TKC MUST READ!!! REAX TO KANSAS CITY TOY TRAIN STREETCAR BOOSTERS WHO IGNORE BUS RAPID TRANSIT TECH!!!
TKC NOTE: Here's a MUST READ note that offers AN IMPORTANT FACT CHECK for toy train streetcar advocates touting the toy train above more popular and proven modes of mass transit that are suffering because of political pressure.
Check it:
Week In Review
Amazed that both Barbara Shelley and Steve Kraske kept referring to the future when Kansas City gets mass transit.
Hello? We have mass transit. It's called buses.
They should have used the words, "Rapid Transit". And it doesn't appear that we're ever getting that since the streetcars won't travel much faster than a bus on city streets.
Rapid Transit would be underground or elevated transit that can travel at high rates of speed unlike above ground street transit, like the streetcar.
I wonder how many of the people on the Wek in Review panel have ever taken a bus? I just came back from a week in Chicago and buses are everywhere - and people use them Sure, they have the "L" for many routes but you still have to take a bus to the L, or from the L to your home or job. Buses are efficient people movers that don't require streets to be torn up for fixed rail. And in 30 years, will we really think fixed rail transit above ground is really the way to go? Buses are constantly becoming more fuel efficient and technology is making them very similar to streetcars without that enormous expense. The biggest time-saver for buses will be when we pay our fares at a kiosk instead of on the bus which will allow people to rapidly enter and exit buses like they do on a subway.
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Developing . . .
But there are no consulting or engieneering contracts to be won for more bus service. That's why it's not being pushed. Do your math TKC.
ReplyDeleteThis next council better start pushing back!! Guess Cannady is a yes vote for the Sly toy train. 5th district please do not vote for her! Please! You already gave us Rev Brooks! No more!!
ReplyDeleteOH MY FRIGGIN HEART, Tony is posting an entry that is negative to the light rail.
ReplyDeleteIt's like a 5 year old that did not get what they wanted at Christmas.
With your relentless complaining, you have pushed me from opposed, to neutral (and hope it works).
But I guess the blogger and your 3 Denizens will prevail. When exactly, will that be?
By the time this fiasco is even built, much less up and running, the urban futurists will already be touting something brand new that "you'll be left behind without".
ReplyDeleteHave to keep up those book sales, consulting fees, and lecture payments.
And KCMO will have a whole new cast of newbies to slobber all over the NEXT BIG THING.
Every day is Christmas with the taxpayers' credit cards.
fact check: when you can't even correctly spell the name of the person you're attacking it dumbs down your whole argument.
ReplyDeleteI read a transit magazine last year that ranked transit projects by ROI. Kansas City's MAX bus ranked number 3 on the list. The top ranked streetcar was Seattle's SLUT, and it was number 4 on the list.
ReplyDeleteThe key to ROI is #1: Dedicated lanes, and #2: New transit routes, not replacing one mode with another.
The first commenter is exactly right; MAX bus does not award large engineering contracts so it creates less jobs.
The Prospect MAX was estimated to cost $53M for 9 miles. The streetcar was estimated to cost $500M for 9 miles. Streetcar is not mass transit; it is transit with all of the costs and limitations of rail, and very few benefits that a bus is incapable of providing.
Any large transit expansion should include a larger bus network, better technology, and a regional plan for funding.
VOTE NO!! Alissia Canady, Alissia Canady,Alissia Canady.
ReplyDeleteVOTE NO!! Alissia Canady, Alissia Canady,Alissia Canady
VOTE NO!! Alissia Canady, Alissia Canady,Alissia Canady
VOTE NO!! Alissia Canady, Alissia Canady,Alissia Canady
I guess they got the spelling and the reason right.
ReplyDeleteVOTE NO!! Alissia Canady, Alissia Canady,Alissia Canady.
VOTE NO!! Alissia Canady, Alissia Canady,Alissia Canady
VOTE NO!! Alissia Canady, Alissia Canady,Alissia Canady
VOTE NO!! Alissia Canady, Alissia Canady,Alissia Canady
On this blog it is best not to shake the cage because stuff like this happens:
VOTE NO!! Alissia Canady, Alissia Canady,Alissia Canady.
VOTE NO!! Alissia Canady, Alissia Canady,Alissia Canady
VOTE NO!! Alissia Canady, Alissia Canady,Alissia Canady
VOTE NO!! Alissia Canady, Alissia Canady,Alissia Canady.
