On track so far: Streetcar extension gets council approval

The recommended routes, costs and estimated ridership of the proposed expansion streetcar routes. Source: NextRail KC Report.

The city council on Thursday passed a resolution for the second phase of the streetcars, calling for almost eight miles to be added to the two-mile downtown starter line.

The measure to create a new transportation development district goes to the Jackson County Circuit Court for procedural review and then voters will decide in August if they want to set up the district.

If they approve it, it will go to voters again in November. The second vote will ask them if they want to approve a one-cent sales tax within the area and a special assessment for properties within a third mile of the new lines. If that is approved, the city can then ask for federal funding to pay for 60 percent of the project,

Councilman Russ Johnson, who has led efforts for the streetcars, said, “Much of the difficult works lies ahead of us.”

In a business session before the council meeting, Johnson answered critics who said he was going too fast on streetcars.

He read from 1968 and 1974 accounts of the city trying to start streetcars. In 1974, people called for spending $550 million for what would then have been 24 miles of streetcar line.

Critics now and then do not want to delay the streetcars, he said, they want to kill them. He said that would result in a continued decline of an urban core population that consultants reported went from more than 400.000 in 1950 to less than 200.000 in 2010. (see chart below)

He noted that none of the local taxes for the expansion will ever be collected unless federal authorities approve money for more than half the $512 million project.

The scaled back expansion would go on Main Street to UMKC, on Linwood Boulevard from Main to Prospect , and on Independence Avenue to Benton Boulevard.

Significant opposition developed to taking a line as far south as 85^th Street, especially related to using the Trolley Track Trail.

Councilman John Sharp said Thursday that there is still strong support for streetcars in the future to go into the planned Cerner development area and its thousands of new jobs at the old Bannister Mall site.

People have been thinking in terms of rails taking workers to downtown jobs, he said, but “those rails travel both ways.”

Councilman Jermaine Reed said opportunities for redevelopment on the east side are great with the Linwood streetcar extension and the Prospect Avenue Max bus line, which is also included in the project.

He also noted that much has to fall in place before any construction begins in 2020 or so.

“We certainly have a long way to go before we can really pat ourselves on the back,” he said.

(Disclosure: The Midtown KC Post’s Mary Jo Draper and Joe Lambe were part of the NextRail KC Project team).