While the mayor and the ATA bicker over light rail plans, here’s one that makes sense

Automobiles made streetcars disappear from Kansas City in the 1950s. Billions of passenger miles later, we still can’t agree on how people can move around in anything that doesn’t have an exhaust pipe and rubber tires.

After years of debate and the frequent sight of Clay Chastain lurking outside Price Chopper, we’re back to square one in terms of light rail. In November, around the time the City Council invalidated a mush-brained Chastain plan that voters miraculously passed, a citizen task force led by the Area Transportation Authority recommended a “starter” light-rail route from the Country Club Plaza to a point north of the river. Kansas City Mayor Mark Funkhouser, meanwhile, is pushing for something more ambitious: a regional light-rail plan.

What if they’re all wrong?

Before I go all Chastain on this page and present a proposal, let’s establish a few things.

Fact: Regional light rail is, at this moment, a fantasy. Funkhouser failed to convince a Kansas lawmaker to introduce legislation making it possible to collect a bistate tax. On the Missouri side, the mayor and his Google-impaired staff learned only recently that state law limits regional taxes to 15 years, not the 25 needed to build a meaningful system. Public officials in Kansas City are too indictment-prone to be trusted by voters in Platte City and Shawnee, anyway. In all likelihood, Kansas City will have to lay some track without a corruption scandal before its neighbors are willing to join the endeavor.

Fact: Extending light rail north of the river would be expensive and unsatisfying. The political thinking is that for a light-rail plan to pass in Kansas City, the route has to go north of the river — otherwise, few Clay and Platte county residents would vote for it. But once it crosses the river (no easy feat), a light-rail system would struggle to serve a population nestled in cul-de-sacs. Light rail is meant for densely populated areas where folks might not own automobiles. The Northland was built entirely around Pontiacs. And forget about taking light rail to the airport anytime soon. Barring the federal government instituting a Transit Dollars for No Questions Asked policy, KCI is too remote for any sensible rail plan.

So Funk is being unrealistic. And the proposed starter line is alternately timid and wasteful.

That leaves us squarely in Jackson County.

It has the density. It has the bones of a once-great rail system. And it has the authority to do what it wants without asking anyone else.

My back-of-the-napkin plan is pretty simple: Pass a countywide sales tax. Build light rail from midtown to the River Market. Connect the urban core to the suburbs with commuter trains.

Kansas City lags behind other cities when it comes to mass transit, but history is on our side. The second union station in the world opened here in 1878. The city grew up around railroads, and we could put this legacy back to use for commuters. Rail lines emanate from the center of the city in politically elegant fashion. Kansas City Southern owns a line that shadows Interstate 70 to Odessa. The old Rock Island line goes to Lee’s Summit and beyond. A route along U.S. Highway 71 links the city to Grandview and Belton.

I decided to test my Jackson County proposal by exploring some of the routes. The possibilities become immediately apparent.

The Gateway Western Railroad, which Kansas City Southern uses to move freight, wends through downtown Blue Springs. The area verges on charming. When I stopped by, workers were restoring the façade of a handsome two-story brick building on Main Street, a mere block from a boarded-up depot next to the track.

Blue Springs leaders see the potential. In 2006, they finished a master plan that imagines a transit station as the centerpiece for their downtown’s long-term improvement. Lord knows the craptastic commercial development along Highway 7 isn’t going to get it done.

Spend a few minutes on Main and it’s easy to imagine Blue Springs residents rallying around a proposal to fire up commuter trains.

“The point I keep trying to make to certain politicians is that there are easy allies out there for rail transit, if they’d just connect with them in the right way,” says Kevin Klinkenberg, an urban planner who has worked with Blue Springs officials.

Other pieces of track in Jackson County are out of commission. But the right-of-way remains, and so does the promise.

I went looking for the old Rock Island line off Raytown Road, not far from a house with three tough-looking dogs caged in the backyard. The rails emerged from a wooded area guarded by “No Trespassing” signs posted by Union Pacific, which inherited the Rock after it ceased operation in 1980.

In weeds up to my waist, I followed the track north to the bridge over 63rd Street. There, I reached a makeshift shrine for a 16-year-old who died when he fell or plunged off the bridge and onto the tracks around Christmastime. It was sad.

At the same time, I noticed that I was standing right in the middle of Raytown, which wants desperately to revive its dull downtown. This is not sad.

Recommitting these routes to passenger travel would require a lot of money and effort.

Of course, Funkhouser would first have to explain to his supporters in the Northland why he’s abandoning them to join hands with David Bower, Raytown’s similarly tall mayor, on a rail project. Such a break is overdue, actually. The parks department’s insistence on implementing urban amenities such as George Kessler’s boulevard system in such a remorselessly suburban area as the Northland seems like a joke to me. Besides, Northlanders who feel as though they’re missing out could simply be reminded that they don’t have to send their kids to Kansas City schools.

A Jackson County light-rail plan is not a pipe dream. In fact, Kansas City Southern is eager to start the process. Warren Erdman, the company’s politically connected vice president, has encouraged city officials to come up with a light-rail scheme that keeps suburban commuters in mind. “We’ve got a lot of ridership in these suburban communities if you could get them into the system,” Erdman told the council last year. At the time, Erdman also described a diesel-powered train that could operate on heavy or light rail.

A Jackson County-only transit system offers scale. It also has a certain us-versus-them appeal. Kansas City, Independence and Lee’s Summit can head into the future together while Olathe and other transit-phobic communities look to Jesus to heal the pain of $4-a-gallon gasoline.

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