Thanks for dropping by!
VOTE NO!! Alissia Canady, Alissia Canady,Alissia Canady.
VOTE NO!! Alissia Canady, Alissia Canady,Alissia Canady
VOTE NO!! Alissia Canady, Alissia Canady,Alissia Canady
VOTE NO!! Alissia Canady, Alissia Canady,Alissia Canady
Buss routes can be changed as need to adjust to the needs of the riders. Fix rail is well fixed rail you're not moving it anywhere without huge expense. Don't cost a damn thing but maybe a gallon of diesel to shift a buss over to a new route. Do the math what makes more sense.
ReplyDeleteRuss Johnson can't put a bronze plaque on a BRT.
ReplyDeleteFirst, I have my doubts about light rail in KC, but unlike Tony, I concede the rationale for the project.
ReplyDeleteIt is not being build to compete with buses. Important point. The argument is, that light rail will spur development. Tony will tell you that is not working.
Frankly, he does not know. Hence the speculative nature of the policy. Whether Tony like to admit it or not, in some places it works, other, definitely not.
But when Tony makes the call on it success or failure before the damn thing is even finished, he demonstrates his bias, and people stop listening to him because they know he will assemble facts to support his initial position.
It's not the cost of gas or flexibility of the system. Sorry.
Boston has a great bus system and should be a model for KC
ReplyDelete10:03 could you tell me who you buy your weed from? Because it makes you have some really delusional thoughts and I like those.
ReplyDeleteGiven the fact that most of the recent heavily-subsidized "development" downtown consists of apartments, not commercial buildings, KC should be developing reverse commute buses to get people from where they live to where the jobs are, which is NOT downtown.
ReplyDeleteCleaver was right years ago, although for all the wrong reasons.
Touristy frou frou.
10:03 has some good points even if incoherently stated. The starter line may be a success. I doubt it, but I could be wrong. But let's see whether it's a success before committing taxpayers to an expansion that we may all come to hate. Even the Fourth District.
ReplyDeleteI've ridden both the Troost and Main Street MAX buses, and if I worked downtown I'd be happy to ride them every day, and I'm sure those who live in the Prospect corridor would love to have a MAX as well if they could have one without being tied to the streetcar tracks like Nell in a Dudley Do-Right cartoon.
I agree completely about kiosks. which do you want, to not have kiosks at every stop or to remove a bunch of stops? Kioks are expensive. $50,000 sounds about right per kiosk. construction, power and sidewalk work, installation all add up quickly.
ReplyDeleteMAX isn't BRT. It's regular bus service with some signal prority. do you want BRT? be prepared to spend money and give up street lanes. the best BRT systems in south America are this way
let's put one in like Cincinnati has. they put in dedicated lanes. it costs about $30 million per mile for triple the operating cost versus the streetcar (we're talking millions more per year)
to 7:17am
The Prospect corridor already voted against MAX service. it was in the streetcar vote and because the line didn't overlap it's possible to go get the vote totals from the KCEB website and see how each area voted
in that vote nearly twice as many people wanted the streetcar that would have lived within walking distance of it it than wanted the bus improvements and would have lived along it. we're talking roughly 40% yes vs 20% yes
remember that the east side was looking to get 8 miles of train and 8 miles of bus service. it voted down a multi-million dollar bus project
"remember that the east side was looking to get 8 miles of train and 8 miles of bus service. it voted down a multi-million dollar bus project"
ReplyDeleteIt voted against the streetcar TDD, which contained the Prospect MAX. Nell was on the tracks without Dudley.
The east side figured out the whole thing was a CON JOB. They did the right thing and voted against their best interests. Why do we have to vote on a MAX on Prospect. No one voted for the Main or Troost MAX lines the transit people put them in because they were needed. This Mayor is using the Prospect MAX as a carrot. I ain;t no mule and I 'm going to work against his callous attitude.
ReplyDeleteYes, the Prospect MAX was indeed the "carrot" to entice us to vote ourselves into a development district that would have raised sales taxes in the stores we shop in most often in order to fund the street car extension to the Plaza that we would seldom, if ever, use.
ReplyDeletePut up a Prospect MAX on the ballot by itself and see how the neighborhood votes.