AIA Kansas City Position Paper on Kansas City Regional Rapid Rail Plan
In recent months, Jackson County Executive Mike Sanders has undertaken a heretofore unseen amount of effort from an elected official as regards rail transit service in the metro area. Mr. Sanders has invested time and energy into this critical issue in ways that no elected official has done in decades. Given the critical importance of transportation and sustainability to the long-term economic health of the Kansas City metro, we all owe Mr. Sanders a great deal of respect and appreciation.
Recently Mr. Sanders presented his Regional Rail proposal to AIA/KC at a Conversations luncheon, and has since asked the Board for its support of his proposal.
The plan is ambitious. It envisions blanketing 4 of the 5 major counties in the metro area with commuter rail service, all at a price tag of approximately $1 Billion. And, it proposes to implement this in one fell swoop – something no plan has ever tried to achieve in the region.
We applaud the boldness of the vision, and the thinking that has gone into it – we wish that more of our leaders would not only take an interest in transit, but also have the guts to stick their necks out with a bold proposal.
The Board of AIA/KC has always taken a strong interest in transit issues, as many of our members feel so passionately about the issue. For years we have argued for an integrated transit solution to our current transportation woes – mixing in buses, rail, shuttles and more in order to efficiently and effectively serve the urban core and the broader region.
It’s within this context that we applaud the initiative of Mr. Sanders, but question the appropriateness and effectiveness of the plan. The Board feels that commuter rail has potential in certain, limited corridors within the metro area, but is just one tool in the overall transit toolkit. And, that in most corridors, commuter rail as proposed is of highly questionable viability.
We certainly would like to see true rail service within our region, but as one element of a complete system that would fulfill the potential of the “Adaptive Scenario” for future development that the Mid-America Regional Council’s Board recently adopted. That proposal for the future transportation and development needs of the region relies more heavily on rail transit in the urban core, where it is most viable, expanded bus transit to the suburban areas, and commuter rail corridors where demand can be supported. Importantly, we nee to ask ourselves, if the Kansas City region had $1 Billion to spend on transit service, what is the best way to spend it? How could we serve the most people in a manner in which they would use it, and which could have the transformative potential that we’ve seen in other regions of the country?
The plan that Mr. Sanders’ has developed has opened many eyes to the potential of region-wide commuter rail, but we need to be careful to avoid “silver bullet” solutions, as we’ve tried in the past. AIA/KC stands firm in our commitment to integrated transit plans, that provide service types (rail, bus, etc) that best match the needs and goals of each area of the metro.