about the commission’s recommendation. “This is not the major response we need to build a world-class transit system.”
But it is just the system that Johnson believes Kansas City should finally start now, and build on later. The next step is for the city to figure out how to pay for it.
City officials hope they can get federal funding for 25 to 50 percent of the cost, and then raise the rest of the money locally, possibly through a special sales and/or property tax levied only within the downtown area served by the line.
The city hopes to have a plan to present to federal transit authorities by the end of this year. It’s an aggressive schedule, but Johnson insists it’s doable. If all goes well, construction could start in 2013 and be finished by the time he and other second-term council members leave office in 2015.
Mayor Sly James said he wants it to happen.
“After years of talk, I think we are extremely close to making the downtown streetcar a reality again in Kansas City,” he said through a spokesman.
Commission member Christy Chester, a longtime transit advocate who grew up in the Northeast area of Kansas City and rode the streetcars, says it’s high time Kansas City brought them back.
It worked decades ago, she said, and “I don’t see why it wouldn’t work today.”
To reach Lynn Horsley, call 816-234-4317 or send email to lhorsley@kcstar.com.
Posted on Tue, Sep. 20, 2011 10:15 PM
Read more: http://www.kansascity.com/2011/09/20/3156758/transit-group-picks-main-over.html#ixzz1YblVTPXk